“He brandished the pistol at you, even after you had identified yourself as a lawman. He fired the gun at the deputy twice, and it’s a miracle that he missed.”
“You’re right. But it’s clear to me now that everything he did, he did because he was scared. He’d been caught with a pistol that didn’t belong to him. When I told him to drop it, it was stupid of him not to. Then that deputy appeared, and he panicked.” Looking aside, he added under his breath, “Stupidity and panic are lousy reasons to get yourself killed.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
“I didn’t fire the bullets, but I set him up as the target.”
“You did your best to help him. It wasn’t your fault.”
Crawford would be arguing that point till they sealed his own casket, but for right now, he had to deal with the problem, which had far-reaching repercussions to him personally, as well as to Holly Spencer. How it affected her was more urgent.
“What scares me,” he said, “is that this has given the joker a high, boosted his confidence, and he was brazen as hell to begin with.”
She gave a small shake of her head. “I’m not following you.”
He looked at her for a moment, realized her perplexity, then said in a quiet voice, “One of those ripple effects you mentioned obviously hasn’t reached you yet, and it’s a tsunami. Whoever came into the courtroom yesterday wanting to kill you is still unknown and at large.”
As that sank in, he watched her changing expressions and knew before she spoke that she would negate it. “Two detectives spent hours today combing through the records and transcripts of all my cases. They also went through Judge Waters’s dating back to 2012, and all my records from the Dallas firm. They didn’t find anything.”
“Because they were looking specifically for a connection to Jorge Rodriguez.”
“Even so, nothing raised a red flag.”
“Which only means we’ve got to dig deeper, and this time we won’t have a name to go on.”
“That could take weeks.”
“Or longer. Before we turn up even a lead, you—” He stopped to amend what he’d been about to say. “You should assume that your life is in danger and act accordingly.”
“That’s a lot to assume.”
“Be smart. Assume it.”
“‘Act accordingly’ doesn’t sound like something you would ordinarily say.”
“It isn’t. That’s official jargon. I’d rather give it to you a little more hard-core, but I’m afraid you’d take offense. I only hope the message came across.”
She looked away from him and, for a time, said nothing. Then, “You’ve thought all along that the shooting was an act of revenge.”
“I haven’t changed my mind. This wasn’t random. It was carefully planned. Calculated. He had the painter’s outfit stashed somewhere inside the building, probably in the closet across the hall from the courtroom. He put it on over his clothes and waited until court convened.”
“Then came in shooting.”
“But not willy-nilly. If he’d been a nutcase just wanting to kill people, he’d have sprayed the gallery with that semiautomatic. He could’ve taken out six, eight people in seconds. But he didn’t. He was determined to get behind that podium even if it meant going through Chet.”
“He didn’t expect you to protect me.”
“Maybe, but in any case, he figured out real quick that his only safe option was to flee. He ran from the courtroom, into the stairwell, and made it look like he’d gone up to the roof. After dumping the disguise, he slipped back down that half flight to the sixth floor, went into the corridor, and blended in when all hell started breaking loose.
“It was either a brilliant plan or the dumbest I’ve ever heard of,” he went on, “but the bottom line is that someone bore you a grudge so deep, he was determined to kill you, even at great risk to himself. Any ideas?”
“I told you last night, none.”
“Think!”
She whipped her head around to face him again. “I have! That’s all I’ve been thinking about. But I swear to you, there hasn’t been any drama in my life. Not on that scale.”
“What about your political opponent Saunders?”
“I had an unpleasant exchange with him yesterday.”
“Where? About what?”
She described their brief encounter at the elevator. “I suppose you could read a threat into his parting remark. It sticks in his craw that I got that appointment over him.”
“Wait! He was a contender for that judgeship?”
“There were several applicants, but Greg Sanders was my most challenging rival.”
“And you’re just now telling me this?”
“It wasn’t relevant till now,” she said, matching his annoyance.
“Right. Okay. Sanders goes on the list.”
“What list?”
“The short list of possible suspects.”
“He wasn’t the shooter,” she exclaimed. “Greg Sanders has at least six inches height on him.”