James Patterson - Cat & Mouse

We had reached the main level of Penn Station. This was probably how it had been when Soneji arrived here the night before. More and more I was thinking that the NYPD had it right. Soneji could definitely be the Penn Station killer, too.

I saw a mob of travelers lingering beneath the flipping numbers of the Train Departures board. I could almost see Gary Soneji standing where I was now, taking it all in-released from the cellar to be the Bad Boy again! Still wanting to do famous crimes and succeeding beyond his craziest dreams.

“Dr. Cross, I presume.”

I heard my name as Sampson and I wandered into the brightly lit waiting area of the station. A bearded man with a gold ear stud was smiling at his small joke. He extended his hand.

“I’m Detective Manning Goldman. Good of you to come. Gary Soneji was here yesterday.” He said it with absolute certainty.

SAMPSON AND I shook hands with Goldman and also his partner, a younger detective who appeared to defer to Goldman. Manning Goldman wore a bright blue sport shirt with three of the buttons undone. He had on a ribbed undershirt that exposed silver and reddish gold chest hairs sprouting toward his chin. His partner was dressed from head to toe in black. Talk about your odd couples, but I still preferred Oscar and Felix.

Goldman started in on what he knew about the Penn Station stabbings. The New York detective was high energy, a rapid-fire talker. He used his hands constantly, and appeared confident about his abilities and opinions. The fact that he’d called us in on his case was proof of that. He wasn’t threatened by us.

“We know that the killer came up the stairs at track ten here, just like the two of you just did. We’ve talked to three witnesses who may have seen him on the Metroliner from Washington,” Goldman explained. His swarthy, dark-haired partner never said a word. “And yet, we don’t have a good ID of him-each witness gave a different description-which doesn’t make any sense to me. You have any ideas on that one?”

“If it’s Soneji, he’s good with makeup and disguises. He enjoys fooling people, especially the police. Do you know where he got on the train?” I asked.

Goldman consulted a black leather notebook. “The stops for that particular train were D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Princeton Junction, and New York. We assumed he got on in D.C.”

I glanced at Sampson, then back at the NYPD detectives. “Soneji used to live in Wilmington with his wife and little girl. He was originally from the Princeton area.”

“That’s information we didn’t have,” Goldman said. I couldn’t help noticing that he was talking only to me, as if Sampson and Groza weren’t even there. It was peculiar, and made it uncomfortable for the rest of us.

“Get me a schedule for yesterday’s Metroliner, the one that arrived at five-ten. I want to double-check the stops,” he barked at Groza. The younger detective skulked off to do Goldman’s bidding.

“We heard there were three stabbings, three deaths?” Sampson finally spoke. I knew that he’d been sizing up Goldman. He’d probably come to the conclusion that the detective was a New York asshole of the first order.

“That’s what it says on the front pages of all the daily newspapers,” Goldman cracked out of the side of his mouth. It was a nasty remark, delivered curtly.

“The reason I was asking-” Sampson started to say, still keeping his cool.

Goldman cut him off with a rude swipe of the hand. “Let me show you the sites of the stabbings.” He turned his attention back to me. “Maybe it will jog something else you know about Soneji.”

“Detective Sampson asked you a question,” I said.

“Yeah, but it was a pointless question. I don’t have time for PC crap or pointless questions. Like I said, let’s move on. Soneji is on the loose in my town.”

“You know much about knives? You cover a lot of stabbings?” Sampson asked. I could tell that he was starting to lose it. He towered over Manning Goldman. Actually, both of us did.

“Yeah, I’ve covered quite a few stabbings,” Goldman said. “I also know where you’re going. It’s extremely unlikely for Soneji to kill three out of three with a knife. Well, the knife he used had a double serpentine blade, extremely sharp. He cut each victim like some surgeon from NYU Medical Center. Oh yeah, he tipped the knife with potassium cyanide. Kill you in under a minute. I was getting to that.”

Sampson backed off. The mention of poison on the knife was news to us. John knew we needed to hear what Goldman had to say. We couldn’t let this get personal here in New York. Not yet anyway.

“Soneji have any history with knives?” Goldman asked. He was talking to me again. “Poisons?”

I understood that he wanted to pump me, to use me. I didn’t have a problem with it. Give and take is as good as it gets on most multijurisdictional cases.

“Knives? He once killed an FBI agent with a knife. Poisons? I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised. He also shot an assortment of handguns and rifles while he was growing up. Soneji likes to kill, Detective Goldman. He’s a quick study, so he could have picked it up. Guns and knives, and poisons, too.”

“Believe me, he did pick it up. He was in and out of here in a couple of minutes. Left three dead bodies just like that.” Goldman snapped his fingers.

“Was there much blood at the scene?” I asked Goldman. It was the question I’d had on my mind all the way from Washington.

“There was a helluva lot of blood. He cut each victim deep. Slashed two of their throats. Why?”

“There could be an angle connected with all the blood.” I told Goldman one of my findings at Union Station. “The sniper in D.C. made a mess. I’m pretty sure Soneji did it on purpose. He used hollow-points. He also left traces of my blood on his weapon,” I revealed to Goldman.

He probably even knows I’m here in New York, I thought. And I’m not completely sure who is tracking whom.

FOR THE next hour, Goldman, with his partner practically walking up his heels, showed us around Penn Station, particularly the three stabbing sites. The body markings were still on the floor, and the cordoned-off areas were causing more than the usual congestion in the terminal.

After we finished with a survey of the station, the NYPD detectives took us up to the street level, where it was believed Soneji had caught a cab headed uptown.

I studied Goldman, watched him work. He was actually pretty good. The way he walked around was interesting. His nose was poised just a little higher than those belonging to the rest of the general population. His posture made him look haughty, in spite of the odd way he was dressed.

“I would have guessed he’d use the subway to escape,” I offered as we stood out on noisy Eighth Avenue. Above our heads, a sign announced that Kiss was appearing at Madison Square Garden. Shame I’d have to miss it.

Goldman smiled broadly. “I had the same thought. Witnesses are split on which way he went. I was curious whether you’d have an opinion. I think Soneji used the subway, too.”

“Trains have a special significance for him. I think trains are part of his ritual. He wanted a set of trains as a kid, but never got it.”

“Ah, quod erat demonstrandum,” Goldman said and smirked. “So now he kills people in train stations. Makes perfect sense to me. Wonder he didn’t blow up the whole fucking train.”

Even Sampson laughed at Goldman’s delivery on that one.

After we had finished the tour of Penn Station and the surrounding streets, we made a trip downtown to One Police Plaza. By four o’clock I knew what the NYPD had going-at least everything that Manning Goldman was prepared to tell me at this time.