Kristina Haring, Jim’s receptionist, sat on the edge of the lobby’s fountain, too distraught to feel the cold spray hitting the back of her neck.
“I’m dizzy,” she told the plainclothes officer. “It’s like I’m fighting for every breath.”
“Just take it nice and easy, ma’am,” the officer instructed. “The incident is over. You’re safe now.”
“The incident?” she repeated. “Forgetting your wallet at the supermarket is an incident. A shootout at work is…I don’t know what it is.”
The officer pressed on.
“How many shots did you hear?” he asked.
She shut her eyes, tried again to suck in a deep breath.
“First there were two,” she said. “I ducked down behind my desk. Then I don’t know how many I heard. They came one on top of the other. I must have run. I don’t even remember how I got down here.”
“Have you talked to Mr. Hood since?”
“No. I assumed…I figured he was…”
“Did you know he kept a gun in his office?”
“I had no idea. This is last thing I ever expected. Jim’s clients are all…”
“Rich?”
“Upstanding. And it’s not like this is a cash business. I just can’t imagine why anyone would target Jim. The man’s been through so much.”
“How would you describe Mr. Hood?” the officer asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Does he have a temper? Have you ever seen him blow up at someone? At you?”
“My god, no. I can’t even imagine it. He’s the most even-keeled person I’ve ever met. There are times I wish he’d show a little more emotion.”
“Are you saying he’s cold?”
“No, I’m not saying that. But he’s always in control of himself. At least at work he is.”
“And you weren’t able to hear any of their conversation before the shooting started?”
“No, but there couldn’t have been much talk. He’d only been in there a minute. Maybe not even.”
* * *
“Have you had any other contact with Mr. Beauchamp since the trial?” Detective Kyle Davis, a fifteen-year veteran of Homicide, asked Jim.
“No, none,” Jim said.
“Not even by phone?” Detective Paul Greene, Davis’s rookie partner, asked.
Jim shook his head. They were standing in the hall outside his office while forensics pored over the crime scene. Jim’s eyes were red around the rims, and he seemed to be marching in place, as though his body had become one long twitch.
“And he had no feud with your family?” Davis asked.
“I’m telling you, I never saw him before today.”
“So he just showed up here with a gun after he’d been acquitted of murdering your wife?” Greene asked.
“My god,” Jim said, as though he hadn’t heard the question, “I killed a man.”
He pressed his back against a wall, struck himself hard in the forehead with an open palm, and kept hitting himself until Davis grabbed his wrists.
“Why don’t you take time to gather yourself?” Davis said. “Go home and lie down for a bit. We’ll talk later.”
“All right,” Jim said, blinking furiously and staring at the floor. “I guess I’ll do that.”
“I can have someone drive you if you want,” Davis offered.
“No, I’ll be okay,” Jim said.
The detectives watched him scuffle off toward the elevator. Greene, puzzled, turned to Davis.
“You bought that performance?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Davis said.
“Shouldn’t we keep pressing him? Isn’t he more likely to slip up now, before he’s had time to think?”
“Maybe, but you can’t catch someone in a lie if you don’t know the truth. Let’s gather the facts before we do anything else.”
Greene followed Davis into Jim’s office. There were lab techs bustling about, dusting the walls and furniture, gathering fibers from the carpet. The detectives stood over Beauchamp, examining his wounds, taking notes on the position of his body.
“I guess it could be self-defense,” Greene said.
“How do you figure?” Davis asked.
“Beauchamp pulls a gun, but Hood is faster,” Greene began. “He fires twice from behind his desk. Beauchamp staggers but doesn’t go down. He’s a big guy. He raises his gun again. Hood fires and keeps firing until Beauchamp falls.”
“It’s a possibility,” Davis said. “Just not a very likely one.”
“Why not?”
“Two reasons. First, Beauchamp, the career criminal who’s almost definitely killed before, is the one who walks into the room and pulls a gun, but he doesn’t get off a single shot? While Hood, the real estate geek with no priors, manages to empty his weapon? Doesn’t smell right.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“What’s your second reason?”
“In all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never seen a gunshot victim fall straight back without having his weapon knocked from his hand.”
“Beauchamp is a big man.”
“I’ve seen them all sizes. Beauchamp would be the first, and I’m suspicious of firsts.”
Greene thought it over.
“Okay,” he said, “so maybe self-defense is a reach.”
“A pretty far reach,” Davis agreed. “But that doesn’t make the case a slam dunk. There were two people in this room, and only one knows what really happened. And he’s about to hire some very expensive lawyers.”