The coffeemaker hissed and spat one last time. Crawford filled his mug and leaned against the counter, sipping thoughtfully. Though he told himself to shut up about the incident and to tell Neal to go take a flying leap, he heard himself ask, “You get him on security camera coming in?”
“He entered through the main entrance at one forty-one. Here’s something interesting. He wasn’t carrying anything.”
Dammit, that was interesting. “No gym bag, sack, backpack?”
Neal shook his head. “So either he’d stashed his costume on a previous visit in preparation for yesterday, or he was wearing the painter’s garb under his street clothes.”
“No way,” Crawford said. “He didn’t have time to switch back into street clothes after leaving the painter’s stuff in a pile. He would have gone out onto the roof wearing very little or in the buff.”
“Damn. You’re right.” Neal thought it over. “I suppose the cap, gloves, shoe covers, and mask could’ve been stashed in his pockets when he entered the building.”
“Maybe,” Crawford said, but he wasn’t convinced of that. “Anything else?”
Neal shook his head. “Once through the door, he got lost in the shuffle, one of many flowing into the building around that time. Prospective jurors.”
“Yeah,” Crawford said. “I was waiting at the end of the hall for our two o’clock court time. All of sudden the fourth floor corridor was crawling with people.”
“The jurors were on their way to Judge Mason’s court, two doors down from Judge Spencer’s. Rape case with extenuating circumstances. Both attorneys had asked for a large jury pool from which to select.”
“Must have been fifty, sixty of them,” Crawford recalled. “Most came up on the atrium stairs instead of using the elevators.”
“Rodriguez could have blended, then easily slipped into that closet unnoticed. Cameras on the roof got him coming out that door at two twenty-eight. No disguise, but he’s carrying the pistol, which he set on the wall at the edge.”
The security cameras had verified the sequence of events as Crawford remembered and had related them in his statement, but they failed to enlighten him as to Rodriguez’s purpose. In fact, when Neal finished talking through it, Crawford was left with even more gnawing questions. It was second nature for him to want to plug up the holes of missing information.
But mentally he slammed shut the door on his curiosity.
“Answers will come with a positive ID,” he said. “In the meantime, you’ll have to keep playing the guessing game.” He raised a toast with his mug. “Good luck.”
“The chief wants—”
“No.”
“He’s cleared it with your major lieutenant in Houston.”
“I’ll talk to him and unclear it. Which should make you happy. We wouldn’t be simpatico changing a flat tire together. Wasn’t it you, just last night, who took issue with my tactics?”
“I was out of line.”
Crawford snuffled over the detective’s stilted apology. “Never mind, Neal. My feelings aren’t hurt. I don’t give a shit what you think of me.”
“Then I won’t play diplomat here. I don’t like you or your Dirty Harry brand of cop. But,” he said, taking a breath, “it’s not up to me, and others hold you in high esteem.”
Crawford knew what it had cost the guy to say that. He almost felt sorry for him. But he remained unmoved. “Thank the chief for the vote of confidence, but you’ll ID Rodriguez without me. If you feel like you need another Ranger—”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“You were the only person on the roof with this guy, the only one who exchanged words with him.”
“You have everything in my statement, including my admission that I responded instinctively, and, as you were quick to point out, I did so without weighing the consequences of such a rash action. Which I now regret.”
He could tell Neal was shocked to hear him say that.
“Not for the reason you think,” Crawford said. “I took the correct action. I stand by that. I regret it for an entirely selfish reason.”
“Want to share?”
He saw no reason not to. “Charging after that gunman has almost certainly scotched my chances of getting Georgia back. At the next hearing, my father-in-law is going to remind the judge of my reckless disregard for my own safety. What judge is going to entrust a little girl’s future to Dirty Harry?”
Especially a judge who’s been slam-bam-thank-you-ma’amed by him.
Thinking back on those moments in her kitchen, he wondered if maybe he had read Holly Spencer all wrong. When she raised her head from his chest and looked up into his face, what if her watery-eyed, parted-lips expression wasn’t evidence of lust but revulsion?
Hell, maybe she hadn’t been telegraphing Take me and take me now. Instead, that look might have been a warning that if he didn’t remove his grubby paw from her ass, she was going to scream the house down.