Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

We stopped at a bolted steel door in the hospital corridor. A guard let us through. Beyond the door were a few more hospital rooms, but rooms for maximum security.

A light burned brightly inside the first room. It wasn’t Soneji’s. He was in a darker room on the left. The regular prison visiting area had been ruled out because it offered too much exposure. Two guards with shotguns sat outside the room.

“Has there been any violence?” I asked.

“No, not at all. I’ll leave you two to talk. I don’t think you have to be concerned about any violence. You’ll see for yourself.”

Gary Soneji/Murphy watched us from his cot. His arm was in a sling. Otherwise, he looked the same as the last time I’d seen him. I stood inside the hospital room. When Dr. Campbell walked away, Soneji studied me. There was no sign of recognition from this man who’d threatened to kill me when we’d last met.

My first professional impression was that he seemed afraid to be left alone with me. His body language was tentative, very different from the man I’d wrestled to the ground at the McDonald’s in Wilkinsburg.

“Who are you? What do you want with me?” he finally said. His voice quivered slightly.

“I’m Alex Cross. We’ve met.”

He looked confused. The expression on his face was very believable, too. He shook his head and closed his eyes. It was an incredibly baffling and disconcerting moment for me.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember you,” he said then. It seemed an apology. “There have been so many people in this nightmare. I forget some of you. Hello, Detective Cross. Please, pull up a chair. As you can see, I’ve had plenty of visitors.”

“You asked for me during the negotiations in Florida. I’m with the Washington police.”

As soon as I said that, he started to smile. He looked off to the side, and shook his head. I wasn’t in on the joke yet. I told him I wasn’t.

“I’ve never been to Florida in my life,” he said. “Not once.”

Gary Soneji/Murphy stood up from his cot. He was wearing loose-fitting hospital whites. His arm seemed to be giving him some pain.

He looked lonely, and vulnerable. Something was very wrong here. What in hell was going on? Why hadn’t I been told before I came? Evidently, Dr. Campbell wanted me to draw my own conclusions.

Soneji/Murphy sat down in the other chair. He stared at me with a baleful look.

He didn’t look like a killer. He didn’t look like a kidnapper. A teacher? A Mr. Chips? A lost little boy? All of those seemed closer to the mark.

“I’ve never spoken to you in my life,” he said to me. “I’ve never heard of Alex Cross. I didn’t kidnap any children. Do you know Kafka?” he asked.

“Some. What’s your point?”

“I feel like Gregor Samsa in Metamorphosis. I’m trapped in a nightmare. None of this makes any sense to me. I didn’t kidnap anyone’s children. Someone has to believe me. Someone has to. I’m Gary Murphy, and I never harmed anyone in my entire life.”

If I followed him, what he was telling me was that he was a multiple personality… truly Gary Soneji/Murphy.

“But do you believe him, Alex? Jesus Christ, man. That’s the sixty-four-dollar question.”

Scorse, Craig, and Reilly from the Bureau, Klepner and Jezzie Flanagan from the Secret Service, and Sampson and I were in a crammed conference room at FBI headquarters downtown. It was old home week for the Hostage Rescue Team.

The question had come from Gerry Scorse. Not surprisingly, he didn’t believe Soneji/Murphy. He didn’t buy the multiple-personality bit.

“What does he really gain from telling a lot of outrageous lies?” I asked everyone to consider. “He says he didn’t kidnap the children. He says he didn’t shoot anyone at the McDonald’s.” I looked from face to face around the conference table. “He claims to be this pleasant enough nobody from Delaware named Gary Murphy.”

“Temp insanity plea.” Reilly offered the obvious. “He goes to some cushy asylum in Maryland or Virginia. Out in seven to ten years, maybe. You can bet he knows that, Alex. Is he clever enough, a good enough actor, to pull it off?”

“So far, I’ve spoken to him only once. Less than an hour with him. I’ll say this: he’s very convincing as Gary Murphy. I think he’s legitimately VFC.”

“What the hell is VFC?” Scorse asked. “I don’t know VFC. You’ve lost me.”

“It’s a common enough psych term,” I told him. “All of us shrinks talk about VFC when we get together. Very fucking crazy, Gerry.”

Everybody around the table laughed except Scorse. Sampson had nicknamed him the Funeral Director—Digger Scorse. He was dedicated and professional, but usually not a lot of laughs.