Wallace Hart said, “I was thinking of putting him in quiet room for the night. Keep him on specials and lusion for a while. Until we know what's up with him. He's flying, Alex.”
“One of these times he'll fly apart,” I said, and Wallace nodded agreement.
I entered Gary's cell and sat without being asked. I was tired of asking for permission from people. Gary's eyes were pinned to the ceiling. They seemed pushed back into his skull. I was certain he knew that I was there. Heeere's Alex!
“Welcome to my psikhushka, Doctor,” he finally said in an eerie, gravelly monotone. “Do you know psikhushka?” It was Soneji all right.
“The prison hospitals in Russia. It's where they put political prisoners in the Soviet Union,” I said.
“Exactly so. Very good.” He looked over at me. “I want to make a new deal with you. Clean slate.”
“I'm not aware of any deal,” I told him.
“I don't want to waste any more of my time here. I can't keep playing Murphy. Wouldn't you rather find out what makes Soneji tick? Sure you would, Dr. Cross. You could be famous yourself. You could be very important in whatever circle you choose to participate in. ”
I didn't believe this could be a fugue state, one of his escapes. " He appeared to be very much in control of what he was saying.
Had he been Gary Soneji all along? The “Bad Boy”? Right from the first time we'd met? That had been my diagnosis. I held to it.
“Are you with me so far?” he asked from his cot. He stretched his long legs out in a leisurely manner and wriggled his bare toes.
“You're telling me now that you were fully conscious of everything you did. There was never a split personality. No fugues. You played both parts. Now you're tired of playing Gary Murphy - ”
Soneji's eyes were focused and extremely intense. His gaze was colder and more penetrating than usual. Sometimes, with severe schizophrenics, the fantasy life becomes more important than the real one.
“That's right. That's the ticket, Alex. You're so much brighter than the others. I'm very proud of you. You're the one who keeps things interesting for me. The only one who can hold my attention for long stretches at a time.”
“And what do you want from us?” I tried to keep him on track. “What can I do you, Gary?” “I need a few little things. But mainly, I just want to be myself. So to speak. I want to be recognized for all my achievements.”
“Do we get anything in return?” Soneji smiled at me. “I'll tell you what happened. From the beginning. I'll help you solve your precious case. I'll tell you, Alex.”
I waited for Soneji to go on. I kept going back to the pronouncement over Gary Soneji's bathroom mirror: I want to be somebody! He had probably wanted to take credit from the very beginning.
“I had always planned to murder both children. I couldn't wait. I have this love-hate thing with childhood, you know. Cut-off breasts and shaved genitals, so my adult victims are more like kiddies. Anyway, killing the little bunions would be the logical and safe conclusion of the whole affair. ” Soneji smiled again. It was such a weird, inappropriate smile, as if he were confessing a white lie. “You're still interested in why I really decided on the kidnapping, aren't you? Why I chose Maggie Rosebud and her friend Shrimpie Goldberg?”
He was using the nicknames to be provocative-and flip. He loved the “Bad Boy” act. He had revealed a very'dark sense of humor over the months.
“I'm interested in everything you have to say, Gary. Go right on.”
“You know,” he said, "one time I figured out that I've killed over two hundred people. A lot of children, too. I do what I feel like. Whatever hits me at the moment.
The greasy, automatic little smile appeared again. He was no longer Gary Murphy. No longer the allAmerican-looking yuppie husband and father from Wilmington, Delaware. Had he been killing since he was a boy?
“Is that true? Are you still trying to shock me?”
He shrugged. “Why should I?... When I was a boy, I read volumes about the Lindbergh kidnapping case. Then, all the big crimes! I made copies of all the clippings I could find in the Princeton library. I've told you some of this, haven't I? How I was fascinated, absolutely enthralled, obsessed with kidnapping children. Having them completely under my control.... I wanted to torture them like helpless little birds. I practiced with afi-iend. You met him, I believe. Simon Conklin. Just a small -time psycho, Doctor. Not worth your time... not a partner. Not an accomplice. I espe cially like the idea that kidnapping gets the parents so upset. They will destroy other adults, but God forbid if someone takes one little child. Unthinkable! Unspeakable crimes! they shriek. What rubbish. What utter hypocrisy. Think about it. A million dark-skinned children die in Bangladesh, Dr. Cross. Nobody cares. Nobody rushes to save them.”
“Why did you murder the black families in the projects?” I asked him. “What's the connection?”
“Who says there has to be a connection? Is that what you learned at Johns Hopkins? Maybe those were my good deeds. Who says I can't have a social conscience, hmmm? There must be balance in every life. I believe that. I Ching. Think about those victims I chose. Hopeless drug users. A teenage girl who was already a prostitute. A small boy who was already doomed.”
I didn't know whether to believe him or not. He was flying. “Do you have a warin spot for us?” I asked him. “I find that real moving.”
He chose to ignore my irony. "Actually, I had a black friend once, yes. A maid. Woman who took care of me, if you must know, while my father was divorcing my real mother. Laura Douglas was her nameo-nameo. She went back to Detroit, though, deserted me. Big fat lady, with a bowling laugh I adored. After she left for Motown was when Mommy Terror started locking troublesome, hyperkinetic me in the basement.
“You're looking at the original latch-key kid. Meantime, my stepbrother and stepsister were upstairs in my father's house! They were playing with my toys. They used to taunt me down through the floorboards. I was locked in the basement for weeks at a time. That's the f way I recall it. Are little light bulbs and warning bells going off in your head, Dr. Cross? Tortured boy in the cellar. Pampered children buried in a barn. Such nice, neat parallels. All the pieces starting to fit? Is our boy Gary telling the truth now?”
“Are you telling the truth?” I asked him again. I thought that he was. It all fit.
“Oh, yes. Scout's honor.... The murders in Southeast D.C. Actually, I rather liked the concept of being the first celebrated serial killer of blacks. I don't count the clod in Atlanta, if indeed they have the right man down there. Wayne Williams was an amateur all the way. What's with all these serial killer Waynes, anyway? Wayne Williams. John Wayne Gacy, Jr. Patrick Wayne Heamey, who dismembered thirty-two human beans on the West Coast.”
“You didn't murder Michael Goldberg?” I went back to something he'd said earlier.
“No. It wasn't intentional at the time. I would haveeverything in good time. He was a spoiled little bunion. Reminded me of my 'brother,' Donnie.”
“How did the bruises get on Michael Goldberg's body? Tell me what happened.”
“You love this, don't you, Doctor. What does that -tell us about you, hmmm? Well, when I saw that he'd died on me, I was so angry. I flew into a rage. Kicked the fucking body all over the lot. Hit it with my digging shovel. I don't remember what else I did. I was so pissed. Then I threw his dead ass in that river out in the sticks. The River Sticks?”
“But you didn't hann the girl? You didn't hurt Maggie Rose Dunne?”
“No, I didn't hurt the girl.”
He mimicked my concern. It was a pretty fair approximation of my voice. He definitely could act, play different parts. It was frightening to watch and to be in the same room with him. Could he have killed hundreds of times? I thought so.
“Tell me about her. What really happened to Maggie Rose Dunne?”
“All right, all right, all right. The Maggie Rose Dunne story. Light a candle, sing a hymn to Jesus for sweet mercy. After the abduction, she wa
s groggy. The first time I looked in on her, anyway. She was coming off the secobarbital. I played Mommy Terror for little Maggie. I sounded the way Mommy T. used to sound at the basement door in our house. 'Stopyercryin'... Shaddup. Shaddup, you spoiled little bunion!' That scared her pretty good, I'll tell you. Then I put her out again. I carefully checked both of their pulses because I was certain the Fibbers would require some evidence that the children were alive.”
“Their pulses were both all right?”
“Yes. Just fine, Alex. I put my ear to each little chest. I controlled my natural urge to stop heartheats rather than preserve them.”
“Why the national kidnapping? Why all the publicity? Why take such a big chance?”
“Because I was ready. I'd been practicing for a long, long time. I wasn't taking any chances. I also needed the money. I deserved to be a millionaire. Everybody else is. ”
“You came back to check the children again the following day?” I asked him.
“The next day she was fine, too. But the day after Michael Goldberg died, Maggie Rose was gone! I drove into the barn, and there was the hole in the ground where I'd buried the box. Big hole in the ground. Empty! I didn't harin her. I didn't get the ransom money down in Florida, either. Somebody else has it. Now, you have to figure out what happened, Detective. I think I have! I think I know the big secret.”
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 74
-FWAS UP at three in the morning. Flying! Playing Mo1 zart and Debussy and Billie Holiday on the porch. JLJunkies were probably calling the police to complain about the noise.
I visited with Soneii again in the morning. The “Bad Boy. ” I sat in his small windowless room. All of a sudden he wanted to talk. I thought I knew where he was going with all of this; what he was going to tell me soon. Still, I needed to have my opinion confirmed by him.
1 4You have to understand something that is extremely foreign to your nature,“ he said to me. ”I was in heat when I was scouting the fucking famous girl and her actress mother. I am a 'cheap thrill' artist and junkie. I needed a fix. " I couldn't help thinking of my own childabuse patients as I listened to him relate his bizarre, grisly experiences. It was pathetic to hear a victim talking about his many victims.
“I understood the 'thrill state' perfectly, Doctor. My theme song is 'Sympathy for the Devil.' The Rolling Stones? I always tried to take proper precautionswithout breaking the spell. I had figured out escape routes, and backup escape routes, ways in and out of every neighborhood that I entered. One of these involved a sewer-system tunnel that goes from the edge of the ghetto out to Capitol Hill. I had a change of clothing inside the tunnel, including a wig. I'd thought of everything. I wouldn't get caught. I was very confident about my abilities. I believed in my own omnipotence. ”
“Do you still believe in your omnipotence?” It was a serious question. I didn't think he'd tell me the truth, but I wanted to bear what he had to say, anyway.
He said, “What happened back then, my one mistake, was I permitted my successes, the applause of millions of admirers, to rush to my head. The' applause can be a drug. Katherine Rose suffers from the same disease, you know. Most of the movie people, the sports icons, they do, too. Millions are cheering for them, you understand. They're telling these people how 'special' and how 'brilliant' they are. And some of the stars forget any limitations they might have, forget the hard work that got them to the plateau originally. I did. At the time. That is precisely why I was caught. I believed I could escape_from the McDonald's! Just as I had always escaped before. I would just dabble in a little 'spree' killing, then get away. I wanted to sample all the highimpact crimes, Alex. A little Bundy, a little Geary, a little Manson, Whitman, Gilmore.”
“Do you feel omnipotent now? Since you're older and wiser?” I asked Soneji. He was being ironic. I assumed I could be, too.
“I'm the closest thing to it you'll ever see. I'm a way to understand the concept, no?”
He smiled that blank killer smile of his again. I wanted to hit him. Gary Murphy was a tragic and almost likable sort of man. Soneji was hateful, pure evil. The human monster; the human beast.
“When you scouted the Goldberg and Dunne houses, were you at the height of your powers?” Were you omnipotent then, shithead?
“No, no, no. As you know, Doctor, I was already becoming sloppy. I'd read too many news accounts of my 'perfect' killing in Condon Terrace. 'No traces, no clues, the perfect killer!' Even I was impressed.” “What went wrong out in Potomac?” I thought I knew the answer. I needed him to confirm it.
He shrugged. “I was being followed, of course.”
Here we go, I thought to myself. The “watcher.”
“You didn't know it at the time?” I asked Soneji.
“Of course not.” He frowned at the question. “I realized I was being followed much later. Then it was confirmed at the trial.”
“How was that? How did you find out you were being followed?”
Soneji stared into my eyes. He seemed to be staring straight through to the back of my skull. He considered me beneath him. I was just a vessel for his outpouring. But he found me more interesting than the others to talk to. I didn't know whether to feel honored or defiled. He was also curious about what I knew, or what I didn't know.
“Let me stop to make a point,” he said. "This one is important to me. I have secrets to tell you. Lots of big and little secrets. Dirty secrets, juicy secrets. I'm going to give you one secret now. Do you know why.
“Elementary, my dear Gary,” I told him. “It's hell for you to be under the control of others. You need to be in charge.”
“That's very good, Doctor Detective. But I do have some neat things to trade. Crimes that go all the way back to when I was twelve and thirteen years old. There are major unsolved crimes that go back that far. Believe me. I have a treasure trove of goodies to share with you. ” “I understand,” I told him. “I can't wait to hear about them.”
“You always did understand. All you have to do is convince the other zombies to walk and chew Juicy Fruit at the same time.”
“The other zombies?” I smiled at his slip.
“Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. Can you convince the zombies? You know who I mean. You have less respect for them than I do That was true enough. I'd have to convince Chief of Detectives Pittman for one. ”You:ll help me out? Give me something concrete? I have to find out what happened to the little girl. Let her parents have some peace at last."
“All right. I will do that,” Soneji said. It was so simple in the end.
You wait. And you wait. That's the way it goes in almost every police investigation. You ask thousands of questions, literally thousands. You fill entire file cabinets with unnecessary paperwork. Then you ask more questions. You follow countless leads that go nowhere. Then something goes right for a change. It happens every once in a while. It was happening now. A payout for thousands of hours of work. A reward for coming to see Gary again and again.
“I didn't notice any surveillance back then,” Gary Soneji continued. “And none of what I'm going to tell you about happened near the Sanders house. It occurred on Sorrell Avenue in Potomac. In front of the Goldberg house, in fact.”
Suddenly I was tired of his chest-beating games. I had to know what he knew. I was getting close. Talk to me, you little fucker.
“Go on,” I said. “What happened out in Potomac? What did you see at the Goldbergs'? Who did you see?”
“I drove by there one of those nights before the kidnapping. A man was walking on the sidewalk. I thought nothing of him. It never registered until I saw the same man at the trial.” Soneji stopped talking for a moment. Was he playing again? I didn't think so. He stared at me as if he were looking right into my soul. He knows who I am. He knows me, perhaps better than I know myse4f.
What did he want from me? Was I a substitute for something missing from his childhood? Why had I been chosen for this horrific job?
“Who was the man
you recognized at the trial?” I asked @ Soneji. "It was the Secret Service agent. It was Devine. He his pal Chakely must have seen me watching the Idberg and Dunne houses. They were the ones who followed me. They took precious Maggie Rose! They got the ransom in Florida. You should have been looking for cops all this time. Two cops murdered the little girl.
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 75
Y HUNCH about Devine and Chakely had been right after all. Soneji/Murphy was the only eye witness, and he'd confirmed it. Now we had to move.
I had to personally reopen the Dunne-Goldberg case-and with news that no one in Washington would want to hear.
I decided to talk to the FBI first.... Two cops had murdered Maggie Rose. The investigation had to be opened up again. The kidnapping hadn't been solved the first time. Now the whole mess was going to blow up once more.
I dropped in on my old buddy of buddies, Gerry
Scorse, at FBI headquarters. After I cooled my heels for forty minutes in reception, Scorse brought me coffee and invited me into his office. "Come right in, Alex.
Thanks for waiting. "
He listened politely, and with apparent concern, as I went over what I had previously learned, and then what
Soneji had told me concerning Secret Service agents Mike Devine and Charles Chakely. He took notes, a lot of notes on yellow foolscap.
After I'd finished, Scorse said, “I have to make a phone call. Sit tight, Alex.”
When he returned, he asked me to come upstairs with him. He never said it but I assumed he was impressed by the news from Gary Soneji.
I was escorted to the deputy director's private conference room on the top floor. The deputy, Kurt Weithas, is the number-two person at the Bureau. They wanted me to understand that this was an important meeting. I got it.
Alex Cross 1 - Along Came A Spider Page 27
