It was as if they didn't hear a word I'd said. “Detective, our sources say it was your decision to pay the ransom in the first place,” someone suggested.
“Why do you come here and camp out on my lawn?” I said to that bullshit. “Why do you come here and scare my family? Disrupt this neighborhood? I don't care what you print about me, but I will tell you this: you don't have a clue as to what the hell is going on. You could be endangering the Dunne girl.”
“Is Maggie Rose Dunne alive?” someone shouted.
I turned away and went back inside the house. That would teach them, right. Now they understood all about respecting people's privacy.
“Hey, Peanut Butter Man. Wuz up?”
A crowd of a different sort recognized me a little later that morning. Men and women were lined up three deep on 12th Street in front of St. Anthony's Church. They were hungry and cold, and none of them had Nikons or Leicas hung around their necks.
“Hey, Peanut Butter Man, I seen you on the TV. You a movie star now?” I heard someone call out. “Hell, yeah. Can't you tell?”
For the past few years, Sampson and I have been ing the soup kitchen at St. A's. We do it two or days a week. I started there because of Maria, who had done some of her casework through the parish. I kept on after her death for the most selfish of reasons: the work made me feel good. Sampson welcomes folks for lunch at the front door. He takes the numbered ticket they're given when they get on line. He's also a deterrent to people acting up.
I'm the physical deterrent inside the dinner hall. I'm called the Peanut Butter Man. Jimmy Moore, who runs the kitchen, believes in the nutritional power of peanut butter. Along with a full meal that usually consists of rolls, two vegetables, a meat or fish stew, and dessert, anyone who wants it gets a cup of peanut butter. Every day.
“Hey, Peanut Butter Man. You got some good peanut butter for us today? You got Skippy or that Peter Pan shit?”
I grinned at familiar, hangdog faces in the crowd. My nose filled with the familiar smells of body odor, bad breath, stale liquor. “Don't know exactly what's on the menu today.”
The regulars know Sampson and me. Most of them also know we're police. Some of them know I'm a shrink, since I do counseling outside ' the kitchen, in a prefab trailer that says, “The Lord helps them what helps themselves. Come on the hell in.”
Jimmy Moore runs an efficient, beautiful,place. He claims it's the largest soup kitchen in the East, and we'll do an average of over eleven hundred meals a day. The kitchen starts serving at ten-fifteen, and lunch is over by twelve-thirty. That means if you get there at exactly one minute past twelve-thirty, you go hungry that day. Discipline, be it ever so humble, is a big part of St. A's program.
No one is admitted drunk or too obviously high. You're expected to behave during your meal. You get about ten minutes to eat-other people are cold and hungry waiting on the long line outside. Everyone is treated with dignity and respect. No questions are asked of any of the guests. If you wait on line, you get fed. You're addressed as either Sir or Ms., and the mostly volunteer staff is trained to be upbeat. “Smile checks” are actually done on the new volunteers working the serving line or the dining room.
Around noon there was a major disturbance outside. I could hear Sampson shouting. Something was going down.
People on the soup line were shouting and cursing loudly. Then I heard Sampson call for help. “Alex! Come on out here!”
I ran outside and immediately saw what was going down. My fists were clenched into tight, hard anvils. The press had found us again. They had found me.
A couple of squin-elly news cameramen were filming folks on the soup-kitchen line, and that's very unpopular-understandably. These people were trying to keep the last of their self-respect, and they didn't want to be seen on TV standing on a soup line for a handout,
Jimmy Moore is a tough, rude Irishman who used to work on the D.C. police force with us. He was already outside, and it was Jimmy, actually, who was making most of the noise. “You cocksucking, motherfucking sons-of-bitches! uddenly found myself yelling. ”You're not invited ! You're not fucking welcome! Leave these people alone. Let us serve our lunch in peace."
The photographers stopped shooting their pictures. They stared at me. So did Sampson. And Jimmy Moore. And most everybody on the soup line. The press didn't leave, but they backed away. Most of them crossed 12th Street, and I knew they would wait for me to come out.
We were serving people their lunch, I thought to myself as I watched the reporters and photographers waiting for me in a park across the street. Who the hell did the press serve these days other than the wealthy business conglomerates and families they all worked for?
Angry rumblings were starting up around us. "People are hungry and cold. Let's eat. People got a right to someone yelled from the line. eat, I went back inside to my post. We started to serve lunch. I was the Peanut Butter Man.
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 29
N THE CITY OF WILMINGTON, DELAWARE, Gary Murphy was shoveling away four inches of snow. It was Wednesday afternoon, the sixth of January. He was thinking about the kidnapping. He was trying to keep under control. He was thinking about the little rich bitch Maggie Rose Dunne, when a shiny blue Cadillac pulled up alongside his small Colonial-style house on Central Avenue. Gary cursed under the breath streaming from his mouth.
Six-year-old Roni, Gary's daughter, was making snowhalls, setting them out on the icy crust that topped the snow. She squealed when she saw her uncle Marty climbing out of his car.
“Who's that boot-i-ful little girl?” Uncle Marty called across the yard to Roni. “Is that a movie star? It is! I think so. Is that Ron-eee? I think it is!”
"Uncle Marty! Uncle Marty! @' Roni screamed as she ran toward the car.
Every time Gary saw Marty Kasajian, he thought of
161 the really putrid movie Uncle Buck. In Uncle Buck, John Candy was an unlikable, unwelcome, unlikely relative who kept showing up to torture a whitebread midwestern family. It was an obnoxious flick. Uncle Marty Kasajian was rich and successful; and louder than John Candy; and he was here. Gary despised Missy's big brother for all of those reasons, but most of all because Marty was his boss.
Missy must have heard Marty's commotion. How could anyone on Central Avenue or nearby North Street miss it? She came out of the back door with a dish towel still wrapped around one hand.
“Look who's here!” Missy squealed. She and Roni sounded like identical piglets to Gary.
Quelfucking surprise, Gary felt like yelling. He held it all in-the way he held in all of his true feelings at home. He imagined beating Marty to death with his snow shovel, actually murdering Kasajian in front of Missy and Roni. Show them who the man of the house really was.
“The Divine Miss M! ” Marty Kasajian continued to motorrnouth a mile a minute. He finally acknowledged Gary. “Hiya doin', Gar, old buddy. How 'bout those Eagles? Randall the C's on fire. Got your Super Bowl tickets lined up?”
"Sure thing, Marty. Two tickets on the fifty-yard line.
Gary Murphy tossed his aluminum shovel into a low bank of snow. He trudged over to where Missy and Roni were standing with Uncle Marty.
Then they all went inside the house together. Miss y brought out expensive eggnog, and pieces of fresh apple-raisin pie with hunks of cheddar on the side. Marty's piece was bigger than all the others. He was The Man, right?
Marty handed an envelope to Missy. It was Missy's 4'allowance" from her big brother, which he wanted Gary to see. Really rub salt in the wounds that way.
“Mommy, Uncle Marty, and Daddy have to talk for a coupla minutes, sweetheart,” Marty Kasajian said to Roni as soon as he finished his piece of pie. “I think I forgot something for you out in my car. I dunno. Could be on the backseat. You better go look.”
“Put your coat on first, honey,” Missy said to her daughter. “Don't catch cold.”
Roni laughed-squeaked as she hugged her uncle. Then she hurried away.
Marty shrugged as if he couldn't remember. With everybody else, Missy was okay. She reminded Gary of his real morn. She even looked like his real morn. It was only with her brother, Gary had noticed, that she changed for the worse. She even started picking up Marty's obnoxious habits and speech cadences.
“Listen, kids.” Marty hunched in closer to the two of them. “We have a little problema. Treatable, because we're catching it early, but something we have to deal with. Pretend like we're all adults, y'know.”
Missy was instantly on guard. “What is it, Marty? What's the problem?”
Marty Kasajian looked genuinely concerned and uncomfortable now. Gary had seen him use this hangdog look a thousand times with his customers. Especially when he had to confront somebody on an overdue bill, or fire somebody in the office. “Gar?” He looked at Gary for help with this. “You want to say something here?”
Gary shrugged. As if he didn't have clue one, right. Fuck you, asshole, he was thinking to himself. You're on your own this time.
Gary could feel a smile spreading, coming all the way up from his stomach. He didn't want it to show, but it finally broke across his lips. This was kind of a delectable moment. Getting caught had its own subtle rewards. Might be a lesson here; something to go to school on.
“Sorry. I don't think this is funny.” Marty Kasajian shook his head and said, “I really don't, Gary.”
“Well, I don't either,” Gary said in a funny voice. It was high-pitched and boyish. Not really his voice.
Missy gave him a strange look. “What is going on?” she demanded. "Will you two please let me in on this )I Gary looked at his wife. He was really angry at her, too. She was part of the trap and she knew it.
“My sales record with Atlantic really stinks this quarter,” Gary finally said, and shrugged. “Is that it, Marty?”
Marty frowned and looked down at his new Timberland boots. “Oh, it's more than that, Gar. Your sales record is almost nonexistent. What's worse, what's a lot worse, is that you have over thirty-three hundred dollars in advances outstanding. You're in the red, Gary. You're minus. I don't want to say much more, or I know I'll regret it. I honestly don't know how to address this situation. This is very difficult for me. Embarrassing. I'm so sorry, Missy. I hate this.”
Missy covered her face with both hands, and she began to cry. She cried quietly at first, not wanting to cry. Then the sobs became louder. Tears came into her brother's eyes.
“That's what I didn't want. I'm sorry, Sis.” Marty was the one to reach out and comfort her.
“I'm all right. ” Missy pulled away from her brother. She stared across the breakfast table at Gary. Her eyes seemed small and darker.
“Where have you been all of these months on the road, Gary? What have you been doing? Oh, Gary, Gary, sometimes I feet like I don't even know you. Say soi-nething to make this a little better. Please say something, Gary.”
Gary thought about it carefully before he said a word. Then he said, 111 love you so much, Missy. I love you and Roni more than I love my life itself."
Gary lied, and he knew it was a pretty good one. Extremely well told, well acted.
What he wanted to do was to laugh in their goddamn faces. What he wanted to do most Was to kill all of them. That was the ticket to punch. Boom. Boom. Boom. Multiple-homicide time in Wilmington. Get his master plan rolling again.
Just then, Roni came running back inside the house. A new movie cassette was clutched in her hands, and she was smiling like a Balloonhead.
“Look what Uncle Marty brought me.”
Gary held his head in both hands. He couldn't stop the screaming inside his brain. I want to be Somebody
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 30
IFE AND DEATH went on in Southeast. Sampson and I were back on the Sanders and Turner murder cases. Not surprisingly, little progress had been made in solving the six homicides. Not surprisingly, nobody cared.
On Sunday, January 10, I knew it was time for a day of rest, my first day off-duty since the kidnapping had occurred. I started off the morning feeling a touch sony for myself, hanging in bed until around ten and nursing a bad head, the result of carousing with Sampson the night before. Most everything running through my head was nonproductive.
I was missing Maria like the plague for one thing remembering how fine it had been when the two of us slept in late on a Sunday morning. I was still angry about how I'd been made a scapegoat down South. More important, I felt like shit that none of us had been able to help Maggie Rose Dunne. Early in the case, I'd drawn
166 a parallel between the Dunne girl and my own kids. Every time I thought of her, probably dead now, my stomach involuntarily clenched up-which is not a good thing, especially on the morning after a night on the town.
I was mulling over staying in the sack until about six. Lose a whole day. I deserved it. I didn't want to see Nana and hear her guff about where I was the night before. I didn't even want to see my kids that particular morning.
I kept going back to Maria. Once upon a time, in another lifetime, she and 1, and usually the kids, used to spend all of our Sundays together. Sometimes, we'd hang out in bed until noon, then we'd get dressed up and maybe go splurge for brunch. There wasn't much that Maria and I didn't do together. Every night I came home from work as early as I could manage. Maria did the same. There was nothing either one of us wanted to do more. She had gotten me over my wounds after I I wasn't widely accepted in private practice as a psychologist. She had nursed me back to some kind of balance after a couple of years of too much cutting up and catting around with Sampson and a few other single friends, including the fast crowd that played baskethall with the Washington Bullets.
Maria pulled me back to some kind of sanity, and I treasured her for it. Maybe it would have gone on like that forever. Or maybe we would have split up by now. Who knows for certain? We never got the chance to find out.
One night she was late coming home from her socialwork job. I finally got the call, and rushed to Misericor dia Hospital. Maria had been shot. She was in very bad shape'was all they would tell me over the phone,
I arrived there a little past eight. A friend, a patrolman I knew, sat me down and told me that Maria was dead by the time they got her to the hospital. It had been a ride-by shooting outside the projects. No one knew why, or who could have done the shooting. We never got to say good-bye. There was no preparation, no warning at all, no explanation.
The pain inside was like a steel column that extended from the center of my chest all the way up into my forehead. I thought about Maria constantly, day and night. After three years, I was finally beginning to forget. I was learning how.
I was lying in bed, in a peaceful and resigned state, when Damon came in to the room as if his hair were on fire.
“Hey, Daddy. Hey, Daddy, you awake?” “What's wrong?” I asked, absolutely hating the sound of those words lately. “You look like you just saw Vanilla Ice on our front porch.”
“Somebody to see you, Daddy,” Damon announced with breathless excitement. “Somebody's here!”
“ 'The Count' from Sesame Street?” I asked. “Who's here? Be a touch more specific. Not another news reporter? If it's a news reporter-”
“She says her name Jezme. It's a la-dy, Daddy.” I believe I sat up in bed, but I didn't like the view from there too much, and lay down quickly again. "Tell her I'll be right down. Do not volunteer that I'm in bed. Tell her I'll be down directly. II Damon left the bedroom, and I wondered how I was going to deliver on the promise I'd just made.
Janelle and Damon and Jezzie Flanagan, were still standing in the foyer of our house when I made it downstairs. Janelle looked a little uncomfortable, but she was getting better at her job of answering our front door. Janelle used to be painfully shy with all strangers. To help her with this, Nana and I have gently encouraged her and Damon to answer th
e front door during the daytime hours.
It had to be something important to have Jezzie Flanagan come to the house. I knew that half the FBI was searchin for the pilot who'd collected the ransom. So 9 far, there had been nothing on any front. Whatever had been solved about the case, I had solved myself iezzie Flanagan was dressed in loose black trousers, wit. h a simple white blouse, and scuffed tennis sneakers. I remembered her casual look from Miami. It almost made me forget what a big deal she was over at the Secret Service.
Something's happened," I said, wincing. Pain shot across my skull, then down across my face. The sound of my own voice was too much to bear.
“No, Alex. We haven't heard any more about Maggie Rose,” she said. “A few more sightings. That's all. ”
“Sightings” were what the Federal Bureau called eyewitness accounts from people “claiming” to have seen Maggie Rose or Gary Soneji. So far, the sightings ranged from an empty lot a few streets from Washington Day School, to California, to the children's unit at Belle
Hospital in New York City, to South Africa, not to ntion a space-probe landing near Sedona, Arizona. No day went by without more sightings being reported somewhere. Big country, lot of kooks on the loose.
“I didn't mean to intrude on you guys,” she finally said and smiled. “It's just that I've been feeling bad about what's happened, Alex. The stories about you are crap. They're also untrue. I wanted to tell you how I felt. So here I am.” “Well, thanks for saying it,” I said to Jezzie. It was one of the only nice things that had happened to me in the past week. It touched me in an odd way.
“You did everything you could in Horida. I'm not just saying that to make you. feel better.”
I tried to focus my eyes. Things were still a bit blurry. “I wouldn't call it one of my better work experiences. On the other hand, I didn't think I deserved front-page coverage for my performance.”
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