Merry Christmas, Alex Cross

CHAPTER 36

The phone rang again.

This time Fowler took it. “We’re fine!” he yelled and hung up. Then he looked at his children, who’d stopped singing.

“Again!” their father yelled. “Louder! It’s got to be heard way up the mountain in the Grinch’s cave!”

Fowler was really getting into it now; he’d launched into a second chorus when I stood up and shouted, “Counselor!”

The former civil defense attorney stopped and looked at me dumbly while his children’s terrified singing dwindled to sniffling.

“What?” he said. “Don’t like Dr. Seuss on Christmas morning, Cross?”

“I love Dr. Seuss on Christmas morning, or on any morning. It’s just time for a little cross-examination.”

For a moment there was indecision in Fowler’s face, then he set the rifle against the fireplace and said, “Sorry, trial’s over.”

“Call this an appeal, then,” I said.

“No appeals!” he shouted, reaching into his pocket and feeding something into his mouth. “There are no appeals in this courtroom.”

“But judgments can be overturned,” I said, moving toward him.

“There will be no stays of execution.”

I looked at him and said softly, “Was it the Huntington’s drug case…or the vaccine for hepatitis A?”