Now, according to the brief story on page three of the paper, based on a
single technical error in police procedures, Cooper’s attorney had won a
dismissal of all charges against him. The article included a
one-sentence summary of the accident and a silly reference to Hatch as
“holding the record for being dead the longest time prior to a full
resuscitation,” as if he had arranged the entire ordeal with the hope of
winning a place in the next edition of the Guiness Book of World Records
Other revelations in the piece made Hatch curse out loud and sit up
straight in bed, starting with the news that Cooper was going to sue his
employer for wrongful termination and expected to get his old job back
or, failing that, a substantial financial settlement. “I have suffered
considerable humiliation at the hands of my former employer, subsequent
to which I developed a serious stress-related health condition,” Cooper
had told reporters, obviously disgorging an attorney-written statement
that he had memorized. “Yet even Mr. Harrison has written to tell me
that he holds me blameless for the events of that night.”
Anger propelled Hatch off the bed and onto his feet. His face felt
flushed, and he was shaking uncontrollably.
Ludicrous. The drunken bastard was trying to get his job back by using
Hatch’s compassionate note as an endorsement, which required a complete
misrepresentation of what Hatch had actually written. It was deceptive.
It was unconscionable.
“Of all the fucking nerve!” Hatch said fiercely between clenched teeth.
Dropping most of the newspaper at his feet, crumpling the page with the
story in his right hand, he hurried out of the bedroom and descended the
stairs two at a time. In the den, he threw the paper on the desk,
banged open a sliding closet door, and jerked out the top drawer on a
three-drawer filing cabinet.
He had saved Cooper’s handwritten letters, and although they were not on
printed stationery, he knew the trucker had included not only a return
address but a phone number on both pieces of correspondence. He was so
disturbed, he flicked past the correct file folder-labeled MIlls and
cursed softly but fluently when he couldn’t find it, then searched
backward and pulled it out. As he pawed through the contents, other
letters slipped out of the folder and clattered to the floor at his
feet.
Cooper’s second letter had a telephone number carefully hand-printed at
the top. Hatch put the disarranged file folder on the cabinet and
hurried to the phone on the desk. His hand was shaking so badly that he
couldn’t read the number, so he put the letter on the blotter, in the
cone of light from the brass desk lamp.
He punched William Cooper’s number, intent on telling him off. The line
was busy.
He jammed his thumb down on the disconnect button, got the dial tone,
and tried again. Still busy.
“Sonofabitch!” He slammed down the receiver, but snatched it up again
because there was nothing else he could do to let off steam. He tried
the number a third time, using the redial button. It was still busy, of
course, because no more than half a minute had passed since the first
time he had tried it. He smashed the handset into the cradle so hard he
might have broken the phone.
On one level he was startled by the savagery of the act, the
childishness of it. But that part of him was not in control, and the
mere awareness that he was over the top did not help him regain a grip
on himself.
“Hatch?”
He looked up in surprise at the sound of his name and saw Lindsey, in
her bathrobe, standing in the doorway between the den and the foyer.
Frowning, she said, “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his fury growing irrationally, as if she were
somehow in league with Cooper, as if she were only pretending to be
unaware of this latest turn of events. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong.
They let this Cooper bastard off the hook! The son of a bitch kills me,
runs me off the goddamned road and kill me, then slips off the hook and