CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lucy hit the concrete hard. Having a two hundred pound marshal on top of her didn’t make it any softer, but, as she realized after a long moment, she was alive. Covered with blood and brains of the woman who had tried to help her, but alive. Blood ran off her and trickled onto the terrace.
She gasped, trying to push the marshal off to see if her friends had been shot too. The avid reporters, the protesters, everyone had run for cover. Police, Maryland police, sheriffs, state, federal, there were scores of cops scrambling up the steps to the terrace and running into the courthouse. Sirens in the distance.
“Okay,” she finally heard someone say, “there’s no one in the building. You can let her up.”
The marshal got off and Lucy sat up. Larry ambled slowly over to them from the side somewhere. Josh was standing frozen watching paramedics bundling Jane Larson onto a stretcher, but clearly there was nothing they could do. The beautiful, soulful, champion of the underdog probably died instantly. The three of them stood there looking at her corpse.
“I killed her,’ Lucy said. “If I hadn’t . . .”
A Maryland policeman standing behind them said, “it would have been you, Ms. Atreides. That bullet was aimed at you. It was just the crazy coincidence that you turned her around at that moment. We found the gun inside the courthouse. The gunman was already in the courthouse waiting when you came out. How he got a gun into the courthouse,” the police captain continued, “I don’t know. Someone is sure after you, young lady.”
“Can we go home?” Lucy asked Larry. “I am so,” she stuttered, “I need to wash myself.” She felt oddly calm.
“You’re the lawyer, right?” Captain Smith said to Larry. “I’m going to put one of my men in your car and we’ll drive Lucy. Does she live with you?”
“Yes.”
He jerked his head toward her and a nice looking young policewoman came over and took her arm.
“You’ll have guards until we get more info on this. What’s your address? I’ll send officers there right now. Do you have family there? Then I have to meet the press,” he said ironically looking at the reporters madly chattering at their cameramen about the shooting. “Ah, here comes the governor’s body man. Hi, Ed.” “Captain Smith,” the governor’s personal lawyer responded. “I’ve just gotten off the phone with the Governor.” He glanced significantly at the others within earshot. “OK counselor,” the police captain said. He turned to Larry.
“I’m going to come talk to you and your client here. Maybe you saw something that will help us figure out who did this. And now if you’ll excuse me . . . ”
Larry, Josh, Lucy and the policewoman all got into Larry’s car. Another police car followed them home.