1
Joaquin Ramirez parked behind a squad car, its lights flashing red, blue, and white in the twilight. He checked the Glock 27 he carried concealed in a pocket holster. It was loaded, a round in the chamber. After what had happened at the holiday party last month, he would never leave home unarmed again. Satisfied, he holstered the firearm, grabbed his camera bag, and climbed out of his truck, icy wind hitting him in theface.
A possiblehomicide.
That’s all he’d been told. It was his weekend on call, and so far, he’d shot a protest at the State Capitol, a minor house fire, and a hit-and-run bicycle accident just off the 16thStreet Mall. He’d thought his Pulitzer would free him from this kind of shit and enable him to focus on more significant assignments, but theDenver Independentwas a small paper with only four photographers, one of whom covered sportsexclusively.
Maybe it was time for him to leave, get out of Denver, and go to work for a more prominent publication, like theNew York TimesorNational Geographic. He could travel, see the world through the lens of his camera, put his skills to the test. There would never be a better time than now. He was young, no woman in his life, no kids, not even apet.
Then why are you still here, working this samejob?
Matt Harker, a reporter on the paper’s I-Team and Joaquin’s best friend, had asked him that question last night. Joaquin had given him the answer he always gave himself. The people he loved—his friends and his family—livedhere.
He hurried down the street, pulling out his camera as he went, snapping the wide-angle lens and flash into place. Just ahead, gawkers stood outside the barricade tape, their curiosity drawing them outside in sub-zero Januarytemps.
A woman stepped out of the crowd and waved to him, huddled in a heavy parka. “Hey,Joaquin!”
“Hey, Cate, what’s goingon?”
Catherine Warner was the newest—and at twenty-five the youngest—member of the newspaper’s elite I-Team, or Investigative Team. She had replaced Laura Nilsson on the cops and courts beat. She might look like a kid with blond hair and freckles, but she’d landed on her feet with an exposé about a couple of sheriff’s deputies dealing drugs out of the evidenceroom.
She brought Joaquin up to speed. “A guy heard shouting and then gunshots coming from downstairs. He went down to check on his neighbor—a guy named Andrew Meyer—and found the door open. He walkedin—”
“What anidiot.”
“Yeah, well, the idiot found bullet holes in the shower stall along with shell casings. That’s when he called thecops.”
“He’s lucky he wasn’t shot, too. Nobody?”
“Nope.”
“What are the copssaying?”
“Not aword.”
“Did anyone else hear shots?” Discharging a firearm in a small apartment would make onehellof a racket—unless the shooter had asuppressor.
Cate nodded. “A couple of neighbors heard gunfire, too, but they didn’t call it in. This isn’t the kind of neighborhood where people are on good terms with thepolice.”
“Any chance this guy accidentally shot himself and rushed off to the ER?” Joaquin had a decade of experience on Cate and was doing his best to mentor her, to help her curb her impulsiveness and mature as areporter.
Cate shook her head. “I overheard one of the detectives say there was no John Doe or Andrew Meyer in any Denver-metro ERs. Also, the guy’s vehicle is still here, parked in itsspace.”
She pointed toward an old, brown ToyotaCamry.
“Bullet holes, but no body. That’sloco.” Joaquin took in the scene, assessing the possibilities. It was his job to tell this story in a single image—not easy when it was dark and all he had to work with were bystanders, police tape, and squadcars.
A man he recognized as Detective Wu stepped out of theapartment.
“Detective Wu, can I ask you a few questions?” Cate hurried off to do her job, leaving Joaquin to dohis.
He walked out into the street, looking for an angle that captured the scene with its tension and unknowns—the apartment with its open door, the barricade tape, bystanders, and at least a portion of a police cruiser. He adjusted the camera’s ISO to 1600, snapped a few shots, then checked to see how they’d turnedout.
The exposure was okay, but the image felt static. A man might have lost his life here tonight. Neighbors, friends, and family were surely desperate and afraid for him. Joaquin could dobetter.
He shifted a few feet to his left, reworking the composition in his mind, then dropped to one knee and raised the cameraagain.
Someone stepped in front of hislens.