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“That’s the way it usually works when you’re armed to the teeth and you don’t talk to us,” I said.
“Are they coming in after me? Are they going to shoot their way in?”
“Unless you talk to us.”
“Coming in here would be a mistake,” he said. “All you would find are bodies around the Christmas tree, mine included.”
“But you’ll talk to me?” I asked. “Help me try to figure out a way to avoid that?”
He didn’t reply, but he didn’t hang up either.
“Is Dr. Nicholson still alive?” I asked.
“Barry?” he shot back. “Sure, he’s alive. But he’s got a hell of a stomachache.”
“Let him go,” I said. “Let me come in there with another unarmed officer and get him.”
“No,” Fowler said. “I’m enjoying his suffering.”
“Then let someone else in there go. One of your children.”
Silence, and then he said, “A goodwill gesture, isn’t that what you said it would be?”
“That’s right.”
“Wish granted,” he said. “I’m sending out the only one in this house I really care about.”
Nu knocked on the wall, signaled me toward the van’s side window. I got up, saw the front door open. A black Labrador retriever with a red bow around its neck slunk out, and it startled and began to run away, its tail between its legs, when the door slammed shut.
CHAPTER
30
FOWLER WAS DEFINITELY TOYING WITH US, DEMONSTRATING THAT EVEN WHEN HE was in mortal danger, with threats from the snipers and SWAT assaulters all around him, he was the one who decided who lived, who died. I could have gone the anger route, called him on it, put more pressure on him, but something told me it would backfire.
“You love your dog, Fowler?” I asked.
“What kind of man doesn’t love his dog?” he replied sharply.
“A man who has a cat,” I said.
“Funny, Cross.”
“I appreciate you letting the dog go,” I said. “What’s the dog’s name?”
“Mindy,” Fowler said.
“We thank you for releasing Mindy, and I assure you she’ll be well cared for. But I need more, Fowler, if I’m going to keep these trained professionals from kicking down your door and trying to blow your head off before you can hurt anyone else.”
A long silence. “Like what?”
I looked over at Nu and McGoey and then said, “I want to come in again—with medical personnel. I want to take Barry out of there.”
Fowler began to scream, finally going rhino. We heard things breaking, and then he came back on the line. “I don’t care what you want! I want what I want! Barry’s going to die! Got that? He’s going to die for what he did to me! And so is my ex-wife. They took my life! Now I’m going to take theirs. I am going to kill them all.”
“I’m coming in, Henry,” I said. “Right now.”
But he’d hung up.
