Might need your assistance...
Thus, read the text message Jo received from Raylan that morning. Of course he did. Since returning to Kentucky, he hadn't acted like anything more than another manchild she had the privilege of babysitting.
Mentally preparing herself for the hurricane of issues her brother probably had in store, Jo quickly sent a return message.
I'm heading up.
Raylan and Art were locked away in the Chief's office when she entered. Strolling past the row of Marshal's desks lining the wall, she shot a quick wink and grin in Tim's direction before knocking on Art's door.
Waving her in, Art continued his speech to the unruly subordinate before him. "What if he'd had somebody with him?"
"He didn't," Raylan reassured.
"Well, what if he did? What would you have done?" Art pressed again.
Closing the door gently behind her, Jo looked between the two Marshal's and asked, "what's going on here?"
"Raylan's got an interview with the AUSA later today. We're going over what he's gonna say," Art informed the newcomer.
After explaining the situation, the two men resumed their discussion. "What do you think I would have done?" Raylan questioned Art in return.
"Well, I don't know, Raylan. I don't understand you," Art informed his growingly agitated deputy.
"I don't think there's a living soul who does," Jo mocked and they both huffed indignantly at her interruption.
"If there was someone at the table, Art, I wouldn't have sat down," Raylan attempted to defend his actions. However, that was precisely the sort of statement which would get him into hot water with Vasquez.
Pointing his finger at Raylan accusingly, Art argued, "meaning that you were planning to shoot him before you sat down. See what I'm trying to say? This is a spirit-of-the-law, letter-of-the-law type of thing. Sure, the guy pulls on you first, you've got no choice to put him down, which is fine. Unless it looks like you maneuvered him into giving you no choice."
Finally, interjecting herself into the conversation properly, Jo agreed. "Art's right, Raylan. What you would have done is a reality that doesn't exist; you need to stick with the facts. What actually happened needs to matter more than your motivations behind approaching Bucks."
Grasping onto their rationale, Raylan reasoned, "you want me to tell Vasquez I don't think in what-ifs."
Art began pacing the office as he proceeded. "Yes. Don't let him bait you into speculating, because then you'll let your smart mouth talk you into a jackpot. This guy, Vasquez, he may be all right, but just don't give him any more than you have to. Just let Bucks' history as a maggot and the fact that all these people saw him go for his piece do your talking for you."
Jo was going to inform the two that Vasquez was anything but alright and that Raylan's gunslinger attitude would undoubtedly get him in trouble with the AUSA, but the words died on her lips as a commotion broke out on the other side of the glass walls.
Turning towards the source, she witnessed Tim leap out of his chair, gun trained on something across the room. Raylan and Art quickly drew their own weapons before storming out the office, leaving Jo alone watching the events unfold.
"He's got one guard down. He's got a shiv on the other," she heard Tim briefing from the safety of Art's lumpy couch. Man, this Marshal's office was just a thrill a minute, she concluded.
Everyone switched into crisis management mode after that, and Jo found herself being escorted out the double doors by an agent she wasn't familiar with just as David Vasquez was entering.
"What's going on here?" He questioned upon seeing a room full of Marshal's with their guns at the ready.
"Seems they've got a hostage situation," she revealed before adding, "I'll be back for Raylan's interview once this is all over." Then, she was deposited out into the hallway and away from the action.
Jo had hung around the courthouse, waiting for the issue to resolve itself. The resolution took longer than she would have anticipated, given Raylan's penchant for shooting criminals on sight, but, apparently, the drama reached its conclusion without any blood being shed. Hot fried chicken works wonders, or so it seemed.
After receiving the all-clear, Jo entered Art Mullen's office for the second time that day. The Chief was standing by his desk, while Raylan and David Vasquez sat at opposite ends of the sofa. Each man held a plastic cup filled with a shot of Jim Beam in their hand.
"Y'all started the party without me, I see," she teased from her position in the doorway. Leaning over, she relinquished Raylan of his glass of bourbon before draining the remaining contents herself.
Her brother looked peeved but made no comment. "Hey, when's our time-out up?"
Both
Art and David considered his question before the latter settled on, "you know what? We don't have to do this today."
Art jumped on the suggestion. "Not a bad idea. Why don't you take a rain check?"
However, Raylan was quick to counter the generous offer. "Just as soon get to it. You know, get it over with. Besides, Jo's already here." The frustrated look Art shot Raylan at his insistence was anything but subtle.
Shrugging his shoulders in surrender, David agreed, "no, no, that's fine. Okay. Let me get my briefcase."
As he left the room to retrieve said briefcase, Art went about shutting the blinds, offering the illusion of privacy for their approaching interview. "Well, I got to say it. I owe you one on this one. I mean, this could've gone a whole other way. A violent hostage situation inside the Marshals' Office? Let's just say it could've been a real black eye. You managed to end this so quietly, I don't even think it's gonna make the papers," Art confessed.
Lifting himself off the couch in favor of occupying a seat across from Art's desk, Raylan joked, "my sole purpose, my guiding principle, was to protect your reputation." Both Art and Jo chuckled at the assertion.
"And I appreciate it," Art exclaimed while shutting both office doors. "Now, remember. No what-ifs, no would-haves, just-"
Raylan interrupted his lecture, "just the facts, ma'am."
"Yeah, and if you're not sure, then keep your mouth shut," Jo contributed.
When David reentered the office, he situated himself behind Art's desk and began recording. "Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens, initial post-shooting interview. Also present, Chief Deputy Art Mullen, and attorney Jolene Taylor." Everything was normal, routine even, until Vasquez's first question dropped. "Deputy Givens, how would you characterize your relationship with Ava Crowder?"
"Don't answer that," Jo immediately commanded. "That's not relevant to the shooting of Tommy Bucks." David paid her no mind, though, as he began throwing down photos of Ava and Raylan in various compromising positions.
Art and Raylan leaned forward in their seats to appraise the photos, a look of horror overtaking each of their features. "Where'd you get those?" Raylan probed.
However, David brushed his inquiry off with a simple, "does it matter?"
"One of your meetings today with Bo Crowder and his lawyer?" Raylan pressed further, Art was decidedly silent in the seat next to him. "Whatever's going on with Ava and I, a jury's gonna take our word over Boyd's."
Jo placed a hand on Raylan's shoulder in an effort to quell his rapidly rising indignation. "They won't take your word if it has been compromised," she mumbled, seeing exactly where David was heading with this interview, and knowing it wasn't anywhere pleasant.
"Ms. Taylor is right. Do you honestly not see what Boyd Crowder's attorney's gonna put together from these? I'll tell you the story. The day before you ride back into town, Ava Crowder decides to ventilate her husband with a hunting rifle, okay? A few days after that, she stands by, holding a Marshal's Service shotgun...I believe that that's right. While you shoot Boyd Crowder in the very same house in the same room, on the same goddamn chair where his brother died. He will strongly suggest you began your relationship before your reassignment." Raylan audibly tsked at the notion, but Vasquez powered forward regardless. "No, he will, and you know what that means? We're gonna have to release Boyd Crowder."
"Release him?"
"What?" Raylan and Art exclaimed at the same time.
"Yes, yes, because I don't have evidence that links him to any of the bank robberies. And the witness that we had from the church bombing failed to identify him. So now what?"
Art was rubbing his balding head in unease when he suggested, "so you get one of his guys to flip on the banks."
David merely chuckled at the recommendation. "Considering the life expectancy of a federal inmate who snitches on an Aryan Underground leader, I wouldn't hold my breath, Chief. Which means the only viable charges that we have against him are the kidnapping of Ava Crowder, and the attempted murder of a federal officer. Good charges, good charges, except that they're both predicated upon the testimony of Ms. Crowder and yourself. And now that you both have been compromised as witnesses, who's to say that Boyd Crowder didn't go to his sister-in-law's house that night for anything other than fried chicken?"
"What happens now?" Art voiced for the trio.
"What happens now?" David repeated while he began collecting the papers and depositing them back in his briefcase. "Boyd Crowder pleads to a minor gun charge, gets sentenced to time served, and he walks. And we pray that he doesn't decide to sue."
Each face in the room held an exasperated look as David started to make his exit. Halting in the doorway, the AUSA made one final observation, "you want my advice? Just stay the hell away from Boyd Crowder. Stay away from her, too." And then he was gone.
Snapping his head towards Jo, Raylan interrogated, "can he really do that? Just let Boyd Crowder go?"
She had no good answers to offer him, so she settled on, "I think he just did."