On the way back to his desk Nick made his obligatory stop at the assistant city editor's pod.

"I have an I.D. confirmation on the dead guy at the jail," he said.

The editor rolled back his chair while his fingers were still on his keyboard, reluctant to leave unfinished a sentence for a budget line item that would have to be presented in yet another news meeting at noon.

"OK, great, Nick. Anybody we know?" he said, finally bringing his head and a grin around with the final word.

"Yeah. It's a guy they put away a few years ago on a double homicide and rape of two elementary school sisters."

"No shit?"

"Yeah," Nick said, knowing he'd finally gotten the guy's attention. "He was coming back into court for a hearing on a change of sentencing and it looks like somebody from the outside popped him."

The editor's name was John Rhodes. He'd only been at the Daily News for a year and had been told early that Mullins had an attitude, most of it coming after a car wreck that involved his family some time ago. He was told to walk lightly with him. But he'd also learned quickly that when Mullins brought something to the editors' desk, the guy would have nailed it down.

"No shit," he repeated and looked around to see if anyone else was within earshot and sharing the news of the minute. "How long ago did this guy do the… uh, murder the kids?"

"Four years," Nick said. "Only the sentencing was in litigation."

"So people are gonna remember, right?"

"Yeah, John. People will remember."

"OK, yeah, sure. Whadda you think, Nick. Page one?"

"That's your call, man. I got some more people to talk to," Nick said and then nodded his head toward Deirdre's office. "Tell her it's Steven Ferris. I already got the clips from the library."

Rhodes got up as Nick started to walk away. "Hey, does anyone else have this?" he said.

Nick turned around but didn't say anything.