Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross, #1)

by James Patterson

‘normal’ means anymore,” Katherine said. Her eyes gave the appearance of being grayish blue. They penetrated when you got up close to her. “I guess ‘normal’ corresponds to some old fashioned image in the rear of our minds, Tom’s and mine.

“She’s a lot like Katherine.” Thomas Dunne offered a point he felt was important for me to hear. “Katherine is the most egoless person I’ve ever met. Believe me, to live through the adulation a star can get in Hollywood, and the nasty abuse, and to be the person she is, is very hard.”

“Tom calls us ‘The Rose Girls,’ ‘The Rose Sisters.’ We work out here in ‘The Rose Garden.’ When Maggie and I argue, it’s ‘The War of the Roses.’ It goes like that.” They loved their little girl very much. I sensed it in every word they said about Maggie.

“Maggie’s mind seems to shift between being serious—very strict and rule abiding—to having a lot of fantasies,” Katherine said. “Do you have children?” she asked me. I flinched. I’d been thinking of Jannie and Damon again. Parallels. “Two children. I also do some work with kids in the projects,” I said. “Does Maggie have many friends at school?” “Tons of them,” her father said. “She likes kids who have a lot of ideas, but aren’t too self-centered. All except Michael, who’s intensely self-absorbed.” “Tell me about the two of them, Maggie and Michael.” Katherine Rose smiled for the first time since we’d been talking. It was so strange, this smile that I had seen many times in movies. Now I was seeing it in person. I was mesmerized. I felt a little shy, and embarrassed that I was having that kind of reaction.

“Michael always has to have a plan. His life’s very

he’ll take a nap. One time—I remember the two of them asleep near the pool. This little odd couple sprawled out on the grass. Just two little kids.” She stared at me with those gray eyes of hers and she started to cry. She had been trying hard to control herself, but finally had to let go. However reluctant I may have been at first, I was becoming a flesh-and-blood part of the terrible case. I felt for the Dunnes and the Goldbergs.

MAGGIE ROSE still believed she was in her own grave. It was beyond being creepy and horrible. It was a million times worse than any nightmare she’d ever imagined. And Maggie knew her imagination was a good one.

The boy’s room was amazing. It was a treasure chest of state-of-the-art computer hardware and software—Macintosh, Nintendo, Prodigy, Windows. The AT&T labs had less equipment than Michael Goldberg.

Neither of the Goldbergs had ever met Mr. Soneji, although Michael had talked a lot about him. Soneji was the only person, child or adult, who had ever beaten Michael at Nintendo games like “Ultima” and “Super Mario Brothers.” It suggested that Soneji might be a brainiac himself, another whiz kid, but not willing to let a nine-year-old beat him at video games for the sake of the cause. Not willing to lose at any game.

There was a patch of winter-thin pale yellow weeds between the industrial park and the water. Then came a thirty- or forty-yard barren strip to the river itself. The sky overhead was cardboard gray, threatening more snow.

Two Bureau agents, Reilly and Gerry Scorse, were at the riverside. Snow flurries drifted down. A bracing cold wind blew over the slate gray water, which smelled like burning linoleum. My heart was in my throat the whole time.

Just a few hours ago, I had been looking at a photo of the two kidnapped children. I was the first to speak over the murdered child’s body. “It’s Michael Goldberg,” I said in a soft but clear voice. “I’m sorry to say that it’s Michael. It’s poor little Shrimpie.”

She had all of twenty-four thousand dollars. That was everything. She was thirty-two now. She knew she was good-looking, almost beautiful—the way Dennis Kelleher was almost a good writer.

Jezzie decided, again, for the thousandth time, that she had to move out of her mother’s place. No matter what. No more lame excuses. Move it or lose it, girl. Move on, move on, move on with your life. She had completely

It was dumb to be in pain, if you could avoid it. Of course, that also meant avoiding close relationships, avoiding even the proximity of love, avoiding most of the natural range of human emotions. Fair enough. It might be an acceptable trade-off. She’d found that she could survive without love in her life. It sounded terrible, but it was the truth.

Had he known that? Probably he had. That was how his mind seemed to work. Soneji was a control freak. I kept jotting down observations on him.

The big swimming pool on the ocean side was closed, but that didn’t stop me. Policemen are notorious for jaywalking, double-parking, rule-breaking in general. It’s our only perk.

“In all honesty and fairness, I have to tell you one thing.” She was laughing. “What’s the one thing?” “Well, you’re a strong but really clunky swimmer. On the other hand, you do look good in a bathing suit.” Both of us laughed. Some of the long day’s tension began to drain away. We were good at drawing each other out over beers and a snack.

Jezzie pecked my cheek, and went off to her room. “I’m going to dream about you in swimsuits,” she said as the elevator doors closed. I went down four more floors, where I took my Christmas cold shower, alone in my Christmas hotel room. I thought about Jezzie Flanagan. Dumb fantasies in a lonely Miami Beach hotel room. We sure weren’t going anywhere together, but I liked her.

Proclaim. Look real close. Take a good look at me. Be a goddamn hero for once in your life. Be something besides a fat black zero on the Freeway of Love. Look at me, will you! Look at me! She handed back his change. “Merry Christmas, sir.” Gary Soneji shrugged. “Merry Christmas back at you,” he said.

No matter how jaded you might be, the fantasyland was captivating. Everything was incredibly clean and safe. You couldn’t help feeling completely protected, which was so goddamned weird

soup kitchen at St. A’s. We do it two or three 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.

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.”

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.

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!” I suddenly found myself yelling. “You’re not invited here! You’re not fucking welcome! Leave these people alone. Let us serve our lunch in peace.” The photographers stopped shooting their pictures.

“You didn’t. Somebody nailed you. Somebody set you up with the press. It’s a lot of bull.” “It’s bullshit,” Damon blurted. “Right, Big Daddy?” “This is Jezzie,” I said to the kids. “We work together sometimes.” The kids were getting used to Jezzie, but they were still a little shy. Jannie was trying to hide behind her brother. Damon had both hands stuffed in his back pockets, just like his dad.

“I’m Janelle.” Janelle surprised me by offering her name to Jezzie. I could tell she wanted a hug. Janelle loves hugs more than anyone ever put on this earth. That’s where she got one of her many nicknames, “Velcro.” Jezzie sensed it, too. She reached out and hugged Jannie. It was a neat little scene to watch. Damon immediately decided to join in. It was the thing to do. It was as if their long-lost best friend had suddenly returned from the wars. After a minute or so, Jezzie stood up again. At that moment it struck me that she was a real nice person, and that I hadn’t met too many of those during the investigation. Her house visit was thoughtful, but also a little brave.

“Well, I just stopped by for a few hugs.” She winked to me. “Actually, I have a case not too far from here. Now I’m off to be a workaholic again.” “How about some hot coffee?” I asked her. I thought I could manage the coffee. Nana probably had some in the kitchen that was only five or six hours old. She squinted a look at me and she started to smile again.

Jezzie ignored the crime scene signage and sped down the rutted dirt road to a cluster of buildings in disrepair. She distinctly remembered everything about the place. There was the main farmhouse, a garage for machinery, and the barn where the kids had been kept. Why this place? she asked herself. Why here, Soneji? What should it tell her about who he really is?

She couldn’t stop sobbing. That was the real reason she’d come out to the farmhouse, she knew. Jezzie Flanagan had to let herself cry.

A lot of the time, she thought she must be dead. Maggie Rose almost didn’t feel things now. Then she would pinch herself really hard. Even bite herself. One time she bit her finger until it bled. She tasted her own warm blood and it was weirdly wonderful. Her time in the dark seemed to go on forever. The darkness was a tiny room like a closet. She—

but there were definitely voices. The old woman? Must be. Maggie Rose wanted to call out, but she was frightened of the old woman. Her awful screaming, her threats, her scratchy voice that was worse than horror movies her mother didn’t even like her to watch. Worse than Freddy Krueger by miles. The voices stopped. She couldn’t hear anything, not even when she pressed her ear against the closet door.

Maybe he would torch the perfect little house on Central Avenue. Torching houses was good for the soul. He’d done it before; he’d do it again.

Vivian Kim frowned and shook her head. She had a tiny map of Korea hanging from rawhide around her neck. “I didn’t call anybody. I know I didn’t call PEPCO.” “Well, somebody called us, miss.” “Come back some other time,” Vivian Kim told him. “Maybe my boyfriend called. You’ll have to come back. I’m sorry.” Gary shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Sampson said. “Whole world’s flowing down the piss-tubes. It’s too much, even for me.” “We burn out,” I mumbled to him, “we burn out together.” Sampson grabbed my hand and held it. That told me he was as fucked up about this as he got.

I was shaking as I bent down over the little girl’s sneaker. Here was the most sadistic humor at work. The pink sneaker, in shocking contrast to the bloody crime scene. Gary Soneji had been in the bedroom. Soneji was the project killer, too. He was The Thing. And he was back in town.

GARY SONEJI was still in Washington, indeed. He was sending out special-delivery messages to his fans. There was a difference now. He was baiting us, too.

“This is our day off, so we must be having fun,” Sampson said to me as we walked the streets of Southeast. It was the thirteenth of January. Bitter cold. Folks had fires blazing in the garbage cans on almost every street corner. One of the brothers had FUC U 2 razor-cut on the back of his head. My sentiments exactly.

We walked along, goofing on the situation and on each other. Sampson rapped lyrics from pop songs, something he does a lot. That morning, it was “Now That We’ve Found Love.” Heavy D & The Boyz. “Rev me up, rev me up, you’re my little buttercup,” Sampson kept saying, as if the lyrics made sense

To top it off, the temperature was about three degrees with the windchill. It was sleeting. The streets and sidewalks were covered with icy slush. A couple of times we joined the street people warming themselves over their garbage-can fires. “You motherfuckin’ cops always cold, even in the summer,” one of the young fucks said to us.

He wiped slush off his sunglasses, then put them on again. It’s weird how well I know his every move. He’s been dusting his glasses like that since he was twelve. Through rain or sleet or snow.

These ladies wear blousy shirts and faded gabardine skirts. Their usual accoutrements include feathered hats and thick-heeled, lace-up shoes that bunch their feet like sausage-links.

He was a white man. I am fortunate to still have a very good memory. I try to keep it that way by concentrating on whatever passes before these eyes. Ten years from today, I will be able to recall this interview on a moment-to-moment basis, detectives.”

Mrs. Scott looked from face to face, either to make sure that she was being clear, or that we were getting all of what she had just said.

Sampson looked at me. Then the two of us did a rare thing of late. We broke into smiles. Even the ladies decided to join in. We had something. We had a break, finally, the first of the case. “We’re going to talk to the traveling salesman,” I said to Mrs. Scott and Quillie McBride.

So he accomplished absolutely nothing at the office, except blowing off a few hours. At least he’d picked up a present for Roni on the way home. He bought Roni a pink bike with training wheels and streamers. He added a Barbie Dream House. Her birthday party was set for six o’clock. Missy met him at the front door with a hug and a kiss. Positive reinforcement was her strong suit. The party gave her something to think about.

“Great day, honey. I kid you not. Three home visits set up for next week. Count them, three,” Gary told her. What the hell. He could be charming when he wanted to be. Mr. Chips goes to Delaware.

he murdered everyone attending a child’s birthday party. A birthday party—or maybe a children’s Easter egg hunt. That made him feel a little better.

Then they were there on Central Avenue in Wilmington! The end of the celebrated manhunt. Or was it the beginning? Gary was like a programmed machine from the moment he spotted the police. He almost couldn’t believe that what he’d fantasized so many times was actually happening.

He had calmly paid the pizza delivery boy. Then he went down the stairs and out through the cellar. He used a special half-hidden door and went into the garage. He relocked the door from the outside. Another side door led to a tiny alley into the Dwyers’ yard. He relocked that door, also. Jimmy Dwyer’s snow boots were sitting on the porch steps. Snow was on the ground. He took his neighbor’s boots.