Part 10 (1/2)
38
THE ANGER BOILED AGAIN IN FOWLER, SETTING OFF A TWITCH AND A TIC THAT seemed to ripple through his entire body. ”You're off by twenty or thirty degrees, Cross.”
”Put us straight, then.”
He shot Diana a venomous look. ”Don't think you're you're not responsible, don't think that you won't be held accountable for what you've done.” not responsible, don't think that you won't be held accountable for what you've done.”
”Henry,” I said. ”Tell us the truth.”
Fowler said, ”I won the first suit fair and square. But afterward...a year after we won the suit involving the Huntington's drug, I came across data that I'd never seen before, and case files that had never made their way into the proceedings. There was sufficient evidence that the drug accelerated mortality.”
”But you never told anyone?”
”And tarnish my stellar reputation?” he asked caustically. ”Ruin the family fun? Decrease the speed with which my b.i.t.c.h of a wife was spending the fortune they were paying me? Two million that year. Two million!”
He looked at Diana like he wanted to throttle her. ”Every single day I'd come home and hear the gargantuan list of c.r.a.p she'd bought from this shop or that. Or from a catalog. Or off the Web. Or I'd hear about the cabinetmakers she'd had in. Or the granite-countertop guy. On and on and on!”
Fowler glared at me. ”I was trapped.”
”But it got worse when you began to represent the hepat.i.tis A vaccine manufacturer?”
He set his jaw and nodded. ”That case was almost like you described it, Cross. We were well into trial, and I get this report from an investigator I'd hired to find people who'd taken the hepat.i.tis A vaccine but who weren't part of the cla.s.s-action suit.”
”And?”
”It showed an anomaly among teenagers who'd had the vaccine,” he replied. ”They seemed to have suffered mild but permanent brain damage because of it.”
Diana gasped. ”And you didn't tell anybody?”
”And lose?” he screamed. ”I couldn't lose. You wouldn't let me lose. The kids wouldn't let me. The firm wouldn't let me. And then you start s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Barry, and the whole thing went to-” he screamed. ”I couldn't lose. You wouldn't let me lose. The kids wouldn't let me. The firm wouldn't let me. And then you start s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Barry, and the whole thing went to-”
He flipped off the shotgun's safety. ”Happy now, Cross? Ready to see the ultimate repercussions of my shredding that private investigator's report?”
CHAPTER
39
”WHAT DO YOU THINK KILLING EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM IS GOING TO DO FOR you, Henry?” I asked, glancing at a clock on the mantelpiece and seeing that it was a quarter past seven. ”Erase what you've done?”
”Among other things.”
I gestured at the phone on the floor. ”They've been listening.”
He swung the shotgun at me now. ”I really don't like you, Cross.”
”You can make it right, Henry,” I said.
”I'm going to h.e.l.l for what I've done. I've made my peace with that.”
”My grandmother's in her nineties, and she likes to say that every Christmas is a time for rebirth,” I said. ”I can tell you how you can do that, if you'll let me.”
His meth eyes hopped all over me. ”You trying to sell me some twelve-step program?”
I made a show of looking at Diana and Dr. Nicholson and the children and then said, ”I think you'll want to hear this alone, Henry. You can decide later whether to tell them. We'll go somewhere. The kitchen. Have a cup of coffee. I'll tell you what I think.”
”How stupid do you think I am?” Fowler asked. ”Yeah, we'll go talk, and then these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds'll take off.”
”Don't be crazy, Henry,” Diana said. ”I would never leave Barry.”
Sadness mixed with loss flickered across his face. Fowler looked at me, reached into his pocket, fed himself something again.
”You taking a visit to the OxyContinent?” I asked.
”So what if I am?”
”Let's go talk,” I said, thinking that it was good he was taking a narcotic.
Fowler blinked, then gestured toward the center hall. ”My den.”
I didn't want Fowler in the den, which was on the opposite side of the house. I wanted him in the kitchen, which was at the rear and overlooked a walled-in garden.
”I could really use some coffee.”
The narcotic was. .h.i.tting Fowler, taking the edge off his high anxiety.
”Sure. We aim to please,” he said, then he cracked up and poked me forward with the gun.
We walked to the living room entranceway. Fowler stopped there and spun around. He held his shotgun in the air. For a moment I thought he might fire at the ceiling again. Instead, he spoke to his family with quiet contempt. ”I swear to G.o.d, if any one of you moves, I will paint the walls with your blood.”