Friction (5 page)

As of now, however, the motive for the attempted assassination remained unknown, and that was unsettling. Even if her own peace of mind didn’t require an explanation, the voting public would. Her constituents would wish to know what was behind the courthouse tragedy and if it related to her.

She had little doubt that Sanders would use it, twist and manipulate it, to discredit her. Tonight, he was probably awake, too, preparing his onslaught of open criticism and innuendo. He would want to attack while the incident was fresh, possibly launching it as early as tomorrow.

With that in mind, she finished the last of the whiskey, set the glass on the nightstand, and reached for the lamp switch. But she hesitated and momentarily considered sleeping with the light on. Just for tonight. Then, chiding herself for the silliness, she extinguished the light with a decisive snap.

But as she did so, she noticed that her hands were still shaking. The bourbon hadn’t soothed her, but rather seemed to have magnified her memories of the gunman, made the images of him more distinct and frightening.

She lay tense and wakeful, her senses highly attuned.

So that when she heard the noise coming from the backyard, she sprang upright, heart racing with fear.

A
curtain was pushed aside, and her face appeared in the window. Automatically she reached for the switch plate.

“Don’t turn on the light.” He spoke only loud enough to make himself heard through the windowpane.

“What are you doing here?”

“Open the door.”

“Are you insane?”

“The court-appointed shrink didn’t think so. Now unlock the door.”

Crawford waited with diminishing patience while she wrestled with the decision. Finally she slid the bolt, flipped the button on the knob, and opened up. He slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and pulled the curtain back into place. When he turned toward her, she took a cautionary step back.

“Relax, judge.”

“I don’t think so, Mr. Hunt.”

“If I was here to do you bodily harm, would I have knocked?”

Behind her was an open doorway through which he could see into the living room. On the far side of it was a short hallway that he figured led to the bedrooms. A nightlight glowed from the baseboard in the hall. It cast only enough light into the kitchen to keep them from bumping into the furniture.

“Are you here alone?”

“It’s four o’clock in the morning.”

He brought his gaze back to her. “Are you alone?”

She hesitated, then bobbed her head once.

“Who lives in the main house?”

“An eighty-something-year-old widow.”

“By herself?”

“Three cats.”

“No caregiver? Nurse?”

“She insists on living alone, but having someone nearby is a comfort to her as well as to her family. She was a friend of Judge Waters. Knowing I needed a place to live, he suggested the arrangement, and it’s worked out well for both of us.”

He couldn’t see a reason for her to lie about the occupant of the stately, southern Greek revival house. A genteel but independent widow living out her days with three cats was too clichéd not to be the truth.

He relaxed somewhat and took a closer look at the judge. Gone was the severe ponytail she’d worn in court. Her hair was hanging loose to her collarbone. Under his scrutiny, she self-consciously hooked it behind her ears. “I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”

“Were you asleep?”

“Yes.”

Knowing she was lying, he just looked at her.

After several seconds, she sighed. “I tried to sleep but couldn’t keep my mind off the shooting.”

“Whose whiskey?”

“What?” Following his line of sight, she looked over at the bottle on the counter. “Mine.”

“I doubt it.”

“All right, a friend left it—”

“What friend?”

“—and I’m glad he did—”

“He?”

“—because I needed it tonight.” With asperity, she straightened her spine. “I don’t have to explain a damn thing to you, Mr. Hunt, but you’ve got a hell of a lot to explain to me. Like what you’re doing here and how you knew where I live.”

“I’m not a Texas Ranger for nothing.”

“Don’t be cute.”

“Wasn’t trying to be. Took me eight years as a trooper before I could even apply.”

While she fumed, he took a more thorough look around the kitchen. There were the usual small appliances on the counter, an African violet in the window above the sink, a small dining table with only two chairs. Compact and scrupulously tidy. Nothing fussy. About what he would expect.

“How long have you lived here?” he asked.

“Since the day I came to town.”

“From Dallas, right?” He cocked an eyebrow. “City girl gone country?”

Annoyed by that, she said, “I’ll ask you one more time. What are you doing here?”

“That was going to be my next question to you. Why here?”

“I told you. The widow—”

“I mean why Prentiss? Why our humble burg here on the edge of a swamp?”

“When Judge Waters’s health forced him to step down from the bench, he encouraged me to apply to be his replacement.”

“Out of all the legal eagles vying for that appointment, he encouraged you. Why?”

When she hesitated to answer, he realized he’d tapped into a touchy subject. With obvious reluctance she said, “He’d known me since I was born. He and my father were good friends.”

“Huh.”

“What does that ‘huh’ imply?”

“Favoritism?”

“You should be campaigning for Greg Sanders.”

“That loudmouth? No thanks.”

“He does like to crow. His credentials are unimpressive and his platform shaky, so he’s resorted to mudslinging. According to him, I’m too young and inexperienced.”

“Well, he does have twenty years on you.”

“Then his record should outshine mine. It doesn’t.”

He started ticking off her accomplishments. “First in your class in law school. Straight out of it, you were snatched up by that high-dollar family law firm in Dallas. Made partner in no time flat. Won notoriety for handling that hockey player’s divorce. Got his ex a bundle in the settlement.”

“You did your homework.”

“Did I leave out anything?”

“I was hall monitor in seventh grade.”

“I missed that. But it doesn’t surprise me. You personify overachiever. Still, Sanders and others are thinking you only got that gubernatorial appointment because you were Judge Waters’s fair-haired child.” Again, his gaze wandered over the light strands framing her face. “Stating the obvious would be too easy.”

She stiffened her backbone again. “The governor made up his own mind. In any case, I’m not going to debate this with you, Mr. Hunt. In November, I’ll be elected on merit.”

Their encounter earlier tonight in the hallway of the police station had been the first time he’d seen her without the black robe she’d worn into court. She’d been dressed in a gray pants suit and a blue blouse, a tailored, no-frills outfit in keeping with her profession, something a sober lady judge would wear under her robe of office.

But for all the severity of her suit, he’d been surprised then by how much smaller she looked without the robe. Now, barefoot, wearing a faded, oversize t-shirt and an unbelted cotton robe, she looked even more diminutive. Without the trappings of judgeship, there wasn’t much to her.

But there was no shortage of authority in her bearing or tone of voice. “You still haven’t told me why you came here, Mr. Hunt.”

His gaze was reluctant to leave the hem of the t-shirt that didn’t quite reach her bare knees, but he forced it to. “I want to ask you some questions, and I don’t trust phones. To say nothing of phone records.”

“Records or not, you and I shouldn’t be speaking privately.”

“Why not? Afraid we’ll get in trouble with Neal? Or are you intimidated by Nugent? A hard-nosed detective if ever I saw one.”

Ignoring the insult toward the younger officer, she said, “They’re conducting an investigation. We could unintentionally influence each other’s account of what happened today.”

“They took your statement, right?”

“Yes.”

“And I gave them mine. We told our stories and we didn’t compare notes beforehand. It’s okay for us to talk about it now.”

“Possibly. But in regard to your custody hearing, it’s unethical for us to talk privately. Don’t you realize that by coming here, you’ve compromised—”

“How were you going to decide today? Me or my in-laws?”

She looked him in the eye for several seconds, then lowered her gaze to somewhere in the vicinity of his collar button. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

Her reestablishment of eye contact was sudden and angry. “
Not
bullshit, Mr. Hunt. I was going to give everything said in court today careful review before rendering a decision.”

He placed his right hand over his heart. “Lady justice is nothing if not fair.”

With obvious vexation, she took a firmer stance, which was hard to pull off with bare feet. “Precisely. I
am
fair. I wouldn’t want to make a decision that could possibly damage your daughter’s—”

“Her name is Georgia.”

“Georgia’s welfare. She is my main concern. Not you, not her grandparents. Georgia. My hope is that your relationship with the Gilroys will remain amicable, that both parties will graciously accept the outcome of the proceedings. Any resultant animosity could have an adverse effect on Georgia. Everyone, especially the court, wants to avoid that. Which is why arguments for both sides should be carefully weighed, looked at from every angle, and deliberated long and hard before a ruling is handed down.”

He didn’t say anything for a time. Then, “Rousing speech, judge. A real rah-rah. You should save it for a campaign fund-raiser. But I’m not buying a damn word of it, especially the part about deliberating long and hard. You had made up your mind about my petition before you came into that courtroom today, hadn’t you?”

“No.”

He made a skeptical sound.

“Fine. Believe what you want.” She pointed toward the door. “But do it somewhere else. Please go.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll call the police.”

Technically, he was the police, but he huffed a laugh. “Not a chance. Bad publicity. Bad for your campaign. More negative attention drawn to you after today?” He shook his head. “Un-huh. Your rival Sanders, Governor Hutchins, people in general are already speculating on whether or not the shooting was your fault.”

As though he’d literally struck her below the belt, she protectively crossed her arms over her middle and tucked her hands beneath her elbows. “Don’t say that.”

Clearly she’d already considered the possibility that she was somehow responsible, and it bothered her greatly. But he couldn’t soft-soap this to spare her feelings. The stakes for him were too high. When the investigation into the shooting incident was laid to rest, he wanted there to be no misgivings about the action he’d taken today. If there were, he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting Georgia back.

So he pressed. “Did Jorge Rodriguez have a beef with you?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Come on, judge. It’s just you and me now.”

“You’re suggesting that I lied to the police?”

“Everybody lies to the police.”

“I don’t. I had never heard of Jorge Rodriguez until tonight. Why would I lie about it?”

“That’s easy. In November you want to be elected on merit. If there’s something really ugly—”

“Get—”

“—you wouldn’t want it exposed when we’re coming up on voting season.”

“—out!”

“No scandal involving an illegal, then?”

“No!”

Nugent had disclosed that she claimed not to recognize the suspect’s name, but Crawford had wanted to gauge her truthfulness for himself. If she was lying, she was damn good at it. He didn’t detect any of the classic giveaways.

She was, however, raging mad, and, despite his chest-thumping of a few minutes ago, if she ordered him to leave, he would have to go.

“Okay then,” he said, “you didn’t know Rodriguez. So why’d he do it?”

Some of the starch went out of her. Wearily she shook her head, dislodging the hair that she’d hooked behind her ear. She took a deep breath, which shifted the topography under her t-shirt, making him aware of it.

“I have no idea,” she said softly. “I wish I did.”

Dragging himself back on track, he said, “According to Neal and Nugent, they questioned dozens of people, and nobody claims to have seen Rodriguez before he entered your court. Even without the mask, he would have been noticed roaming the courthouse dressed in painters’ overalls.”

She raised her hands at her sides to indicate that she was clueless.

He continued. “It’s reasonable to assume that he was familiar with the building. For starters, he knew there are no security cameras except at the entrances and exits. He also knew he could bring a pistol in with him.” Dryly he added, “I’ll bet the budget for heightened security will be approved now.”

“I was surprised when I moved here and learned that there wasn’t a metal screening at the entrance.”

“It’s always been voted down in favor of spending on something else.”

“Unfortunately for Chet.”

“Yeah.”

“Could he have been the intended target?” she asked.

“I seriously doubt it. I’ve known him since I was a kid. He was the first black deputy in this county. Did you know that?”

She shook her head.

“Spent most of his career serving as bailiff.” Reflecting on the man, he heard himself say, “He winked at me.”

“What?”

“I just now remembered. After swearing me in, as he was turning away, he gave me a little wink.”

She smiled. “That sounds like him. Although, strictly speaking, as a court official, he shouldn’t have been showing any partiality.”

“No. But it meant a lot to me.” They said nothing for several moments. Then, shaking off the melancholy that had settled over him, he said, “Anyway, I can’t imagine Chet Barker having an enemy in the world. I think he just got in the way.”

“Of me,” she said in a quiet voice. “You think I was the target, don’t you?”

Her doleful expression implored him for an honest answer, but he let his silence speak for him, and the logical conclusion noticeably upset her. She turned her head aside and pulled her lower lip through her teeth in obvious distress.

“Look,” he said, “it’s all conjecture at this point. Even if you were his target, for whatever twisted reason, he can’t hurt you now.”

“All the same, I would like to know what I did, or didn’t do, that made him want to kill me. What did I do to provoke payback that extreme?”

“Could be you had nothing to do with it.”

“You just said you thought I was the target.”

“No I didn’t.
You
did. But maybe Rodriguez, or whatever his name was, wasn’t motivated by you, the court, or anything that we can put a label on. Maybe he was just a head case whose hobby was killing small animals. It was only a matter of time before he graduated to human beings, and the courthouse made for good theater.”

“Especially the final act.”

“Especially the final act. He got the attention he sought. Which is why local politicians, the media, and the public will be asking questions, and the police will be scrambling to provide satisfactory answers. They’ll have to justify taking him out the way they did.”