“Just as long as Soneji doesn’t,”I muttered.
The cars parked up and down Central Avenue were almost all American makes, which seemed quaint nowadays: Chevys, Olds, Fords, some Dodge Ram pickup trucks.
Meredith Murphy wasn’t answering her phone that morning, which didn’t surprise me.
“I feel sorry for Mrs. Murphy and especially the little girl,” I told Sampson as we pulled up in front of the house. “Missy Murphy had no idea who Gary really was.”
Sampson nodded. “I remember they seemed nice enough. Maybe too nice. Gary fooled them. Ole Gary the Fooler.”
There were lights burning in the house. A white Chevy Lumina was parked in the driveway. The street was as quiet and peaceful as I remembered it from our last visit, when the peacefulness had been short-lived.
We got out of the Porsche and headed toward the front door of the house. I touched the butt of my Glock as we walked. I couldn’t help thinking that Soneji could be waiting, setting some kind of trap for Sampson and me.
The neighborhood, the entire town, still reminded me of the 1950s. The house was well kept and looked as if it had recently been painted. That had been part of Gary ’s careful facade. It was the perfect hiding place: a sweet little house on Central Avenue, with a white picket fence and a stone walkway bisecting the front lawn.
“So what do you figure is going on with Soneji?” Sampson asked as we came up to the front door. “He’s changed some, don’t you think? He’s not the careful planner I remember. More impulsive.”
It seemed that way. “Not everything’s changed. He’s still playing parts, acting. But he’s on a rampage like nothing I’ve seen before. He doesn’t seem to care if he’s caught. Yet everything he does is planned. He escapes.”
“And why is that, Dr. Freud?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out. And that’s why we’re going to Lorton Prison tomorrow. Something weird is going on, even for Gary Soneji.”
I rang the front doorbell. Sampson and I waited for Missy Murphy on the porch. We didn’t fit into the small-town-America neighborhood, but that wasn’t so unusual. We didn’t exactly fit into our own neighborhood back in D.C. either. That morning we were both wearing dark clothes and dark glasses, looking like musicians in somebody’s blues band.
“Hmm, no answer,” I muttered.
“Lights blazing inside,” Sampson said. “Somebody must be here. Maybe they just don’t want to talk to Men In Black.”
“Ms. Murphy,” I called out in a loud voice, in case someone was inside but not answering the door. “Ms. Murphy, open the door. It’s Alex Cross from Washington. We’re not leaving without talking to you.”
“Nobody home at the Bates Motel,” Sampson grunted.
He wandered around the side of the house, and I followed close behind. The lawn had been cut recently and the hedges trimmed. Everything looked so neat and clean and so harmless.
I went to the back door, the kitchen, if I remembered. I wondered if he could be hiding inside. Anything was possible with Soneji-the more twisted and unlikely the better for his ego.
Things about my last visit were flashing back. Nasty memories. It was Roni’s birthday party. She was seven. Gary Soneji had been inside the house that time, but he had managed to escape. A regular Houdini. A very smart, very creepy creep.
Soneji could be inside now. Why did I have the unsettling feeling that I was walking into a trap?
I waited on the back porch, not sure what to do next. I rang the bell. Something was definitely wrong about the case, everything about it was wrong. Soneji here in Wilmington? Why here? Why kill people in Union and Penn Stations?
“Alex!” Sampson shouted. “Alex! Over here! Come quick. Alex, now!”
I hurried across the yard with my heart in my throat. Sampson was down on all fours. He was crouched in front of a doghouse that was painted white and shingled to look like the main residence. What in hell was inside the doghouse?
As I got closer, I could see a thick black cloud of flies.
Then I heard the buzzing.
Chapter 35
“OH, GODDAMN it, Alex, look at what that madman did. Look at what he did to her!”
I wanted to avert my eyes, but I had to look. I crouched down low beside Sampson. Both of us were batting away horse-flies and other unpleasant swarming insects. White larvae were all over everything-the doghouse, the lawn. I held a handkerchief bunched over my nose and mouth, but it wasn’t enough to stifle the putrid smell. My eyes began to water.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Sampson said. “Where does he get his insane ideas?”
Propped up inside the doghouse was the body of a golden retriever, or what remained of it. Blood was spattered everywhere on the wooden walls. The dog had been decapitated.
Firmly attached to the dog’s neck was the head of Meredith Murphy. Her head was propped perfectly, even though it was too large proportionately for the retriever’s body. The effect was beyond grotesque. It reminded me of the old Mr. Potato Head toys. Merdith Murphy’s open eyes stared out at me.
I had met Meredith Murphy only once, and that had been almost four years before. I wondered what she could have done to enrage Soneji like this. He had never talked much about his wife during our sessions. He had despised her, though. I remembered his nicknames for her: “Simple Cipher,” “The Headless Hausfrau,” “Blonde Cow.”
“What the hell is going on inside that sick, sorry son of a bitch’s head? You understand this?” Sampson muttered through his handkerchief-covered mouth.
I thought that I understood psychotic rage states, and I had seen a few of Soneji’s, but nothing had prepared me for the past few days. The current murders were extreme, and bloody. They were also clustered, happening much too frequently.
I had the grim feeling Soneji couldn’t turn off his rage, not even after a new kill. None of the murders satisfied his need anymore.
“Oh, God.” I rose to my feet. “John, his little girl,” I said. “His daughter, Roni. What has he done with her?”
The two of us searched the wooded half lot, including a copse of bent, wind-battered evergreens on the northeast side of the house. No Roni. No other bodies, or grossly severed parts, or other grisly surprises.
We looked for the girl in the two-car garage. Then in the tight, musty crawl space under the back porch. We checked the trio of metal garbage cans neatly lined alongside the garage. Nothing anywhere. Where was Roni Murphy? Had he taken her with him? Had Soneji kidnapped his daughter?
I headed back toward the house, with Sampson a step or two behind me. I broke the window in the kitchen door, unlocked it, and rushed inside. I feared the worst. Another murdered child?
“Go easy, man. Take it slow in here,” Sampson whispered from behind. He knew how I got when children were involved. He also sensed this could be a trap Soneji had set. It was a perfect place for one.
“Roni!” I called out. “Roni, are you in here? Roni, can you hear me?”
I remembered her face from the last time I’d been in this house. I could have drawn her picture if I had to.
Gary had told me once that Roni was the only thing that mattered in his life, the only good thing he’d ever done. At the time, I believed him. I was probably projecting my feelings for my own kids. Maybe I was fooled into thinking that Soneji had some kind of conscience and feelings because that was what I wanted to believe.
“Roni! It’s the police. You can come out now, honey. Roni Murphy, are you in here? Roni?”
“Roni!” Sampson joined in, his deep voice just as loud as mine, maybe louder.
Sampson and I covered the downstairs, throwing open every door and closet as we went. Calling out her name. Dear God, I was praying now. It was sort of a prayer anyway. Gary -not your own little girl. You don’t have to kill her to show us how bad you are, how angry. We get the message. We understand.