Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

CHAPTER 10

“Where are you seeing that?” I asked Nu. “Divorce records?”

“That’s sealed,” the SWAT lieutenant said. “But have you looked at the rap sheet yet, Alex? This guy doesn’t hit the skids slow. He walks right off a cliff.”

I went back, found the sheet, opened it, and quickly saw what Nu was talking about. About a year before his wife filed for divorce, Fowler was arrested on a drunk-driving charge. Prior to that, he’d never been in trouble with the law. That changed in a big way over the course of the next six months.

During that time he was charged with two more DUIs and lost his license. That didn’t stop him. He was spotted buying drugs in Anacostia at one point; stopped and arrested with meth and black-tar heroin in his possession at another. A month after that, he was arrested on charges of beating a hooker; he’d done it while wasted, blaming her for who he’d become.

At least seven times, Metro police were called to the Fowler residence by neighbors complaining of domestic disturbances. Nine months into his radical new behavior, Fowler lost his job, voted out by his partners. Two months after that, Fowler’s wife changed the locks on the house, got a restraining order barring him from contact with her or her children, and filed for divorce.

That action had only driven Fowler further away from his former self. Not a month went by without something interesting to report about the counselor. Charges of attempting to intimidate a witness in his divorce trial. Charges of child abuse by his wife. Illegal possession of firearms.

The night his divorce became final, Fowler broke into a former friend’s house and stole whatever he could lay his hands on. He was arrested and spent ninety days in jail, his first real stretch, but not his last.

His ex-wife announced her intention to wed Dr. Barry Nicholson, an old friend of the family, and a week later, Fowler showed up at the optometrist’s office high on a handful of substances and carrying a knife. He threatened Nicholson and terrorized the staff at the doctor’s office for almost an hour before being arrested and subdued.

Nicholson had refused to press charges, stating that he believed Fowler was mentally ill and that his radical change in behavior was the result of something organic rather than environmental. The court ordered Fowler held for a psychiatric review, but nothing conclusive was found and he was ultimately released.

Next, Fowler tried to disrupt his ex-wife’s wedding. Guards caught him and escorted him out, but he could be heard shouting that Barry Nicholson was doomed and that his ex-wife was doomed. Since then, Fowler’s life had turned even more squalid and desperate.

To support his habit, Fowler tried to become a drug dealer. He was not successful and lived on the street for a while, the usual elegant lodgings-dumpsters, abandoned houses, public restrooms. Then a third-rate hooker who called herself Patty Paradise took him in. Patty was a pathetic druggie herself, afflicted with the shakes, rotted teeth, HIV, the whole catalog of problems that accompany meth addiction.

Fowler had recently spent four months in jail in Montgomery County, Maryland, on burglary charges.

“He got out the day after Thanksgiving,” McGoey observed. “Which gave him a solid twenty-eight days to get ready for this.”

“Unless he was preparing before that,” I said, rubbing my temple. “As an old boss of mine used to say, ‘There’s no rest for the wicked and no snooze button on the human time bomb.’”