“Wild shot? Or did he aim?”
“The pistol was pointed toward the front of the court. He was holding it shoulder high, arm straight out.” He demonstrated. “Pulling the trigger as fast as he could. Bam-bam-bam. Chet…” He paused and made a remorseful sound. “Chet rushed forward and raised his arms like this.” He thrust his hands in front of him at arm’s length, palms out. “He shouted at him. Stop! Something like that. Maybe he just made an exclamation. Then he went down.”
“He died with valor, doing his job,” Neal remarked.
“Yeah,” Crawford sighed. “He’ll be honored for doing so. But I doubt he’d ever drawn his service weapon. Not in the whole of his career. Then to get shot dead by some whack job in a freak show mask. It sucks.”
Chet hadn’t gotten up this morning foreseeing his death. Nor could Crawford have anticipated the wicked curve ball Fate had hurled at him. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sat back in his chair.
After a moment, Nugent asked if he’d changed his mind about something to drink.
“I’m fine. Carry on.”
Neal clicked his pen and made a notation on the legal tablet. “So…Chet’s down. What happened next?”
Crawford focused his thoughts on the scene in the courtroom. “Chaos. Noise. Screams. Joe moved like lightning, got him and Grace under cover. Everyone was scrambling, panicky.”
“Not you,” Nugent said. “People in the courtroom at the time have told us that you hurdled the railing of the witness box. Do you remember doing that?”
He shook his head. “Not really. I just…reacted. I pushed the judge to the floor and sorta…” He hunched forward, posing to demonstrate how he’d used his body to shield hers. “I heard bullets striking. I didn’t feel anything, but I was so jacked up on adrenalin that, for all I knew, I’d been hit. What with the robe, I couldn’t tell if the judge had been struck or not.
“When he rounded the witness box and stepped up onto the platform,” he continued, “I turned to look at him. He had the pistol pointed straight at us. I remember holding my breath, thinking, ‘This is it.’ I guess my survival instinct kicked in. I let him have it in the knee with my foot.”
He described the gunman’s backward topple off the platform. “Maybe that panicked him. I don’t know. In any case, he ran like hell and disappeared through the side exit.”
Neal nodded as though that jibed with what others had recounted. “Then?”
“I went after him.”
Neal glanced at Nugent, then came back to Crawford and repeated, “You went after him.”
“That’s right.”
“Just like that.”
“I didn’t think about it, if that’s what you mean. I just did it.”
“Like you hurdled the witness box railing.”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“You acted without thinking or weighing the consequences of your actions.”
“Like you would,” Crawford fired back, “if you were any kind of lawman.”
“Well, we know what kind you are.”
Crawford lunged to his feet, sending his chair over backward. He glared down at Neal, but instantly realized that a show of temper would only confirm what the bastard had implied. He turned and righted the chair, then sat back down. He looked at Nugent, who was swallowing convulsively, as though his chewing gum had slipped down his gullet and gotten stuck.
When he came back around to Neal, Neal said, “You left out a step.”
Realizing what Neal was getting at, he said, “I stopped long enough to take Chet’s revolver.”
“Even jacked up on adrenalin, you had the presence of mind to identify yourself to the first officer into the courtroom.”
“His hand was on his holster. I didn’t want to get shot.”
“You gave him a description of the gunman.”
“A very basic one.”
“You asked for backup. But without waiting for it, you took Chet’s revolver and charged after the shooter. Why?”
“Why?”
“Well, considering your history, you might have exercised more discretion.”
“Discretion could have got people killed.”
“So could indiscretion. Like in Halcon.”
Chapter 3
Holly’s attention was drawn to the end of the hallway when a door was opened and Crawford Hunt strode through. Looking disheveled and angry, he glanced at her but said nothing as he walked past on his way to the men’s room.
“They’ll be wanting to talk to me now,” she said to her assistant, who had refused to leave her alone while waiting her turn to give her statement. “Thank you so much for staying, but go on home, get some rest. Tomorrow will be a circus, I’m afraid.”
“But, Holly—”
“There’s no telling how long they’ll keep me.”
“I can stay indefinitely. You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”