“Why didn’t you just leave?”
“I was supposed to be drunk on my ass, remember? I was afraid if I tried to drive, they’d call the cops, who would either have thrown me in jail without administering a blood test, in which case I’d be stuck there, my phone confiscated. Or they’d have drawn blood, realized I was faking, and then what? Where would you be?” He grinned. “Told you I was a good snoop. You can thank me later.”
The images taken by the cell phone camera were grainy because of the dim lighting inside the club. Conrad had fiddled with the zoom periodically, causing some of the photos to be out of focus, and there were a couple of close-ups of his thumb. But Crawford had to give the old man credit for his ingenuity.
In several of the shots, he’d caught Otterman doing his trick with the coin. He recalled how Conrad had described him. “Two-sided.”
He hadn’t realized that he’d spoken the thought under his breath until Conrad called him on it. “Come again?”
“That thing he does with the coin—”
“He was doing that on the occasion I met him,” Holly said and imitated the motion.
“He’s two-sided. Can change personalities in an instant. Two sides of a coin. Is there a parallel, an inside joke he’s playing on everyone?” Crawford shrugged over his own conjecture, then, looking back at Conrad, he asked, “No one noticed you photographing him?”
“With all those bouncing tits—” He looked over at Holly. “Girls to look at? No one was paying any attention to a hopeless drunk getting progressively plastered, which…” He placed his hand over his heart, saying to Holly, “I regret to say, I have a reputation for doing.”
The old man’s ability to charm her rankled, so Crawford focused on his task. Tapping on the next photograph, it immediately gave him pause. The man facing Otterman across the table was wearing a cowboy hat. The brim cast a shadow over his face, so nothing much was showing underneath it except for his hair. The way it was pressed flat against—
Hastily he applied his fingers to the screen to enlarge the picture so he could see the man’s features better, and when he got a good look, he recognized him instantly. “Holy shit.” He took in every detail, making certain that he was right before holding the phone down to where Holly could see it. “Look familiar?”
Without hesitation, she whispered, “That’s the gunman in the courtroom.”
“You’re sure?”
“One hundred percent. I wouldn’t know his face because of the mask, but the hair is exactly the same.”
“That’s what I noticed first. But we gotta be sure.”
“I am.”
“He’s a cop.”
She gave Crawford a swift glance, then looked again at the cell phone screen. “Yes! I’ve seen him in the courthouse. Never wearing a hat, though. I don’t know his name.”
“I do.”
Chapter 24
Crawford headed for the door.
Holly shot to her feet and went after him. “Where are you going?”
“To make some calls. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”
She watched him through the screen door as he leaped over the steps of the porch and landed in the yard, his cell phone already in hand.
“He’s always been like that,” Conrad said from his recliner. “Agile and quick as a whip, even as a baby. Took after his mother that way. She was a dancer, you know.”
“A dancer?” Holly looked back at him from over her shoulder. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“She had a studio out at the strip mall, taught ballet and tap dancing. Jazz. All of it. Each spring, she put on this big recital at the civic center. Everybody in town went. Quite a show. Took months for ladies to sew all the spangles on the costumes.”
Holly remembered the ballet slippers in Georgia’s bedroom and wondered if that was a deliberate or subconscious link Crawford had formed between his daughter and mother.
Conrad was staring into space, sadness weighing down his facial features.
“She was beautiful and talented, and I guess that made her feel entitled to better. To more. She talked a lot about being unfulfilled.”
Then he stirred, gathered himself, and gestured toward the yard where Crawford was pacing, his cell phone to his ear. “His mother and I were sorry excuses for parents. He turned out better than anybody had a right to expect.”
“Better than he gives himself credit for,” Holly said, speaking more to herself than to Conrad.
“You’ve come to know him well after only three days.”
“Seems longer.”
“When did you sleep together?”
She whirled around and looked at him with astonishment.
He chuckled over her guilty reaction. “Thought so.”
“Mr. Hunt, Conrad—”