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it’s a fake. Fairly good one, but still phony.”
    “He was an illegal?”
    “We’re looking into it,” Lester replied. “But even if he was, that doesn’t mean he hadn’t wound up in your court sometime before today.”
    “It’s a possibility. I’ve only been on the bench for ten months, you know. But the docket has been full. I’ve presided over a lot of trials and hearings since my appointment.”
    “Maybe Rodriguez was a holdover from Judge Waters,” Lester suggested. “Held a grudge of some kind.”
    When her mentor, the Honorable Clifton Waters, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he had enticed her to resign from a law firm where she had practiced for several years, relocate to Prentiss, and apply for the bench he would be vacating.
    It had been a chancy career move, but she’d taken a leap of faith, and it had paid off. Acting on Waters’s recommendation, Governor Hutchins had appointed her. Judge Waters had lived long enough to see her sworn in. It had been a proud day for both of them.
    Nugent said, “We’ll send somebody over to your office tomorrow to look through court records, see if Rodriguez turns up.”
    “I’ll make sure Mrs. Briggs knows you’re coming and has everything ready.”
    “What about before you came here?”
    “I was with a law firm in Dallas.”
    Lester jotted the name down in a small spiral notebook he took from his shirt pocket. “We’ll ask them to run Rodriguez’s name through their files, too.”
    She gave him a contact name. “The firm will help any way they can, I’m sure.”
    Out of the corner of her eye she saw Crawford Hunt emerge from the men’s room. His hair was damp and had been pushed straight back off his forehead, as though he’d washed his face and then had run wet fingers through his hair. He seemed intent on walking past her again without speaking. She stepped into his path.
    “Mr. Hunt, may I have a word with you?”
    Neal Lester held up his hand, “Uh, judge…”
    “I won’t compare notes with him,” she said to the detective. “I wouldn’t interfere with your investigation or breech ethics by discussing his custody case. I just need to tell him…” Her breath caught as she turned and looked up into the other man’s face, which conveyed all the warmth of an ice carving. “Thank you for saving my life.”
    The flinty gray eyes registered surprise, but the involuntary reaction lasted for only a millisecond. “The guy was a lousy shot.”
    Emotion welled up in her throat. “He was accurate enough when he fired at Chet Barker.”
    The implacable eyes flickered again, and this time one corner of his mouth tensed. “At that range, he couldn’t have missed.”
    “He couldn’t have missed me, either, if you hadn’t done what you did.”
    “How do you remember it, Judge Spencer?”
    She turned to Neal Lester, who’d asked. “When I saw Chet fall, my first instinct was to run to him, but I froze when the man continued up the aisle toward me. The mask made his face look grotesque, terrifying. Mr. Hunt came over the railing and sort of tackled me.
    “I confess that the next few moments are a blur. The shots continued in rapid succession. I remember thinking that he would surely run out of bullets eventually, but I thought for certain that I would be killed before he did. His last shot must have gone into the ceiling. I’ve still got plaster dust in my hair.” She tipped her head down to show them.
    “The shot went wild when Crawford kicked him in the knee,” Nugent said.
    She looked at Crawford Hunt. “You kicked him?”
    “Reflex.”
    Absently she nodded. “The next thing I remember, you were patting down my back. I don’t remember what you said.”
    “I was feeling for blood. I asked if you’d been hit, you said you didn’t think so.”
    “Did I?”
    He gave a curt nod.
    She turned to the detectives. “Mr. Hunt pushed off me. But not before telling me to stay down.”
    “But you didn’t, did you?”
    She replied to