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.
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.