Friction (20 page)

He sped through the pair of stone columns at the entrance to the park and took the curving lane in a straight line, his accelerator mashed flat to the floorboard. When the parking lot adjacent to the playground came into view, he applied his full weight to his brake pedal, causing his SUV to skid the twenty feet. He rammed it into park and was out of it before it had shuddered to a complete stop.

He heard Georgia before he saw her. Her laughter was high and light, her giddy squeals piercing the heavy air. He rounded the trunk of one of the spreading live oaks and spotted her. She was standing on the merry-go-round, holding onto one of the T-bars, laughing as Grace spun her round and round.

Crawford fell back against the tree trunk and bent double, placing his hands on his knees, gasping for breath, tears of relief mingling with the stinging sweat that dripped into his eyes.

When he straightened up, he saw Joe Gilroy. He was leaning against his car where it was parked in the lane, his cell phone in his hand. He was watching Crawford. He smiled. “Thank you. I can now have you arrested.”

Crawford’s field of vision shrank to the size of a pinhead, and his father-in-law was at the center of it. He started forward in a measured but determined tread that must have signaled Joe to the rage that had turned his blood to lava. The older man straightened up and took a defensive stance.

Crawford charged across the remaining distance between them, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, spun him away from his car, and shoved him so hard he stumbled backward, landing hard in the gravel.

“You’ve done it now,” Joe growled. “You’re going to jail.”

“What kind of sick game are you playing, Joe?”

“Game? What are you talking about?”

“That video. Your cute little caption.”

“You’re crazy. I always said so. You’ve just proved it. I don’t know anything about a video.”

Crawford reached down for him, but one of the deputies who’d huffed up behind him, spoke his name in a cautionary tone. “Don’t do it, man, or we’ll be hauling you in.”

Crawford heeded him, but he never took his eyes off his father-in-law. “Give me your phone.”

“Go to hell.” Joe stood up and dusted off the seat of his pants. “I’m collecting Georgia and Grace and getting out of here and away from you.” Looking beyond Crawford, he said to the deputies. “What are you waiting for? I have a restraining order. Arrest him.”

“Sorry, Crawford,” one of them said. “Let’s go.”

Crawford didn’t move. Still fixed on Joe, he repeated, “Give. Me. Your. Phone.”

Joe glared at him with loathing and turned away. Crawford’s hand shot out and grabbed Joe’s arm. A struggle for possession of the cell phone ensued. The deputies scrambled to join in and, together, were able to pull Crawford away.

Neal’s car came to a halt only a few yards from where he and Joe were faced off while he continued to struggle against the deputies’ hold on him. Neal and Nugent got out on opposite sides. Another car pulled up behind Neal’s. Holly alighted from it. In his peripheral vision Crawford saw flashing lights, signaling the arrival of more squad cars, which he himself had summoned during his mad drive here.

“What the hell is going on?” Neal asked.

“He attacked me,” Joe said. “Arrest him.”

Crawford, breathing hard, said, “He texted me a video of Georgia because he knew it would get me here. See for yourself, and tell me what you would make of it.”

With a nod from Neal, the deputies let him go. He pitched his phone to Neal and gave him the security code.

Joe said, “I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.”

Neal pulled up the video text on Crawford’s phone and played it. “Doesn’t say who sent it. May I see your phone, Mr. Gilroy?”

Joe puffed out his chest. “If my word isn’t good enough for you—”

“Mr. Gilroy?” Holly wedged her way between Neal and Nugent and came to stand in front of Joe. Her voice was soft, controlled, that of a mediator. “If this is only a misunderstanding, why not defuse the situation before your granddaughter notices the police cars and becomes frightened?”

“If she’s frightened, it’ll be his fault, not mine.”

“Then you can take the higher ground.”

His eyes narrowed on her. “You’ve got nothing to do with this anymore. I’m beginning to wonder why you recused yourself. Has he won you over to his side?”

“I’m on Georgia’s side.” She let that resonate, then said, “Please?”

Joe’s eyes glinted with hostility and pride, but when Neal extended him his palm, he slapped his phone into it. “Your security code, please, Mr. Gilroy?” Neal accessed the text file and then checked his photo library. “It’s not on here.”

Holly, who’d also been watching the phone screen, looked up at Crawford and shook her head.

By now other policemen were converging on the group. Neal said to Nugent, “Tell them it was a false alarm. Send them away.”

“This
wasn’t
a false alarm,” Crawford said. “You saw the video.” Looking at Joe, he added, “He was on his phone when I got here. He could have deleted it.”

Joe ignored him and addressed Neal. “I didn’t shoot any video.”

“Somebody did.” Beside himself, Crawford plowed the fingers of both hands through his hair and held it back. “It was sent as a warning. If it wasn’t you…” Recalling the angle from which the video had been shot, he scanned the surrounding woods. “He would have been over there.”

He struck off, but one of the deputies pulled him back. “We got it, Crawford. You deal with this.” He and his partner hurried away.

Neal asked Joe, “How long have you been here?”

“Close to an hour. We’ve had the playground to ourselves the entire time. Until he arrived.” He gave a brusque tilt of his head in Crawford’s direction. “He was driving and behaving like a maniac. He attacked me. Do your job, Sergeant Lester, and lock him up.”

“
Daddy
!
”

Georgia’s glad cry stunned them all. They turned her see her running toward him, arms outstretched. Instinctually Crawford started toward her, but Neal stepped in front of him and planted his hand in the center of his chest. “Stop there.”

“Screw that.”

“If you go near her, I’ll have to arrest you.”

Crawford shoved Neal’s hand away. “No, you’ll have to shoot me.”

C
rawford pushed Neal aside and rushed to meet Georgia halfway. She tackled him around the knees. He lifted her up, his arms enclosing her tightly.

Her skin was hot and sticky from her recent exertions on the playground. He could feel her heart beating against his chest. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled her scent.

“Daddy, you’re squashing me.”

“I’m sorry.” He allowed her to lean back but kissed her rosy face several times, and his kisses were enthusiastically returned. He stroked a few ringlets away from her damp hairline. “Have you been having fun?”

Grace gave him wide berth as she hurried past them, moving in the direction of the others. Crawford didn’t care what was playing out behind him. Georgia was alive, untouched, unafraid, and that was all that mattered to him.

He carried her back to the merry-go-round, sat down on the metal disk, and held her on his lap as he idly pushed them around by digging his boot heels into the hard-packed groove encircling it.

While she chattered, he conducted an inventory of her parts and features to assure himself that all were intact and unharmed. He silently thanked God, whose existence he questioned but whom he strove to appease in exchange for Georgia’s safety, health, and longevity.

“Are you listening, Daddy?”

“To every word.”

“Who’s that lady?”

He turned to see Holly walking toward them. “Her name is Judge Spencer.”

“Like Judge Judy?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Nothing like Judge Judy.”

He stopped the slow spinning so she could join them on the merry-go-round. As she sat down next to him, she said under her breath, “I got you five minutes.” Then, “You must be Georgia. I’m Holly.”

She extended her hand. Timidly, Georgia shook it.

Crawford whispered near her ear. “What do you say?”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m pleased to meet you, too. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“You have?”

“Is it true that pink is your favorite color?”

Georgia’s initial shyness evaporated. Having someone new to talk with unleashed an unbroken stream of conversation. “Do you like the slide or the swings the best?” she asked Holly.

“Oh, the swings by far.”

“Me too. I like to go high. Daddy pushes me high, but I have to hold on real tight, so I won’t fly out like he did when he was little and knock out a tooth that wasn’t even loose. Show her, Daddy.”

He complied, pointing out one of his lower front teeth to Holly. For Georgia’s benefit, she inspected it solemnly. “That must have hurt.”

“It was a baby tooth,” Georgia informed her. “So one grew in its place, but you still gotta hold on tight to the ropes.”

“I’ll make sure I do.”

They let Georgia direct the conversation, and it was as flitting as a butterfly. Holly subtly nudged his elbow when their time ran out. The five minutes had passed far too quickly.

For Georgia, too. She didn’t take it well when he told her that it was time for them to leave. “Can we go get ice cream?”

“Not today, sweetheart.”

“Please. Holly can come, too. Won’t you, Holly?”

“I would love to, but I can’t today. Maybe some other time.”

Georgia was so disappointed, Crawford was afraid her whining would turn into crying, and, after today’s events, if he saw a single tear, he would never be able to let her go. Lifting her off his lap, he stood her up behind his back. “Climb on. I’ll carry you.”

Riding on his shoulders was always a treat. She gripped handfuls of his hair as he walked in an exaggerated stagger back to the parking area. She was giggling when he swung her down. Kneeling in front of her, he ran his hands over her arms as though to convince himself yet again that she was safe and sound. “Be a good girl.”

“I will.”

He couldn’t tell her when he would call, or when he would see her next, because he didn’t know when it would be. He never made her a promise he couldn’t keep. “Give me a kiss.”

She bussed him on the mouth, then he clutched her to him for as long as he dared before releasing her. “Go on now. Grandma and Grandpa are waiting.”

 “You’re quiet tonight. What’s the matter?”

Grace looked across the dinner table at her husband, then got up and carried her barely touched plate to the sink. “Just thinking.”

“About that business at the park? I could tell it upset you.”

“Georgia was so unhappy when we left.”

“She was fine until she saw him. Making people unhappy is his specialty.”

Grace turned away and began loading the dishwasher. “I don’t believe Judge Spencer would have intervened on his behalf if she’d thought Georgia would suffer any ill effects.”

“I think something shifty is going on between the two of them.”

Grace paused what she was doing and looked at him over her shoulder. “Shifty?”

“She went on TV and made him out to be a hero. Hours later she recused herself from his case. I think her objectivity has been compromised, all right, but not strictly because he saved her life.”

“You think there’s an attraction?”

“I hope the judge has better sense.”

“Our daughter didn’t.”

He scowled. “Beth couldn’t see past his appearance. But he showed his true colors today. By the time the rest of you saw him at the park, he had calmed down. When he arrived, he was rabid. Completely unhinged.”

“In his place, wouldn’t you have been?” Grace asked. “If you’d been sent a photograph or video of Beth with a caption like that, wouldn’t you have been completely unhinged until you knew she was safe?”

“It’s not the same.”

“How is it different?”

“I wouldn’t have attacked the first person I saw.”

Speaking under her breath, Grace said, “That’s another thing.”

“Pardon?”

She flung down her dishcloth and turned to him. “All these years we’ve known Crawford, the dislike between you two has been there from the get-go. You’ve had arguments, running arguments that lasted for months. Not once,” she said, holding up her index finger, “has a disagreement resulted in a fistfight.”

Joe left the table and joined her at the sink. “What’s your point?”

“It seems awfully coincidental that the first time Crawford has ever raised a hand to you, it happened within hours of your filing that restraining order.”

“Which he validated by laying into me.”

“But he never had before. There was no reason for you to file that restraining order, Joe.”

“From where I’m standing, there was. Have you forgotten that he came here two nights ago—”

“And you exchanged words. Heated words, yes, but your shouting was just as loud as his. He didn’t threaten you with bodily harm.”

“I got the restraining order for Georgia’s protection, not mine.”

“That’s crap. Pure crap.”

“Where’s this language coming from?”

“Crawford would never harm that child. You know that. I know you know that.”

Unused to her having an angry outburst, he rocked back on his heels. “Do you want him to have Georgia, to take her away from us?”

Grace sighed. “It would break my heart to lose her.”

“Then stop defending him. We’re in this fight to win.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and carried it with him as he left the room, saying as he went, “Leave everything to me. I know what I’m doing.”

Rather than reassuring her, that’s what worried her most.

Seeking solitude after leaving the park, Crawford drove out of town to one of his favorite spots. The natural lake was located deep in the woods, reached only by a narrow dirt road that petered out shy of the lake by thirty yards, which had to be covered on foot.

The isolated spot had been his haunt for twenty years. He’d discovered it shortly after moving back from California, where he’d lived with his mother and her new husband until he turned sixteen. Then he’d insisted on returning to Texas so he could attend and graduate high school in Prentiss with his original classmates and friends.

His mother and stepfather had put up very little resistance to the idea. He figured they were as glad to get rid of his churlish self as he was to go.

His mother’s sister had taken him in—because by then Conrad was well established as the town drunk, incapable of caring for himself, much less a teenager. As a means of trying to make up for her sister’s neglect, his single, childless aunt had lavished him with attention and affection until the day she died. By then he was an adult and appreciative of her kindness. But while living with her, he had daily tested the good-hearted lady’s patience by being not at all lovable. Along with typical teenage angst, he carried an additional chip on his shoulder. (The size of Rushmore, according to Holly.)

Because of his bad attitude, it had taken time to reestablish himself with his classmates, form new alliances, and acclimate to small-town life. Even after being accepted into the popular crowd, he remained defensive, rebellious, and angry.

On days when his mood turned particularly dark, he escaped to this spot and whiled away hours skipping stones, taking out his nameless frustration on the mirror surface of the lake. One day he threw rocks until his arm gave out from exhaustion. Sitting down on the muddy shoreline, he placed his head on his bent knees, and wept.

By the time he had cried himself out, he realized that he wasn’t angry at his aunt’s claustrophobic house and her cloying affection. It wasn’t his friends or coaches or schoolwork causing him to be persistently aggravated and annoyed.

He was angry at his parents.

Each had exed him off their to-do list, and they’d done so in permanent ink. His mother had her life, and it didn’t include him. His father had no life beyond his next drink. Crawford couldn’t fix or change the circumstances. This was a done deal. This was the hand he’d been dealt, and it was up to him how he played it.

He hadn’t buried his anger in the thick mud that day and left it there, forever forgotten. After all, real life wasn’t a fairy tale. His anger remained with him, as indelible as his palm print. But he had chosen and resolved that day not to let it destroy him.

The only time he’d violated that resolve was after Beth died, and he was still suffering the consequences of that lapse. He wouldn’t let it happen again.

He drove back to town and went straight to the courthouse, more determined than ever to get justice for Chet, even for Jorge Rodriguez, who also was a victim of a tragic chain of events perpetrated by someone.

Crawford wanted that someone. He wanted him bad.

Neal was seated at his desk. He looked up, saw Crawford, and said, “I suppose you got my voice mail.”

“No.” He sat down across from the detective. “What did it say?”

“I asked you to come in as soon as possible.”

“Sorry. I haven’t checked my phone for a while. Something come from the interviews?”

“Nothing.”

“How many more to go?”

“Done. Finished this afternoon.”

“No red flags?”

“Nope. All were folks as honest as the day is long.”

“Except the one who gunned down Chet.”

Neal looked chagrined, but didn’t say anything.

Crawford waited, then casually asked, “How’s your kid doing?”

Neal gave him a blank look, then, “Oh, he’s fine. Summer bug. Nothing serious.”

“Hmm.”

“You left the park in a hurry,” Neal said.

After sending Georgia to rejoin her grandparents, he had walked to his SUV, climbed in, and, without explaining himself or saying a word to anyone, he drove away. He raised one shoulder in a negligent shrug. “You didn’t shoot me. Nobody cuffed me, so I left. That video of Georgia scared the hell out of me. I needed some downtime.”

“Where’d you go?”

“My secret. Did the deputies turn up anything in the woods around the park?”

“No.”

Crawford hadn’t expected them to. “Lots of trees and brush to hide behind. Whoever shot the video could have come and gone without Grace and Joe seeing him.”

“Any idea who that might be?”

“If I knew, he’d be in the hospital. Or a coffin.”

“Comforting thought.”

“True, though. And it brings me to something I want to bounce off you.”

Crawford sat forward and propped his elbows on his thighs, tapping his chin with his thumb knuckles as he tried to put his thoughts into words, words that wouldn’t cause Neal to nix them just to be contrary.

“Our case is stalled, Neal. Something you said this morning has stuck with me. We’re digging in the wrong place. I’ve been thinking. Since the shooting, so many things have—”

“You’re off the case.”

Crawford went perfectly still as he met the other man’s implacable gaze.

“That’s why I called you to come in,” Neal said. “I needed to tell you. It’s effective immediately.”

Moving slowly, Crawford sat up straight. “When did this come about?”

Neal shook his head as though the timing of the decision didn’t matter. “You shouldn’t have been involved in an investigation in which you’re a material witness. The chief realizes that now. He’s going to talk to your superiors and explain that it was only as a courtesy to Mrs. Barker—”

“Who’s still a widow without closure. So why don’t you want me involved?”

“I just told you.”

“Rhetoric. What’s really going on, Neal?”

“I’m not compelled to explain the decision.”

“Not compelled. Translated, that means you don’t have the balls to tell me to my face. You’d rather be sneaky, put someone on my tail to take pictures.”

Neal cursed under his breath. “Nugent.”

“Don’t blame the kid. I didn’t give him a choice. Whose nephew is he, anyway?”

“One of the county commissioners,” Neal mumbled.

Crawford laughed without mirth. “I was asking facetiously. Nugent should get out now. He’s not cut out for this line of work.” He paused for a beat. “Why’d you have me tailed?”

Neal didn’t respond.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Crawford said. “You didn’t get any pictures of me doing incriminating stuff, did you?”

“I didn’t get any pictures of a vandal breaking into your house, either.”