“If he looks at him and says, ‘Never saw him before,’ what have you gained?”
“Nothing. But we’ll be no worse off, either.”
“Except that we’ll have offended a very influential man.”
Crawford placed his hands flat on Neal’s desk and leaned over it. “He strolled in here like royalty and admitted to leaving a crime scene, like it was no big deal. Chet was dead, and this asshole went on his way because he didn’t have time to hang around and answer a few questions. Fuck if I care we hurt his feelings.”
He straightened and raked his fingers through his hair. “Besides, you’re missing the point of why I asked him to come to the morgue. I don’t expect him to recognize Rodriguez.”
“Then why bother him?”
“I want to watch him when he denies recognizing Rodriguez. If he’s lying about it, I’ll know. I don’t think he was the shooter, but… Hell, I don’t know,” he said, irritably rubbing the back of his neck. “Something.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know. But put someone on finding out who the cop was that let Otterman leave. Have him suspended for a nice long time. Give him weeks to rethink that decision.
“And assign somebody to start digging into Mr. Chuck Otterman’s life for the past five years or so. Have it mapped good. Work history. Family stuff, too. Divorce. Child custody. Like that.”
“Why me? You’re the expert on all that.”
Instead of taking the bait, Crawford said, “Good place to start would be the law firm that Holly left to come here.”
“That’s been done already.”
“Have it done again, this time looking for Otterman.” He turned and stalked toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
Over his shoulder, he said, “To lunch.”
Chapter 17
Marilyn was on her third Bloody Mary. Dennis was nursing a glass of iced tea. Their entrees hadn’t yet arrived. Holly couldn’t wait for this lunch to end.
They were seated at a window table in the country club dining room, dubbed by Dennis the only decent restaurant in Prentiss unless you were carbohydrate-loading. It was a pleasant room overlooking the golf course and a pond with a backdrop of solid pine forest.
But Holly was too keyed up to enjoy the room, the view, or the company. Marilyn, who’d insisted on treating them to lunch, had driven her own car from the courthouse so she could smoke, leaving Holly to ride with Dennis, which had afforded them some time to themselves.
At first, their conversation had revolved around the shooting, but once he had been assured that she wasn’t injured beyond a few bruises, and that she was coping as well as she could with the aftermath and everything it entailed, they drifted toward more personal topics.
When she asked if he was seeing someone, he sheepishly admitted that he had a new romantic interest, which didn’t surprise her. Dennis was handsome, successful, charming, and intelligent. Yet she wondered what had ever attracted her to him. He now seemed very…polished.
He rarely got agitated. He never raised his voice. The most heated argument she ever remembered them having was over her decision to relocate to Prentiss, and that had been more of a discussion of the pros and cons rather than a quarrel.
Their reunion had been as civilized and dispassionate as their relationship, including their breakup. No theatrics, no pyrotechnics. When she saw him, the only bump her heart had given was one of anxiety over what Crawford would do, say, and feel about Dennis’s unheralded arrival. Neither his opinion nor his reaction should have mattered, but somehow they did.
She didn’t wish Dennis any ill will, and it was clear that he felt the same toward her, but once they had more or less established that, they had little to talk about. Holly was eager for him to be on his way back home and firmly fixed in her past, so she could get on with her present.
When her cell phone chimed from the pocket of her handbag, she seized on the distraction. Checking the caller ID, she saw that it was her assistant. “Mrs. Briggs would never interrupt our lunch unless it was important.”
She excused herself and left the table in a rush, wanting to catch the call before it went to voice mail. “I’m here,” she said as she moved past the hostess stand into the foyer.
“I apologize for calling during your lunch.”
“No problem. What’s going on?”
“Mr. Joe Gilroy is here. He doesn’t have an appointment, but he says it’s important that he speak to you as soon as possible, and he doesn’t want to do it by phone. What shall I tell him?”
She glanced into the dining room, where Marilyn was talking with animation and Dennis was laughing. Holly said, “Please ask him to wait. I’ll be right there.”
The pair of policewomen who’d taken over for the Texas Rangers had been sitting at a table not far from Holly’s party. One had followed her into the foyer. She asked her now if she could please have a lift back to the courthouse in their squad car.