Patterson, James - Alex Cross 1 - Along Came A Spider

He knew more than anyone alive about the thirties kidnapping. Baby Lindbergh had eventually been dredged up from a shallow grave only four miles from the New Jersey estate. Ah, but was it really Baby Lindbergh? The corpse they'd found had been too tallthirty-three inches, to only twenty-nine for Charles Jr.

No one understood the sensational, unsolved kidnapping. To this day. And that was the way it would be with Maggie Rose Dunne and Michael Goldberg.

No one was ever going to figure it out. That was a definite promise.

No one had figured out any of the other murders he'd done, had they? They got John Wayne Gacy, Jr., after over thirty murders in Chitown. Jeffrey Dahmer went down after seventeen in Milwaukee. Gary had murdered more than both of them put together. But no one knew who he was, or where he was, or what he planned to do next. it was dark down in his cellar, but Gary was used to it. “The cellar is an acquired taste,” he'd once told his stepmother to make her angry. The cellar was like your mind would be after you died. It could be exquisite, if you had a really great mind. Which he certainly did.

Gary was thinking about his plan of action, and the thought was simple: they hadn't really seen anything yet.

They better not blink.

Upstairs in the house, Missy Murphy was trying her best not to be too angry at Gary. She was making cookies for their daughter, Roni, and the other neighborhood kids, Missy was really trying to be understanding and supportive. One more time. She had been trying not to think of Gary. Usually Gary when she baked, it worked. This time it didn't. was incorrigible. He was also lovable, sweet, and bright as a thousand-watt bulb. That was why she had been attracted to him in the first place. She'd met him at a University of Delaware mixer. Gary had been slumming at Delaware. He'd come down there from Princeton. She'd never talked to anyone so smart in her life; not even her professors at school were as smart as Gary.

The really endearing part of him was why she had mrried him in 1982. Against the advice of everybody. Her best friend, Michelle Lowe, believed in tarot cards, reincarnation, all that stuff. She'd done their horoscopes, Gary's and hers. “Call it off, Missy,” she'd said. Don't you ever look in his eyes?" But Missy had gone ahead with the wedding, gone against everybody's advice. Maybe that was why she'd stuck with him through thin, and thinner. Thinner than anyone had a right to expect her to put up with. Sometimes, it was as if there were a couple of Garys to put up with. Gary and his unbelievable mind games.

Something real bad was coming now, she was thinking as she spilled in a full bag of morsels. Any day now he was going to tell her he'd been fired from his job. The old, awful pattern had started up again.

Gary had already told her he was “smarter than anybody” at work. (Undoubtedly, this was true.) He'd told her he was “zooming ahead” of everybody. He'd told her his bosses loved him. (This had probably been true in the beginning.) He'd told her they were going to make him a district sales manager soon. (This was definitely one of Gary's “stories.”) Then, trouble. Gary said his boss was starting to get jealous of him. The hours were impossible. (That was true enough. He was away all week and some weekends.) The danger pattern was in full gear. The sad part was that if he couldn't make it at this job, with this boss, how could he possibly make it anywhere?

Missy Murphy was certain that Gary would come home any day now and tell her he'd been asked to leave again. His days as a traveling sales rep for the Atlantic Heating Company were definitely numbered. Where would he find work after that? Who could possibly be more sympathetic than his current boss-her own brother, Marty.

Why did it have to be so hard all the time? Why was she such an all-day sucker for the Gary Murphys of this world?

Missy Murphy wondered if tonight was the night. Had Gary already been fired again? Would he tell her that when he got home from work tonight? How could such a smart man be such an unbelievable loser? she ndered. The first tear fell into the cookie mix, then wo Missy let the rest of Niagara Falls come. Her whole body began to tremble and heave.

Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 27

D NEVER HAD MUCH TROUBLE laughing at my frustrations as a cop or a psychologist. This time it was lot tougher to take in stride. Soneji had beaten us down South, in Florida and Carolina. We hadn't gotten Maggie Rose back. We didn't know if she was alive or dead.

After I was debriefed for five hours by the Federal Bureau, I was flown up to Washington where I got to answer all the same questions from my own department. One of the last inquisitors was Chief of Detectives Pittman. The Jefe appeared at midnight. He was all showered and shaved for the occasion of our special meeting.

“You look like absolute hell,” he said to me. Those were the first words out of his mouth.

“I've been up since yesterday morning, ” I explained. "I know how I look. Tell me something I don't already know.

I knew that was a mistake before the words got out.

I don't usually lead with my chin, but I was groggy and tired and generally fucked up by that time.

The Jefe leaned forward on one of the little metal chairs in his conference room. I could see his gold fillings as he spoke to me. “Sure thing, Cross. I have to blow you off the kidnapping case. Right or wrong, the press is pinning a lot of what went haywire on you, and us. The FBI isn't taking any of the heat. Thomas Dunne's making a lot of noise, too. Seems fair to me. The ransom's gone; we don't have his daughter.”

“Most of that is pure bullshit,” I told Chief Pittman. “Soneji asked for me to be the contact. Nobody knows why yet. Maybe I shouldn't have gone, but I did. The FBI blew the surveillance, not me.”

“Now tell me something I don't already know,” Pittman came back. “Anyway, you and Sampson can go back on the Sanders and Turner murders. Just the way you wanted it in the first place. I don't mind if you stay in the background on the kidnapping. That's all there is to talk about. ” The Jefe said his piece, and then he left. Over and out. No discussion of the matter.

Sampson and I had been put back in our place: Washington Southeast. Everybody had their priorities straight now. The murders of six black people mattered again.

Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 28

WO DAYS after I returned from South Carolina, I woke to the noise of a crowd gathered outside our house in Southeast.

From a seemingly safe place, the hollow of my pillow, I heard a buzz of voices. A line was sounding in my head: “Oh no, it's tomorrow again.”

I finally opened my eyes. I saw other eyes. Damon and Janelle were staring down at me. They seemed amused that I could be sleeping at a time like this.

“Is that the TV, kids? All that awful racket I hear?”

“No, Daddy,” said Damon. “TV's not on.”

“No, Daddy,” repeated Janelle. “It's better than TV. ”

I propped my head up on an elbow. “Well, are you two having a loud party with your friends outside? That it? Is that what I hear out my bedroom window?” Serious headshaking came from the two of them. Damon finally smiled, but my little girl remained serious and a little afraid.

“No, Daddy. We aren't havin' a party,” Damon said.

“Hmmm. Don't tell me the newspeople and the TV reporters are here again. They were here just a few hours ago. Just last night.”

Damon stood there with his hands on top of his head. He does that when he's excited or nervous.

“Yes, Daddy, it's the 'porters again.”

“Piss me off,” I muttered to myself.

“Piss me off, too,” Damon said with a scowl. He partially understood what was going on.