Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

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.