Inside the room, another man in plainclothes whom Crawford didn’t know was standing with his back to the wall, noisily cracking his knuckles and giving a wad of chewing gum a workout. Crawford wondered what he had to be nervous about.
Sergeant Neal Lester, the senior detective who’d laconically summoned Crawford into the room, motioned him into one of the chairs at the small table and took a seat opposite him. Between them on the table were a legal tablet and a video recording setup.
Neal Lester withdrew a pen from his shirt pocket and clicked the retractor at the end of it several times as he fixed an unfriendly gaze on Crawford. Classmates from primary school, they’d never liked each other, and the mutual dislike had intensified when, in high school, Crawford had dated Neal’s younger sister. The attraction had been short-lived and had never amounted to anything, but apparently Neal still had a burr up his butt about it.
“Want something to drink?” He made the question sound obligatory.
“No thanks.”
“You know Matt Nugent? Recently made detective.” He nodded toward the younger man who was still fidgeting.
Crawford acknowledged the quasi-introduction by hitching his chin in the detective’s direction.
He grinned, showing crooked teeth. “How’s it goin’?” A ridiculous greeting under the circumstances. Crawford didn’t reply and returned his attention to Neal Lester, who had continued the infernal pen-clicking.
“You know the drill,” he said.
Crawford nodded.
“This interview will be recorded.”
Crawford nodded.
“You ready then?”
“When you are, Neal.”
“Let’s keep it official. No first names.”
Crawford barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. One reason he’d never liked Neal Lester was because he was such a tight-ass. Even as a kid, he’d obeyed all the rules and tattled on kids who didn’t.
What galled Crawford now, Neal Lester was eating this up. He was enjoying having Crawford in the hot seat.
However, personal feelings aside, the bottom line was that two men were dead, and Crawford had been within feet of both when they died. As a law enforcement officer, Neal and his nervous sidekick had a duty to perform, and that included questioning him.
He shifted in his chair, trying but failing to better fit his tall frame into the preformed plastic. “Fair enough, Sergeant Lester, where do we begin?”
“Inside the courtroom.” With a decisive punch of his index finger, Neal started the recorder, stated the date, time, and who was present. “Why were you in Family Court today?”
“You know damn well why.”
The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Just answer the question, please.”
Crawford drew a deep breath, then released it as he stated, “I was there for a custody hearing.” Neither detective responded to that, only continued to look at him. He folded his arms across his chest. “My little girl’s custody hearing. Judge Spencer was just about to hand down her decision when the shooter busted in.”
“We have a transcript of the court proceedings up to that point.”
“Then you don’t need me to recount who said what.”
“I’m curious, though,” Neal said. “How do you think Judge Spencer would have ruled?”
Crawford was about to say that what he thought regarding that had no relevance to the matter at hand, but he withheld that, shrugged, and answered. “I was hoping for the best.”
“Fearing the worst?”
Fine, Crawford thought. If Neal was going to be a prick, he could be one back. “Well, I sure as hell didn’t expect the worst, which was seeing Chet Barker gunned down right in front of me.”
The statement had the squelching effect Crawford had intended. To cover the awkward silence that followed, Neal repositioned the camera a quarter inch closer to Crawford. Matt Nugent cleared his throat behind his fist.
“Talk us through it,” Neal said. “Be as detailed as possible.”
Crawford covered his face with his hands and slowly dragged them down until only his fingertips were touching his jaw. Then he dropped his hands and leaned forward, propping his forearms on the edge of the table.
“I was in the witness box. The guy came through the door at the back of the room, shooting. All hell broke loose.”
Nugent asked him to describe the gunman and he did, even though the painter’s garb and mask had been collected as evidence, so they already had a basic description. “The cap covered all but a rim of his hair. He was wearing the gloves and they extended up under his sleeves. That mask was scary as shit. Barely had slits for his eyes. Two small holes for his nostrils. It mashed all his features flat. Total distortion.”
He thought about it for a moment, recapturing his initial impression of the figure coming up the center aisle of the courtroom with such obvious intent. “But even without the disguise I think I would have picked up a bad mojo from this guy. He was focused on what he was doing. Determined.”
Neal nodded. “You said he was shooting when he came through the door.”
“Soon as he cleared it, he fired the first shot.”