Seth shook his head. “Return fire? Did he actually fire the gun, or did he only raise it?”
The muscle in Weaver’s jaw flexed, and he frowned at Seth. “I don’t know. Everything happened so fast. Are you saying that we acted too soon?”
“I’m saying that you knew I was on my way out of the bar, and all of you were well covered. Who fired the first shot?”
“There was so much happening at once, it was hard to tell where the shot came from.”
Seth frowned. “So you’re telling me you really don’t know what happened?”
The lieutenant’s face turned red, and he glared at Seth. “I’ll have you know—”
Before he could finish his sentence, another police car pulled up to the curb and Anthony Wilson climbed out. Callie breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he could calm the confrontation between Seth and the officer.
Anthony stepped up on the sidewalk and glanced down at the body. “What happened here?”
Before Seth could speak, Weaver blurted out his response. “I had my men out here on backup. When this guy ran out of the bar, Detective Dawtry notified us he was armed. We yelled for him to lay down his weapon, but he raised it instead, and my officers fired. Now the detective is blaming us for being too quick to react. I might expect this from the media, but not from a member of the force.”
Seth shook his head. “I’m not blaming him. I’m just frustrated.” Seth pointed to Carlos’s body. “This is the guy who tried to kill Dan. Now that he’s dead, we may never know who hired him.”
Anthony took a step so that he was almost between the two of them and held up a hand. “Blaming each other is not going to help any. We’ve all worked stakeouts enough to know that the unexpected can happen. I’m sorry this man’s dead, especially if he knew something about the attack on Dan. However, we can’t fight among ourselves. Let’s get this scene processed and the body out of here.”
Weaver bit down on his lip, gave a slight nod and glared at Seth once more before he turned and walked to where a group of officers stood. Anthony put a hand on Seth’s shoulder. “You’ve overreacted here, Seth. If you’d been outside, you might have done the same thing. Marty Weaver is a well-respected officer. He’s been honored several times for bravery beyond the call of duty, and you as much as called him incompetent tonight. I’m afraid your relationship with Dan is clouding your judgment.”
Seth shook his head. “No, it’s not, Anthony. I promise you, I’m thinking clearly. I just thought if we could bring Carlos in, we could find out who wanted to kill Dan.”
“We will find out, Seth, but not with this lead. You’ll have to find another one.” He looked over Seth’s shoulder and when he saw Callie, his eyes grew wide. “Callie, what are you doing here?”
Callie eased forward. “I thought I might be able to identify Carlos as the man who tried to kill Uncle Dan in the hospital.”
He turned a disbelieving stare on Seth. “You let her come on a police stakeout?”
Before he could answer, Callie rushed forward. “No, Anthony. It wasn’t that way at all. In fact, Seth told me not to come, but I came anyway. I got here before he did and was waiting inside when he arrived.”
“Do you know how dangerous that was, Callie?” Anthony asked. “How could I have ever faced Dan again if you’d been hurt?”