Merry Christmas, Alex Cross Read online

  “Wouldn’t hurt to understand your side of things,” I said.

  Fowler squatted by the glass coffee table, tapped white powder onto it, and started laying the powder out in lines with a hotel-room key card. “I suppose that’s a reasonable request, but I’m going to have to get my head on straight to tell that story.”

  He rolled up a dollar bill and snorted two of the five lines. Shuddering, he closed his eyes, then he shivered and said, “Now, that’s more like it.”

  “How long have you been up, Henry?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m seeing things clear and for what they are, Cross. So I’ll tell you what you want to know about me going off the deep end.”

  “Okay,” I said, noticing the slight tremor that was visible in his fingers. If he had been shooting and snorting meth for more than, say, thirty-six hours, the rhino could be paying us a visit at any moment.

  “So it’s Christmas not that many years ago,” Fowler began. “And we’re home. We’re happy. We hold a party the afternoon of Christmas Eve. It’s been a big-money year for me, and Diana’s spared no expense. Catered. The whole nine yards. And I don’t know why, but it was one of those years when people stayed in DC for the holidays. Nearly everyone we knew came. Even Barry, an old friend from Georgetown, who arrived dressed as Santa Claus. Even dear Melissa and her husband, Congressman Brandywine, made an appearance. Anyway, about an hour into the festivities, I’m working the room. A potential client asks for a business card and I go to my office. Door’s locked. I knock. No one answers.”

  Fowler paused, snorted two more lines, then got to his feet and shrugged. “Locked door. It happens. I’ll get it open later. But anyway, long story short, I go back to the party, apologize to my potential client, and promise to contact him after the New Year. I get a drink. I’m looking around. The party’s right at its peak. I get this weird feeling. So I go out the back door and around to the bulkhead below my office window. I look in and what do I see?”

  Fowler walked over to stand by Dr. Nicholson. Then he booted the man hard in the ribs. Over the doctor’s groaning, Fowler said, “This one’s sitting in my Georgetown law school rocking chair. Dear Diana, my lovely wife of many years, is kneeling before him, and—” He broke into song. “‘I saw Mommy sucking Santa Claus, underneath the mistletoe so bright!’”

  CHAPTER

  22

  DIANA HAD TURNED BEET RED AND WOULD NOT MEET MY EYES. DR. NICHOLSON was still crunched up after the kick to his ribs.

  “Says a lot, that you loved her so much that seeing her with another man would crush you like that,” I told Fowler. “But is that true?”

  Fowler looked at me with instant hatred. “You calling me a liar, Cross?” He pointed to his wife. “I didn’t confront her. I wanted to know how deep this went, whether he was a fling or something more. Turns out she was fucking the eyeglass maker like he was the featured artist in the stud-of-the-month club. Can you believe it? She was pissing away our marriage with a guy who makes a living by saying, ‘Now, can you read the next line? What about the line under that?’”

  He glared at his ex-wife and Barry, and I feared he’d start kicking them again, or worse. Fowler shook the pistol at Dr. Nicholson and said to me, “They had a standing reservation for a room at the Four Seasons, where they’d screw their brains out and stick me with the tab.” Fowler’s face had turned bright red. He paced the room, nervously scratching his arms and chest.

  “Are you beginning to understand what happened here, Cross? What drove me to debase myself? Do you see who the victim is now?”

  I said nothing. I just looked at Fowler and tried to seem objective. There would be no stopping his rant. He pointed to Melissa Brandywine.

  “Now, you may be wondering who this lucky holiday guest is. Well, show Mr. Cross your pretty face, Missy. I said show him your face.” He grabbed her by the chin and squeezed hard.

  She cried out. “Henry, please.”

  “C’mon, Missy, show the big phony smile that helped get your husband elected to Congress. While you’re at it, show him your net-worth statement, and Cross will understand why your husband really got elected to Congress.”

  The congressman’s wife turned her head toward me. She looked sad, broken, and embarrassed, and I had to wonder why.

  “Dear Mrs. Brandywine,” Fowler said. “The publicity expert. The woman behind all those White House luncheons and all those embassy receptions. You know who else she is?”

  “Henry, please don’t,” Melissa Brandywine said.

  “Nonsense,” Fowler said. “It’s time to lay all our cards on the table. Not even dear Diana knows this, but after discovering that my wife was a whore, I got drunk and decided I deserved a whore. And who better to turn to than the wife of a man whore? She’d made overtures before. I just decided to take her up on it. Little secret? She likes a finger up the—”

  Diana screamed, “The children! Henry! Your children, for God’s sake! Why can’t you stop this? Why can’t you move on? Why do you have to destroy everything around you? Just let it go.”

  To my astonishment, Fowler did not explode. He just stood there looking like he’d come to in the middle of a sleepwalk. Everything was suddenly quiet in the room, so eerily quiet that I thought I could hear snowflakes against the windows behind the thick curtains.

  Fowler walked quickly to a sofa that faced the hostages. He sat down, waved the gun slowly at them, and said as if in a trance, “I want to let it go, Diana, but it won’t let me go.”

  He looked at me. “Ever feel like that, Cross? That something just won’t let you go?”

  I flashed on the dark shadow fleeing the scene as my first wife lay dying in my arms. “Sure.”

  “Then you’ll understand that it’s time for you to go,” he said. “The trial’s over. All have been found guilty, and I’ve got a penalty phase to prepare for.”

  CHAPTER

  23

  “DON’T DO THIS,” I SAID. “NO MATTER WHAT TRUST MAY HAVE BEEN BROKEN. No matter what was done to you, Fowler, this is not the way to deal with it.”

  His eyes flashed. “That’s not for you to decide. Now, get out before I start thinking it’s a good idea to finish you off too. Go back to that family you love, Cross. And pity mine.”

  I could see by the flat quality of his expression and eyes that I did not have much room to negotiate. Standing slowly, I said, “I appreciate your side of things, Henry.”

  “And I appreciate you listening, Mr. Foreman,” Fowler said.

  “Can I take one of them with me?” I asked, motioning toward his hostages. “A gesture of goodwill?”

  “Leave.”

  “Show me you’re willing to compromise,” I said, backing out of the room. “Otherwise you limit my options, Henry. You force my hand, make me inclined to take harsher measures.”

  “I don’t care, Cross,” he said. “Threats work only on men who are scared for their lives, and I lost mine a long, long time ago.”

  “Henry—”

  He pointed the pistol at me. “Leave or you die right now.”

  “I can’t believe you want to kill them,” I said.

  “You don’t, huh?” he said, and marched up to Dr. Nicholson, who cowered as if he expected to be kicked again.

  Fowler glared at me with an I-told-you-so expression, extended his arm, looked back at his ex-wife’s husband, aimed the gun, and shot him.

  CHAPTER

  24

  NICHOLSON BUCKED, AND THEN HE SAGGED, AND HIS BRIGHT HOLIDAY SWEATER turned into a sponge for the blood seeping out of him. With the gunshot still ringing in my ears, I grabbed a sofa throw pillow and moved straight at Nicholson. His wife beat me to him.

  “Barry!” she screamed. “Barry?”

  I went to my knees, tried to lift his sweater and shirt to see the extent of his injuries.

  “Get the hell away from him, Diana!” Fowler yelled. “Don’t you dare help him. You never helped me when I was hurting.”
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  Diana screeched, “You filthy, insane animal!”

  Jeremy, Chloe, and Trey were sobbing. Melissa Brandywine was up on her hands and knees dry-heaving.

  I was still trying to see the wound.

  There’s no such thing as a good bullet wound, but a gut wound is particularly bad. It can kill in a few minutes or a few hours. A bullet might rupture the colon, for example, or the liver. Fecal matter could splatter in the system and cause a bacterial infection that won’t stop. Bones could shatter into the kidneys, into the spleen, causing a swifter death. In any case, we had to believe the man was a mess inside and needed a doctor now.

  “I said to get the hell away from him!” Fowler shouted again. “I mean it!”

  I thought it would be a matter of seconds before he put a bullet into Diana, or me, or both of us. Then she stood up, her eyes blazing. “Go ahead, then!” she shrieked. “It’s what you want, Henry. Go ahead and kill me. But let the rest of them go. Let Cross take Barry and the children and Melissa out of here, and then you can do to me whatever it is you think I deserve.”

  “No,” Fowler said. “Barry’s not going anywhere. And neither are you.”

  She pivoted and crouched beside me. “What can we do?”

  I could see the entry wound now. It was to the far right of the navel, close to the side of Nicholson’s torso. That was good news and made me wonder whether Fowler’s point-blank shot had been intentionally bad.

  But then I rolled the eye doctor onto his side, saw that the exit wound was draining blood. A puddle of it already stained the carpet.

  I rammed the sofa pillow against the wound, took off my belt, and strapped it in place. “You’ve got to get some alcohol into the wound,” I said.

  “Get out, Cross!” Fowler screamed. “Now, or you’ll never see Christmas morning or your family again.”

  I felt the gun barrel against the back of my head. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Tears dribbled down Diana’s cheeks. “I am too.”

  I got up, took one last glance around so I could describe the room and everyone’s position in it, then turned and walked to the front door. Fowler followed me, about ten feet behind. I unlocked the door and started to open it, wondering whether Fowler intended to shoot me in the back of the head as I left.

  CHAPTER

  25

  I STEPPED OUT INTO BRILLIANT, BLINDING LIGHT AND JUMPED WHEN FOWLER slammed the door after me. I stood there a moment, hands on my thighs, trying to get control of my breathing, trying to focus on something other than the wounded doctor and the five other hostages I’d left inside with a madman.

  “Alex!” I heard Adam Nu yell. “Move!”

  I snapped to alertness and started through the snow, toward the lights. Shortly before midnight, it had been a little above my ankles. Nearly two hours later, the snow was well up my shins and falling faster than I’d ever seen in Washington, two, maybe three inches an hour. Rocky Mountain rates.

  The farther I got from the house, the more satellite trucks I could see. This was clearly the media event of a slow news day. But, hey, what was Christmas without a hostage crisis? It was a tradition, just like the mandatory car bomb in Bethlehem.

  There were also folks from the neighborhood out, which surprised me. There were even some kids. Shouldn’t they all be sleeping? Several folks had camera phones held high above their heads. They clicked. They texted. They Tweeted.

  But it was the MPD people who blew me away. There must have been fifty rank-and-file officers now at the scene. They held pistols and four-foot-high shields, and they waited for me. I thought I heard something behind me, but I did not turn. A voice from the crowd called, “Merry Christmas, Detective!”; it was followed by a smattering of applause and a few whistles.

  Then I heard a woman’s voice—coming from close behind me.

  “Mr. Cross,” she said. “Detective, please wait.”

  I spun around. The congressman’s wife was staggering through the snow toward me in her stocking feet, sad, stunned, still shaking like a leaf. She was carrying a shovel. I went to her, lifted her out of the snow, and carried her through the line of policemen in riot gear.

  “What’s with the shovel?” I asked as I handed her over to a pair of EMTs inside the shelter behind the police vans.

  She looked at me in bewilderment. “He said it was for you. That you were to keep the front walk clear of snow if you wanted to see any more of the hostages alive.” Then she began to cry. “Mr. Cross?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Brandywine?”

  She shivered beneath the blanket the EMTs had wrapped her in and wouldn’t meet my gaze but said, “You won’t be repeating…the things he said?”

  “No, ma’am,” I replied. “I’m not in the habit of quoting madmen.”

  The congressman’s wife nodded, her lower lip trembling. “Thank you.”

  “It’s got to be a decent Christmas for someone. It might as well be you.”

  Book Two

  THE YULETIDE MERRY

  CHAPTER

  26

  “WELL, LOOK WHO GOT OUT IN ONE PIECE,” SAID ADAM NU, WHO CAME IN from the storm as the medics moved Mrs. Brandywine to an ambulance. Then Nu gave me a quick hug, which wasn’t like him at all.

  I let out a breath. “Yeah, it wasn’t a lot of fun. But if I don’t get some hot coffee and food, I’m going to be useless.”

  One of Nu’s men got me a ham sandwich and a steaming Styrofoam cup of French roast, a holiday feast that I wolfed down as I stood by the gas heater. Then I asked, “What did you hear over the phone?”

  “Some of it,” McGoey said. “When he was yelling or singing or you were talking. Guy’s a barking lunatic.”

  “He is, but I don’t see him executing the family,” I said.

  “You said he shot Nicholson,” Nu said.

  “He did,” I replied. “But not to kill. He was at point-blank range. He could easily have made a shot that was guaranteed to turn Nicholson’s lights out.”

  “Maybe he wants him to suffer,” Nu said.

  “Or doesn’t believe himself a killer deep down,” I replied. “He did let Mrs. Brandywine go, and it could be an indicator of his willingness to negotiate an ending to this without further bloodshed.”

  “Sorry to spoil the holiday,” McGoey said. “But you’ve got Fowler all wrong, Alex.”

  “How’s that?” I asked, annoyed that he was trying to tell me about a man he’d never met.

  He got out his cell phone and said, “Remember before you went in, we talked about the skank meth addict Fowler lived with?”

  “Patty something,” I said.

  “Patty Paradise, aka Patricia Kocot,” McGoey said. “I had someone go to her crib, see if she’d be willing to come down and talk some sense into her boy.”

  “And?”

  The detective got a laptop and showed me the most recent picture of Patty Paradise. She was naked, slumped in a bathtub. She had two bullet holes in her forehead, and split skin and angry bruising along her forearms and shins, clear indications she’d been electrocuted before being shot.

  CHAPTER

  27

  AS NU AND HIS MEN PREPARED AN ASSAULT PLAN BASED ON WHAT I’D TOLD them about the layout of the house and the position of the hostages, Ramiro and other officers began calling the Nicholson residence again, trying to make a connection with Henry Fowler once more.

  Despite the coffee and the food, I was suddenly exhausted. I told McGoey I was going to catch a catnap but to wake me if Fowler answered. The van was equipped with two bunks that folded down off the wall. I grabbed a blanket, lay down, and closed my eyes.

  I’ve always been one of those people who can fall asleep at a moment’s notice. It’s a skill that’s handy when you’re involved with this kind of drawn-out fiasco. But that night I couldn’t fall asleep. Not at first, at least.

  My brain kept replaying what Fowler had said and done; I tried to use what he’d told me to connect the man he had been with the animal he was now.<
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  I don’t believe him, I thought as I finally drifted off to sleep. There’s something going on here that we’re not seeing.

  CHAPTER

  28

  NOBODY AT THE CROSSES’ GETS UP EARLIER THAN NANA. NOT EVEN ON Christmas.

  That morning she rose at a quarter to five.

  First thing she did was dial up the thermostat in the house and “put up the coffee,” as she liked to say. Then she turned on the lights on the tree, brought a big CVS shopping bag into the living room, and got started on the stockings. Filling the stockings was her job. She enjoyed it immensely. And everybody seemed to like the candy and the dollar-store goodies as much as the pricier shirts and sweaters and books and electronic games.

  Nana doled out the tiny plastic puzzles and Hershey bars and ballpoint pens. As always, each of the stocking gifts had a double meaning. She gave Bree a disposable lighter; it was Nana’s way of telling her that she knew Bree sneaked an occasional cigarette.

  The old woman put a bottle of OPI nail polish in Ava’s stocking, thinking it might inspire the girl to stop biting her nails.

  She dropped iPod earbuds into Damon’s stocking. A bright red hair clip went into Jannie’s. And the one-handed flosser was for Alex.

  “Alex,” she said softly. She looked out the front window. It was still coming down and snow was piled more than a foot high on the cars. But there was no sign of her grandson.

  “My, my,” she heard someone say. “Santa’s helpers get younger and prettier every year.”

  Nana turned around and saw Bree standing at the edge of the living room. They hugged and wished each other a merry Christmas, both of them knowing it wasn’t all that merry without Alex in the house.

  “Did you get any sleep?” Nana asked.

  “Not a wink.”

  “Makes two of us,” Nana said. “Terrible knot in my stomach all night.”