Merry Christmas, Alex Cross Part 2

McGoey said, "That's when Fowler was real chatty about who he had in there and what kinds of guns and ammo he had."

"Keep talking to him," I said. "Leave messages. Every single time."

Ramiro nodded, gave the order to the others. I sat there listening for several moments, wis.h.i.+ng to G.o.d I had more information on Fowler. What had taken him from a life as a wealthy attorney to this desperate hour?

I'd no sooner asked myself that question when Ramiro waved his finger at me and McGoey, then hit a b.u.t.ton on his mobile. It was connected wirelessly to speakers inside the van. We heard a woman's m.u.f.fled voice, noises, and then a whimper. We held our breath and stared at the speakers as if they were video monitors.

"Mr. Fowler?" Ramiro began. "Thank you for-"

Gunshots exploded on the other end of the line.

The Christmas horror show had begun-or maybe it had just ended.

CHAPTER

6

DAMON STOOD ON TIPTOES ON A WOBBLY KITCHEN CHAIR. HE WAS SWEATING AND trying very hard to hook a delicate antique angel to the top of the Christmas tree.

"I'll get a stepladder, get up there myself," Nana Mama said.

"I don't need a stepladder and I'm certainly not letting my ninety-year-old great-grandmother use one," Damon shot back.

"You're just lazy," Nana Mama declared. "Your father raise you like that, or are you majoring in that subject at that fancy prep school you go to?"

Damon didn't know whether to be angry or start laughing at the fact that she was busting his chops like this. At last his fingers secured the angel to the tree with a piece of ancient white lace Nana Mama said had belonged to her grandmother.

"There," he said, jumping off the chair and looking at the old woman. "A little applause?"

"For what?" his great-grandmother asked.

"For getting the angel up there?"

"Oh, that," she said. "You'd have gotten me that stepladder, I'd have done it myself a lot quicker."

"And broken your hip," Bree said as she began packing up the ornaments and lights that had not made the tree this year. "Thank you, Damon. She looks beautiful up there."

Nana Mama sighed, said, "I don't understand why the top of the tree is always the last thing we decorate. It should be the first, so the angel can look down on us while we decorate the tree. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it?"

Damon didn't reply. No one replied. No one except Nana Mama had felt much like talking since Alex left.

But Nana just kept going. "Jannie, what do you think?" she asked.

"With all due respect, Nana," Jannie said, "I think that you think that if you keep talking, we'll forget Dad is out on a case and might get hurt on Christmas."

Nana walked to Jannie and hugged her tightly. "You are one smart girl, Jannie. Smart women run in this family."

Damon rolled his eyes. Bree smiled slightly, and Nana tried her hardest to snap back into her sensible self. She said, "That Alex. He's my fault. I admit it: I didn't raise that boy right. If I had, he'd never be foolish enough to go out on a nasty case on Christmas."

Again, n.o.body said a word.

Then Bree looked up from her packing and said, "Listen. It's pretty obvious that Alex won't be home for a while. Maybe quite a while. So let's just make the best of it. Merry Christmas to all."

Ava added, "And to all a good night."

Nana tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears. "Yes," she choked out. "A good night. Please, dear Lord, let it be a good night."

Damon melted, went to his great-grandmother, hugged her, and said, "It will be, Nana. I promise you, it will be."

CHAPTER

7

THE SOUNDS OF THE SIX RAPID-FIRE GUNSHOTS RANG IN MY SKULL.

Six hostages, I thought. Was it over? Were we looking for bodies? I thought. Was it over? Were we looking for bodies?

And then we heard the hysterical cries of children. "Daddy, no!"

They were quickly drowned out by an angry and ugly voice blaring over the speakers in the van: "I could have taken out every one of these sad excuses for humanity, each and every one of these sad pieces of s.h.i.+t. But I didn't. You know why? Because you don't unwrap your presents on Christmas Eve. You wait until the high holy day of consumerism to do that. Isn't that right? Well, not this time, folks! I just unwrapped them all!"

Fowler started laughing like a happy madman.

"Please, Daddy!" a girl's voice sobbed. Chloe Fowler.

"Please what?" Fowler snarled. "'Please don't shoot Barbie, Daddy? If you shoot Barbie, who will Ken love, Daddy?'"

A male voice was then heard. Dr. Nicholson. "You're terrifying her, Fowler. She's your own daughter."

"No!" Fowler snorted derisively. "Is that right, Barry? Barry? You know everything, don't you, You know everything, don't you, Barry? Barry? Mr. Optometrist-f.u.c.king cash-flow doctor of the year." Mr. Optometrist-f.u.c.king cash-flow doctor of the year."

A gun blasted. We heard gla.s.s breaking and more crying.

Fowler was shouting. "See that? See that, Mr. Optometrist? Shut the h.e.l.l up, Mr. Optometrist! Or you're going to look just like everything else under the Christmas tree." He began to sing: "'O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum!'"

"Mr. Fowler!" Ramiro yelled into his phone.

"'How lovely are thy branches!'" Fowler sang, and then he stopped. We heard footsteps. The phone was picked up.

Fowler whispered, "What did old Henry the magic man and his magic wand take out, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Anyone? Anyone?"

He paused. McGoey, Nu, and Ramiro glanced at me, confused. Before I could even think about how to interpret Fowler's ravings, he said, "Awww, let's see. A nice new iPad. Got it right in the apple...and here we have what used to be an Xbox Kinect. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, plaintiff should be thanking me, not suing me. Now my idiot sons will have more time for homework. And my ex-wife's Tiffany bauble? I mean, c'mon, have you ever seen such overpriced c.r.a.p? There ought to be a law against Tiffany and Nordstrom. I mean, look at that beautiful blue polo sweater of Barry's. Cashmere does not stop buckshot, now, does it, ladies and gentlemen?"

Fowler stopped talking. All we could hear was his rushed breath, and I wondered if he was on drugs or drinking or both.

"Hey, Mr. Fowler," Ramiro said calmly, carefully, almost softly-the way they teach you in the FBI courses about hostage negotiation.

"Who the h.e.l.l are you? you?" Fowler shot back.

"My name is Ramiro. I'm glad to hear that the people you've got in there are okay. That's good news."

Fowler exploded: "What are you, another whiny-a.s.s cop? another whiny-a.s.s cop? These people in here are These people in here are not not doing okay, Officer Whiny a.s.s. Once the sun rises and all the Cindy Lou Whos down in Whoville have sung their song, I'm going to blow their heads off once and for all." doing okay, Officer Whiny a.s.s. Once the sun rises and all the Cindy Lou Whos down in Whoville have sung their song, I'm going to blow their heads off once and for all."

The children began to cry again.

Ramiro glanced at me. I made a downward motion with my hands. Stay calm. Do everything calmly.

"I understand what you're saying, Mr. Fowler," Ramiro said. "How about we talk, work things out?" Good, Good, I thought. Calmly engage him. Establish common ground. I thought. Calmly engage him. Establish common ground.

"You some kind of hostage negotiator?" Fowler asked.

Ramiro hesitated. Not a good thing. He said, "I'm just a guy who wants to hear what you have to say, Mr. Fowler."

"Tell it to the jury, whiny a.s.s!" Fowler shouted. "I am never talking to you ever again. Ever. Ever."

Click.

CHAPTER

8

OUTSIDE, THE WIND BEGAN TO PICK UP, SLAs.h.i.+NG THE SNOW SIDEWAYS. THE lawn in front of the Nicholsons' house had disappeared beneath the three inches that had already fallen.

"How do we handle this guy, Alex?" Ramiro said. "He sounds psychotic."

"Or wasted on something stronger than pathological rage," I said.

Adam Nu was on the phone with Congressman Brandywine, a.s.suring him that as far as we knew, his wife was still alive among the hostages inside. I studied the notes I'd jotted down after Fowler hung up, trying to see some kind of pattern to his ravings.

He'd talked to us as if we were the jury and he were arguing his case in civil court. He admitted shooting the Christmas presents. He'd called his ex-wife's husband "Mr. Optometrist-f.u.c.king cash-flow doctor of the year." He clearly loathed Barry Nicholson. He clearly had deep-seated money resentment. Called Christmas the "high holy day of consumerism." Ranted about Tiffany. He had even referred to Cindy Lou Who and Whoville, from the Grinch story.

Was that how he saw himself, in some deluded way? As the Grinch? I tapped on the notebook and realized something. I hadn't heard the two women, had I? Maybe one there, right at the outset, before Fowler started shooting. But from that point onward, no women's voices at all. Were they dead?

No. He would have made a reference to shooting them. So they were there, but not talking. Why? So they didn't disturb- "Alex," McGoey said.

I looked up. The detective handed me a computer tablet, said, "Guys downtown just sent over the file on Henry Fowler."

Nu got off the phone with the congressman. The three of us used separate tablets to scan through the police reports, psychological evaluations, and clippings that Henry Fowler had generated on his way to a hostage standoff. I skipped his rap sheet for the moment, wanting to understand who he had been before all this. In some ways, it was like taking a walk with the Ghost of Christmas Past.

CHAPTER

9

FOWLER'S EARLY DAYS OVERFLOWED WITH PROMISE. BORN INTO A MIDDLE-CLa.s.s family of teachers, he'd attended New Trier High, apparently a good public school in the Chicago suburbs, then gone to Georgetown for his undergraduate degree, and Georgetown Law after that. The MPD had even managed to dig up Fowler's college yearbook photo. He had graduated third in his cla.s.s, and it sure didn't hurt that he looked like he could be Tom Brady's brother.

After law school, Fowler landed at Fulton Holt, one of the best white-shoe law firms in the nation's capital. Fowler quickly became well known. He had the perfect combination of traits for a civil defense lawyer: unrelenting stamina, cla.s.sical eloquence, and a killer att.i.tude.

There were fawning pieces on him in the Post Post and the and the Times. Times. Reading them, I realized that I had heard of the man. Years ago, nine hundred women had joined a cla.s.s-action suit against a national retail chain, charging the chain with noncompet.i.tive wages and workplace hara.s.sment. Reading them, I realized that I had heard of the man. Years ago, nine hundred women had joined a cla.s.s-action suit against a national retail chain, charging the chain with noncompet.i.tive wages and workplace hara.s.sment.

Bree and I had talked about the case on one of our first dates. Hardly romantic, I know, but my yet-to-be wife had followed the case almost obsessively because she'd worked at the company before entering the police academy. She believed the women had been unfairly treated because she herself had been unfairly treated at that job.

Fowler had represented the retail chain in the suit, however. And Fowler had won. But the articles all noted that Fowler's forte was not workplace law; he specialized in wrongful-death pharmaceutical cases.

Prior to the workplace lawsuit, he'd represented a California biotech company being sued by relatives of people who'd partic.i.p.ated in a trial of a new Huntington's disease drug and died shortly after treatment. Fowler had argued convincingly that the patients in question had been terminal at the time of the study, that they'd been hoping for miracles, and that his client could not be held liable for not delivering miracles.

Fowler went back to pharmaceutical litigation after the big workplace decision. He was hired to defend a member of Big Pharma against charges that its new hepat.i.tis A vaccine caused neurological damage in 10 percent of patients.

Fowler won again. The drug stayed on the market.