Free Ricochet by Sandra Brown

it. I… I reacted instantaneously.”
    “You fired back.”
    She nodded.
    No one spoke for a time. Finally DeeDee said, “Your aim was exceptionally good, Mrs. Laird.”
    “Thank God,” the judge said.
    More quietly Elise said, “I got lucky.”
    Neither Duncan nor DeeDee said anything to that, although DeeDee glanced at him to see if he thought that shot could be attributed to luck.
    “What happened next, Mrs. Laird?”
    “I checked his body for a pulse.”
    Duncan remembered Baker saying that the victim’s muddy footprints had been smeared, probably by both the Lairds.
    “He fell backward, out of sight,” she said. “I was terrified, afraid that he was…”
    “Still alive?” DeeDee said.
    Again Elise appeared to take umbrage. “No, Detective Bowen,” she said testily. “I was afraid that he was
dead
. When I got up this morning, I didn’t plan on ending a man’s life tonight.”
    “I didn’t imply that you had.”
    The judge said brusquely, “That’s it, detectives. No more questions. She’s told you what you need to know. The law is clear on what constitutes self-defense. This intruder was inside our home, and he posed an imminent threat to Elise’s life. If he had survived, you’d be charging him with a list of felonies, including assault with a deadly weapon. Shooting him was justified, and I believe my wife is being inordinately generous by wishing he had survived.”
    Duncan leveled a hard look on him. “I remind you again, Judge, that this is my investigation. Think of it as my equivalent to your courtroom. I’ve extended you the courtesy of being present while I question Mrs. Laird, but if you insist on contributing another word without being asked to, you’ll be excused and I’ll conduct the interview with her alone.”
    The judge’s jaw turned rigid and his eyes glittered with resentment, but he gave a negligent wave of his hand. It wasn’t a gesture of concession. He made it appear he was granting Duncan permission to continue.
    Duncan turned his attention back to Elise. “You felt for a pulse?”
    She pulled her hand from her husband’s grasp, crossed her arms over her chest, and hugged herself. “I didn’t want to touch him. But I forced myself. I went into the room—”
    “Did you still have the pistol?”
    “I had dropped it. It was on the floor, there at the door.”
    “Okay,” Duncan said.
    “I went into the study and stepped around the desk. I knelt down, put my fingers here.”
    She touched her own throat approximately where her carotid would be. Duncan noticed that her fingers were very slender. They looked bloodless, cold. Whereas the skin of her throat…
    He yanked his eyes away from her neck and looked at the judge. “I overheard you telling Officer Crofton that when you reached the study, you found Elise slumped behind the desk.”
    “That’s correct. She was slumped in the desk chair. I thought… well, you can’t imagine the fear that gripped me. I thought she was dead. I rushed over to her. That’s when I saw the man on the floor. I’m not ashamed of the relief I felt at that moment.”
    “You had blood on your robe.”
    He shuddered with revulsion. “There was already a lot of blood on the carpet beneath him. My hem dipped into it when I bent over the body. I felt for a pulse. There wasn’t one.”
    “What were you doing at this point?”
    If DeeDee hadn’t asked that of Elise, Duncan would have. He’d been watching her out the corner of his eye. She’d been listening raptly to her husband’s account. If he’d said anything contradictory to what she’d experienced, she hadn’t shown it.
    “I was… I wasn’t doing anything. Just sitting there in the chair. I was numb.”
    Too numb to cry. He remembered her eyes being dry, with no sign of weeping. She hadn’t shed a tear, but at least she hadn’t lied about it.
    The judge said, “Elise was in shock. I probably remember more at this point than she does. May I speak?”
    Duncan realized