Crawford just looked at him, then burst out laughing. “You think I trashed Georgia’s bedroom after spending two weeks’ paycheck and lots of time getting it ready for her? Why would I do that?”
“You don’t need a reason to go on a rampage. You’ve got a short fuse. You react without thinking. You can’t control your impulses or violent tendencies, as evidenced today at the park.”
Crawford would be damned before defending a reaction that was in perfect keeping with the scare he’d received. Instead he went on the offensive. “You know, Neal, if you’re going to lie, learn not to get trapped in it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That phone call today wasn’t from your wife, and it wasn’t about a kid throwing up. Who kept you on the phone for that long, very engrossed?”
Neal’s face turned red, but rather than answer, he asked, “What did you really say to Rodriguez up on that roof?”
“You’re still hung up on that?”
“It’s a pretty damned important ‘that.’”
“My vindictive son of a bitch of a father-in-law planted an idea in your head, and you seized on it.”
“Answer the question.”
“Should I call Bill Moore?”
“I don’t know, should you?”
“You and I don’t like each other. Never did and never will. Put that aside for a minute. Do you honestly think that I had something to do with the shooting?”
“What were you doing last night in Judge Spencer’s chambers? An officer came to me this morning and reported seeing you storm out.”
Crawford said nothing.
“She left a few minutes after you, and the officer described her as looking ‘shaken to the core.’”
Neal didn’t mention having pictures of them together, which was a relief. “Anything else?” he asked mildly.
“You made a big deal about a bruised knee. Who else but you says the gunman was kicked in the knee?”
“More still?”
“Lots more. You remain the only person who claims Rodriguez wasn’t the shooter.”
“If I was behind it, wouldn’t I want everyone to believe that he
was
the shooter, seeing as how he’s dead and can’t deny it?”
“You would, unless…”
Crawford cocked his head as though to better hear the part that Neal had left dangling. “Unless?”
“Unless a connection could be drawn between you and Rodriguez.”
“No such connection exists.”
One corner of Neal’s mouth twitched into a half smile. “I fibbed to you about that phone call because it was Chuck Otterman who called me. He said if you were around, I should pretend to be talking to someone else. He said no doubt I had noticed his surprised reaction to seeing Rodriguez’s corpse. I admitted I had noticed. He was calling to explain why he reacted the way he had.”
“The tension mounts.”
Neal didn’t acknowledge that. “Although Otterman didn’t know Rodriguez by name, he recognized him on sight.”
Crawford snapped his fingers. “They were at side-by-side urinals.”
Neal continued unflappably. “On or around one forty p.m. Monday afternoon, Otterman arrived for his appointment at the DA’s office. As he was going in, he saw Rodriguez on the courthouse parking lot.” He paused, took a breath. “Talking to you.”
T
wo policemen in a squad car followed Holly home from the courthouse. She pulled her car around to the back of the cottage where she parked and got out. One of the policemen saw her safely inside, then returned to his car out front.
The moment Holly locked herself in, she shed her professional reserve and composure along with her suit jacket and high heels. She’d been keeping up appearances all day. Now, she gave over to her fatigue and despondency.
Greg Sanders’s foretelling that she would “mess up” seemed disturbingly close to coming true.
Before leaving her office, she had received a reply email from Governor Hutchins. The best thing she could say about its content was that it was noncommittal. He neither commended nor chastened her for recusing herself from Crawford’s custody case, saying only that, even though he was away, he’d been kept apprised of the ongoing investigation into the shooting and that upon his return from the conference, he wanted to discuss certain aspects of it with her.
The ambiguous tone of the email worried her. If he was second-guessing appointing her to the bench, if he withdrew his support, it would be disastrous for her professionally, and even more crushing from a personal standpoint. She would have failed to live up to Judge Waters’s expectations. She would have failed to meet her own.
The troublesome email had come on the heels of the incident in the park where she’d had the devil’s own time negotiating those five minutes for Crawford.
“There’s no question that this is in violation of the restraining order, Mr. Gilroy. He was very wrong to attack you. But look at them.” She’d gestured toward the merry-go-round where Crawford and his daughter seemed to be discussing the sequin appliqué on her top. “Think how traumatic it would be for her to see him arrested and taken away.”
To close the sale, she’d offered to monitor their conversation and set a time limit.
Further, she asked that when his five minutes were up, he be allowed to leave without being apprehended.
Both Mr. Gilroy and Neal Lester had balked at that. But she asked them to consider the situation. “That video struck fear in him. Despite the likelihood of being fined and/or arrested, he raced here, without regard to anything except Georgia’s safety.”
Joe Gilroy wasn’t easily persuaded. “To hear you tell it, he would slay a dragon to save her.”
“I believe he demonstrated that.”
“Am I supposed to forgive and forget that he attacked me?”
She’d reminded him that he would have an opportunity to testify to the incident at the full restraining order hearing.
“Well, that’s not good enough,” he’d said.
He then had laid down the condition under which he would give Crawford a free pass for today. “That’s the only way he’s getting off the hook for this.”
Her choices were to accept his condition, or for Crawford to be shackled and taken to jail.
Now, as she trudged toward her bedroom, she felt as though there were an anvil hanging from her neck. When Crawford found out about her agreement with his father-in-law, he would hate her.
It would come as another blow to him, more severe even than the others. As she thought on it, she realized that the fallout from the shooting had been far more consequential to him than to her. Since Monday, he’d taken hit after hit, and, now, thanks to her, he stood to lose his child for good.
She might have been the intended target in the courtroom, but it was Crawford who—
Suddenly she stood stock still, her jacket and shoes dangling from hands gone listless. Mentally, she backtracked, rethought what had only now occurred to her, then dropped her jacket and shoes to the floor and quickly retraced her footsteps to her kitchen, where she’d left her handbag.
After retrieving her cell phone from it, her fingers couldn’t move fast enough to punch in Crawford’s number. It rang once, then went to voice mail. “Damn!” Again, with butterfingered haste, she accessed Neal Lester’s cell number and called it.
He must have seen her name on his caller ID because he answered briskly, “Judge Spencer? Are you all right?”
“Perfectly all right. But I need to talk to you about Crawford Hunt.”
“What a coincidence. I was just about to call and advise you to avoid him. I had him taken off the case.”
With forced calmness, she said, “You are overreacting to what happened in the park. He—”
“It has nothing to do with that. Not directly.”
“Then why have you removed him?”
“I have an eyewitness who can link him to Rodriguez prior to the shooting.”
Her knees went weak. She leaned back against the wall and listened with mounting dismay as he explained what had taken place in the morgue that morning. “Otterman saw Rodriguez in conversation with Crawford outside the courthouse.”
When she was able to find her voice, she said, “That can’t be true.”
“He’s positive. He knew it in an instant but feared reprisal from Crawford, so he didn’t blurt it out. He called later and told me in secret.” He hesitated, then said, “I’ve wanted to ask you a question but hesitated because I felt it was inappropriate. Now I believe it’s relevant. Judge Spencer, were you going to grant or deny Crawford’s custody petition?”
“It is an inappropriate question. I can’t discuss that.”
“Well, I believe Crawford predicted that you would deny his custody. So he found a guy who nobody knew, who had fake IDs and little money. Someone desperate or easily duped, or both. He staged this attempt on your life. But his plan all along was to spring into action and take out the shooter. Whether you lived or died, he would have become a hero.”
She denied it with the first inconsistency that came to mind. “How was he to take out the shooter when he didn’t even have his service weapon in court?”
“He knew Chet would be down and could use his.”
“That’s even more outlandish. He would never have ordered the assassination of Chet Barker. He thought the world of him.”
“That’s true. But he loves his daughter more. He did all this for her, to get her. After his courtroom heroics, and all the accolades to follow, who would deny him custody?”
He was running with this hypothesis like a team of wild horses. Rather than be dragged along with him, she strived to remain rational and clear-headed. “Why would he cook up this elaborate scheme, then protect me with his own body?”
“To make it look good. But Rodriguez panicked and bolted before finishing you off and before Crawford could finish him. Crawford couldn’t let him be captured. He chased him and caught up with him on the roof. He confronted him one-on-one even after other officers cautioned him against it.”
“That seems more like courage than conspiracy.”
“No, he wanted to see Rodriguez downed one way or another. The video shows Rodriguez freaking out the instant Crawford stepped out onto the roof.”
Since she hadn’t seen the video, she couldn’t comment.
Neal pressed on. “For the sake of argument, judge, no one can substantiate the pierced ear thing, or that Crawford kicked the gunman. There’s absolutely nothing to support his suspicion of Otterman, who just happened to appear minutes after I had expressed my own suspicion of
Crawford
. He saw an opportunity to create a distraction with Otterman. It backfired on him.
“And he’s been unusually preoccupied with you. He told you first about the pierced ear, I believe to test your reaction to his claim that the gunman didn’t have one. Remember, he’s the one who insisted on putting you under guard.
“Initially, I mistakenly thought his obsession with you was sexual, but this development with Otterman casts it in a new light. He’s keeping close tabs on you for a reason. Am I right or not that he devises excuses to be alone with you?”
After a moment, she said quietly, “If he’s adapted a protective attitude I believe it’s because he has a vested interest in my welfare. That’s a common reaction from one who saves your life.”
“Is that what you really think?” Neal asked softly. “Or are you just saying it?”
“I wouldn’t say something I didn’t believe.”
“You would if you were frightened enough.” He let those words hover, then said, “Judge Spencer, you’ve gone out of your way to publicly exonerate Crawford of any wrongdoing or recklessness. You went to bat for him today in the park. I’m wondering, has that been all for show? Are you taking his side to appease him?
“But before you answer, I should tell you that I know he went to your chambers after hours last night. He was seen leaving in a temper, and I’m told that you looked extremely upset when you followed a few minutes later. Be straight with me now, because I can’t protect you otherwise. Has Crawford threatened you?”
The back of the house was in complete darkness. Holly climbed over the fence and then took a moment to catch her breath, although her heart continued to thud so hard it was painful. Cautiously she approached the back door. Through it, she could hear his voice. At her soft knock, he stopped speaking immediately.
A few seconds later, he opened the door. If he was shocked to see her, he didn’t show it. His silhouette looked large and indomitable against the weak light from the ice dispenser on the refrigerator door. So far as she could tell, it was the only light on inside the house.
He brought his cell phone up to his ear. “I’ll call you back.” He clicked off and lowered his hand to his side. Otherwise he didn’t move. His eyes were too hooded for her to gauge his reaction to seeing her on his doorstep.
She said, “You’re probably surprised to see me here.”
“You could say. How’d you get here?”
“I ran.”
“Ran?”
“Jogged. It’s only a few miles.”
He assimilated that, then asked, “Are your guards bringing up the rear?”
“They think I’m still inside my house. I slipped out the back door, squeezed through the hedge, past the main house, to the street behind.”
He stifled a sound that could have been amusement, but his voice was gravelly with anger when he said, “Neal’s guy could be somewhere out there with his candid camera trained on this house.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“I don’t think he got us last night, so why press your luck? Why take a chance on making the front page tomorrow?”
“Sergeant Lester told me you’re no longer on the case.”
“He tell you why?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Chuck Otterman is lying.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “You sneaked out and ran all the way over here just to give me your vote of confidence? You could have called that in.”
“I don’t trust phones, to say nothing of phone records,” she said, quoting him. “There’s a lot we need to talk about, and I wanted to do it in person.”
“I’m listening.”
“I think I know why no clues have turned up regarding the shooter’s identity, why the detectives, you, everybody has met with nothing but dead ends.”
“Still listening.”
“The shooting wasn’t about me. I wasn’t the target. You were.”
He still didn’t move for several seconds. Then he reached for her hand and pulled her across the threshold. “Come in.”
“Crawford’s been ousted.”
“Be more specific.”
Pat Connor glanced around cautiously, but no one could have overheard him except for the ever-present bodyguards, and they never registered interest or any other emotion. Nevertheless, he kept his volume low. “On a pretext, I dropped by the department to see if there was any new scuttlebutt. Man, was there. Neal’s taken Crawford off the case. And get this. He’s now a person of interest.”
“For the shooting?”
“You got it.”
The deep chest rumbled with suppressed laughter. “That boy’s having a really bad day.”
“I heard he went apeshit when he got to the park.” Officially it was Pat’s day off from work, but he’d been busier today than any in recent history. “That video wasn’t easy to get, you know. I got chigger bites to prove it.”
“You still have the phone you used?”
“No. I pitched it right after sending Crawford the text. It’s at the bottom of the Sabine.”
Actually that was a little white lie. The burner phone was hidden beneath the front seat of his car. He had held on to it, just in case. You might say it was his insurance policy. Some people just weren’t to be trusted. In particular, the man sitting across from him.
“Is he in lockup?”
“Crawford? No. According to the rumor mill, Neal played it by the book and suggested that he call his lawyer. Crawford told him to go fuck himself. Which a lot of people would like to tell Neal.”
“He’s a prick.”
“No argument there. But he’s smart enough to know that in a popularity contest between Crawford and him, Crawford would win hands down. Neal would be bad-mouthed for locking Crawford up while he’s building a case against him, which most agree is horseshit anyway. Neal let him go, and, politically speaking, that was a sound choice.” A bit uneasily he added, “Probably not what you wanted to hear, though.”
“Actually it’s precisely what I wanted to hear.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“I’ll acquaint you with my reason when I’m ready to. Thanks for the update.”
Pat recognized the dismissal for what it was. He got up and walked away. He felt a powerful thirst coming on, because, the hell of it was, Ranger Crawford Hunt had always treated him decently enough. He felt bad for spying on him and setting him up to take a fall. Using that video of his little girl? That had been low, something Pat would never have believed himself capable of doing, no matter who’d ordered him to.
But he had a debt to pay, and if he didn’t…
It didn’t bear thinking about.
Crawford could see well enough in the dim kitchen to take a glass from the cabinet, fill it with tap water, and hand it to Holly. “I’d offer you something else, but I don’t want to turn on the lights and give the shutterbug an advantage.”
She had run from her house to his wearing a pair of old jeans with holes in the knees. A white t-shirt clung to her damp skin and outlined her bra. Her nipples made twin impressions that had captured and held his attention.