Leaning over the railing and looking below, he saw the deputy and several other uniformed officers stealthily making their way up. Crawford hitched his head toward the door to the roof. One of the officers backed down to the next landing and spoke quietly into the mike clipped to his epaulette, then gave Crawford and the others a thumbs-up.
Crawford knew that by now the rehearsed emergency response would have been implemented. The courthouse would be surrounded by policemen. Exits would be sealed off, anyone trying to leave or enter would be stopped. A SWAT team would have been deployed. Sharpshooters were no doubt already taking up positions on the roofs of neighboring buildings.
The gunman hadn’t thought this out very well. The only way it could end for him was badly. Unless he could fly, he wasn’t going to leave this building a free man. And as soon as he realized that, he might decide that he might just as well take out a couple more people before his inevitable capture. He’d already killed Chet in front of witnesses. Why not go for broke and make a name for himself as a mass murderer?
Crawford shrugged off his sport jacket and dropped it to the floor, then pushed open the exit door a crack. “Hey, buddy,” he called through it. “Let’s talk.”
He half expected bullets to pepper the metal door, but nothing happened. He opened the door another inch or two. “I’m a Texas Ranger, but I’m not in uniform. I can show you my badge. I’m coming out, okay? I’m unarmed. I just want to talk to you. You cool with that?”
By now the other officers had joined him. One whispered, “Crawford, you sure about this?”
He gave the guy a wry grin to acknowledge the danger he faced, then stuck Chet’s pistol into his waistband at the small of his back, opened the door wide enough to squeeze through, and stepped out onto the gravel roof, arms raised.
It took several seconds for his eyes to adjust to the blazing sunlight, then he immediately saw the guy. He wasn’t even trying to hide. He was standing near the low wall at the edge of the roof. He was Hispanic, late twenties or early thirties, average height, pudgy in the middle.
He didn’t look like anybody to be afraid of except for the pistol that he was aiming at Crawford with a shaky hand. In the other hand he held a smoldering cigarette.
Crawford kept his hands raised. “I’m gonna show you my badge, okay?” He eased his right hand down toward the leather holder clipped to his belt, but when the man dropped his cigarette and ordered, “No!” Crawford put his hand back in the air. “This is a bad idea, pal.”
The man jabbed the pistol forward several times.
“You don’t want to shoot me,” Crawford said. “Put down the weapon, why don’t you? Then nobody else will get hurt, including you.”
In spite of Crawford’s calming tone, the man was becoming increasingly agitated. He rapidly blinked trickles of sweat from his eyes, which darted from side to side. When they came back to Crawford, he motioned again with the pistol for him to back away.
It occurred to Crawford that he might not speak English. “Habla inglés?”
“Sí.” Then more forcibly, “Sí.”
The reply had sounded angrily defensive, leaving Crawford to doubt the man’s command of the language. He took a step forward and made a patting motion toward the ground. “La pistola. Down.”
“No.” He brought his other hand up to cradle the pistol and thrust it at arm’s length toward Crawford.
Shit! “Come on, buddy. There’s no good way out of this if you don’t— No!”
One of the officers must have come out another door accessing the roof because he had suddenly appeared in Crawford’s peripheral vision. The gunman saw him at the same time. He whipped the firearm toward the deputy and pulled the trigger twice. He missed.
But the sharpshooters in place on the neighboring roof didn’t.
The gunman’s body jerked with the impact of each bullet, then crumpled and went entirely still.
Crawford, deflating, backed up to the wall and slid down it until he was crouching on his heels. He watched as officers in various uniforms swarmed through the stairwell door and surrounded the body leaking blood onto the gravel.
Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Crawford looked up into the face of the deputy who’d expressed concern about his going out onto the roof. “You hit?”
He shook his head.
“You got lucky.” He pressed Crawford’s shoulder, then left him to join the other officers grouped around the fallen man.
Crawford’s head dropped forward until his chin touched his chest. “You dumb son of a bitch.”
Anyone overhearing his castigating mutter would have assumed he was addressing the dead man. They would be mistaken.
“Hunt?”
Crawford, who’d been staring sightlessly at the floor, looked toward the homicide detective holding open the interrogation room door and motioning with his head for Crawford to go in.
Crawford had to forcibly exert enough energy to stand up. He dreaded this like hell, but was eager to get it over with.