“You were here. You know.”
She took out the notebook and pen that Tom gave her. “I need to see it from your perspective.”
“I was walking the back of the store, keeping my eye on things, when I heard a car skid to a stop outside and someone yell, ‘He’s got a gun.’ I looked down the aisle and saw the guy going for the spirits section. So I went the same way.”
“Why did you do that?”
He seemed perplexed for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess I thought it was my job. Run towards danger, not away from it.”
That was true for cops, soldiers, and firefighters, but Eve didn’t think that was part of his training. It was more likely the concept of “flee, deny, defend.” His first priority should have been to get people out of the store. Failing that, it would be to prevent the gunman from reaching people by getting them behind locked doors or other obstacles. And, as a last resort, attack the gunman. Grayson started with the final option.
“Go on,” Eve said.
“I hid in the condiments aisle and waited to see what he’d do next . . . but, out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman go his way. It was you.”
“Did you see my gun?”
Grayson shook his head. “All I registered was that you were a woman. Then I heard him say, ‘Show yourself.’ I thought he was talking to me. But then I heard the woman, you, say, ‘Here I am,’ and I thought, ‘Oh shit, she’s crazy, she’s going to get killed,’ so I stepped out, saw him turning to shoot you, and I . . .” His voice trailed off and he dry-heaved into the garbage can. When he looked at her again, he had tears in his eyes. “I killed him.”
She thought about what Duncan told her, pocketed the notebook, and put her hand on his back to comfort him. “You also saved my life.”
“Really? You mean I’m not going to prison?”
“Definitely not. You were defending another person who was in mortal danger and I’m grateful.”
“But you had a gun,” he said. “You could have defended yourself.”
“You didn’t know that,” she said, patting his back to reassure him. “You did the right thing, Grayson. You should be proud of yourself.”
“I don’t see how I can ever be proud of this.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Eve left Grayson Mumford with Deputy Helm and the paramedics, sought out the store manager in the crowd outside, and brought her back in to get a look at the security camera footage of the incident.
The manager, a very thin woman in her fifties, wore her hair in a bun so tight, Eve wondered how she was able to blink.
“I saw you shopping with your husband the other day,” the manager said as she led Eve to the back room. “The typical Calabasas midlife crisis wife. I had no clue you were a police officer.”
“That was the idea. My partner and I were undercover.”
“The Reseda midlife crisis wife is the same age as you but shops at Brandy Melville, drives a Mustang, and is very proud of her pierced nipple. If you ever want to play that part, I can give you a picture of my ex-husband’s wife.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Next to the manager’s office was a windowless room that contained an ergonomic office chair, a desktop computer, and three large monitors, each showing about a dozen thumbnails of individual security camera views from inside and outside the store. The manager typed some commands on the keyboard.
“Here’s the playback from a few minutes before the crazy man came in. You can hit the space bar to stop and use the mouse to scrub back on any of the screens,” she said. “I can give you a link so you can stream or download this from your computer or I can copy it all to a thumb drive to take it with you.”
“The link will be fine,” Eve said and handed her a card with her email address and phone number.
The manager left the room and Eve let the footage play out, focusing her attention on Jack and Grayson from multiple angles. Jack went straight for the liquor section and Grayson’s actions followed the story he’d told Eve. She’d give the video a closer look later.
Eve took out her phone and contacted the day’s on-call judge to get telephonic warrants for the footage from the grocery store cameras and also from the Vista Grande gate. The manager had volunteered the footage, and Eve expected the Vista Grande homeowner’s association to be cooperative as well, so the warrants weren’t necessary to compel compliance. But that wasn’t why she wanted them. Her goal was to limit the opportunities for a defense attorney to get any evidence thrown out on a technicality.