"And what proof do you have of that?" Phil cuts in, his voice edged with impatience. "I'm sorry to interrupt, Detective, but I am concerned that you are leaping to conclusions here. There is no way of telling that the bullet would have hit Mr. Brady. Even if there was, that doesn't prove he was a target. It may have been simply a random shot fired by a settler."
"The shooter was in a tree. That's a targeted attack."
"Perhaps because you were trespassing on territory the shooter considers his."
"So it was a complete coincidence that we were walking the prisoner in the forest when someone fired a shot from a tree--which has never happened before--and that bullet just happened to seem aimed at our prisoner. Presuming it was a random attack--"
"--is like seeing a grizzly barreling in your direction," Dalton says, "and standing your ground because there's a chance he's not actually charging at you."
"A colorful analogy, Sheriff," Phil says. "But I take your point. Obviously extra steps will be required to secure the prisoner."
"Like what?" Dalton says. "Keeping him locked up six months with no exercise?"
"I do not have an issue with that. Nor does his stepfather."
"Our residents will. They already think he's being mistreated."
"I'm sure you can handle that, Sheriff."
"I can. What I can't handle is the loss of respect they'll have for me--and Casey and Will--for a situation that is not our fault. We don't want Brady here."
"And did you take steps to rectify that?"
"Excuse me?" I say.
"Yeah," Dalton says. "We put one of our guys in that tree to shoot him. Stupid me forgot we planted the sniper and nearly got my ass killed trying to save the target. Whoops."
"What I mean, Sheriff, is that you might have let your dissatisfaction with the situation be known, and one of your citizens decided to relieve you of the responsibility. Are all your guns accounted for?"
"They're all in the locker," I say. Which is technically true.
"Then I don't know what to tell you, besides my suspicion that this was one of your forest people, and regardless of whether Mr. Brady was the target, you should reconsider walking him outside of town boundaries."
"On another subject," I say, "do you know anything about a shooting in San Jose?"
Silence. "A shooting . . ."
"In San Jose."
"There are many shootings in America these days, Detective. To the point, sadly, where they begin to blur."
"This was in a school playground, and the shooter is still at large."
"That does sound familiar. But I fail to see what . . . Are you suggesting that has something to do with this shooting?"
"Brady mentioned it."
"All right . . ." A long pause. "I'm still not seeing the connection. I seem to recall a sniper was involved in the playground incident, but I'm at a loss to even guess what the connection might be."
"I thought it was odd that he brought it up."
"Ah. What you're saying is that it's odd that he mentioned a sniper shooting . . . and then seems to be the target of one. You're wondering if Mr. Brady himself had something to do with the attempt this afternoon."
"Sure." That wasn't where I was going at all--I just wanted to verify that there had been a shooting in San Jose and see how Phil reacted to Brady mentioning it.
Phil continues, "You're asking whether Mr. Brady knew where he was going. Or if he might have been followed there by a confederate."
"Yes."