Ricochet by Sandra Brown Page A

certain that Trotter fired first?”
    “Of course she’s certain.”
    “I asked
her
, Judge.”
    “My wife has been through a terrible ordeal.”
    “And I’ve got a job to do,” Duncan fired back. “That involves asking her some tough questions. If you haven’t got the stomach for it, Judge, you can leave.”
    Elise held up her hand, stopping the judge from saying whatever he was about to say in response to Duncan’s angry put-down. “Please, Cato. I want to answer their questions. I don’t want there to be any doubt as to what happened.” She had addressed her husband by name, but DeeDee noticed that her green gaze didn’t waver from Duncan’s face, nor his from hers.
    “As I told you last night,” she said, “when I accidentally switched on the foyer light—”
    “Excuse me. Do you mind talking us through it where it happened?”
    “In the study?”
    “If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition.”
    “It will be very difficult for Elise to go into that room until it’s been cleaned, rid of all reminders of what happened in it,” the judge said.
    “I realize it won’t be easy,” Duncan said. But he didn’t withdraw the request.
    The judge looked at his wife. “Elise?”
    “I want to help in any way I can.”
    The four of them made their way into the foyer. Duncan approached the fancy console table. Beneath the marble top was a slender drawer that ran the width of the table. “You took the pistol from this drawer?”
    “Yes, I came out of the butler’s pantry through that door,” she replied, pointing. “I paused there a moment. I didn’t hear anything, but, as I told you last night, I sensed a presence in the study. I went to the table to get the pistol.”
    Duncan fingered one of the drawer pulls. “Did you make any noise?”
    “I don’t think so. I tried not to.”
    “Did you close the drawer?”
    “I… I don’t remember,” she said, faltering. “I don’t believe I did.”
    “She didn’t,” the judge said. “It was open when the first two policemen arrived in response to the 911. I remember pointing it out to them.”
    DeeDee made a mental note to read the report filed by Officers Beale and Crofton.
    Duncan resumed. “You walked from the table to the door of the study.”
    “Yes.”
    “Were you wearing slippers?”
    “I was barefoot.”
    “Do you think Trotter heard you approaching?” Duncan asked. “Or did he have no inkling you were there and aware of him until the light came on?”
    “If he’d heard me coming toward the study, why didn’t he just scramble out the window?”
    “That was going to be my next question,” Duncan said with a guileless smile.
    “Then I must have startled him by switching on the light,” Elise said. “When it came on, he froze.”
    “This is the switch plate?” Duncan flipped one switch, and the overhead light in the study came on. The other turned on a fixture in the foyer directly above their heads. He looked up at the light, then into the study. “DeeDee, would you play Trotter? Go stand behind the desk.”
    She peeled away the crime scene tape that formed an X in the open doorway, then went into the study and took a position behind the desk.
    Duncan said, “Is that about where he was standing?”
    Elise replied with a slight nod.
    “What was he doing, Mrs. Laird?”
    “Nothing. Only standing there looking at me. Staring, like a deer caught in headlights.”
    “Was he leaning over the desk, like he’d been trying to jimmy the lock on the drawer?”
    “It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. Maybe he was bending over the desk drawer, I don’t know. The first mental picture I have of him is his standing there behind the desk, looking at me, motionless.”
    “Huh.” Duncan looked toward DeeDee behind the desk as though imagining Gary Ray Trotter. “And what was it he said?” He came back around to Elise.
    She didn’t flinch and she didn’t hesitate. “He didn’t say anything,