Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

“The list of the real psychos,” Conklin said, and he smiled smugly. “The ones who have always been out there, and will never ever get caught. The ones who’re too smart to get caught. They look down on everybody else. They show no pity, no mercy. They completely rule their own destinies.”

“Gary Murphy was one of them?” I asked. I knew that he wanted to talk now. About Gary, but also about himself. I sensed that Conklin considered himself in the Ninety-ninth Percentile.

“No. Not according to Gary.” He shook his head and kept the disturbing half smile. “According to Gary, he was a lot smarter than the Ninety-ninth Percentile. He always believed he was an original. The original. Called himself a ‘freak of nature.’”

Simon Conklin told us how he and Gary had lived on the same country road about six miles outside of town. They’d taken the school bus together. They’d been friends since they were nine or ten. The road was the same one that led to the Lindbergh farmhouse in Hopewell.

Simon Conklin told us that Gary Murphy had definitely paid his family back with the fire. He knew all about Gary’s child-abuse sufferings. He could never prove it, but he knew Gary had set the blaze.

“I’ll tell you exactly how I know his plan. He told me—when we were twelve years old. Gary said he was going to get them for his twenty-first birthday. He said he’d do it so it looked like he was away at school. That he’d never be a suspect. And that’s what the boy did, didn’t he? He waited for nine long years. He had a nine-year plan for that one.”

We talked to Simon Conklin for three hours one day, then five more hours the following day. He told a series of sad and gruesome stories. Gary locked away in the Murphy basement for days and weeks at a time. Gary’s obsessive plans: ten-year plans, fifteen-year plans, life plans. Gary’s secret war against small animals, especially pretty birds that flew into his stepmother’s garden. How he would pluck off a robin’s leg, then a wing, then a second leg, for as long as the bird had the will to live. Gary’s vision to see himself way up in the Ninety-ninth Percentile, right at the top. Finally, Gary’s ability to mimic, to act, to play parts.

I would have liked to have known about it while I was still meeting with Gary Murphy at Lorton Prison. I would have wanted to spend several sessions with Gary, prowling around his old Princeton haunts. Talking to Gary about his friend Simon Conklin.

Unfortunately, I had been taken off that part of the case now. The kidnapping case had moved way beyond me and Sampson, and Simon Conklin.

I gave our leads in Princeton over to the FBI. I wrote a twelve-page report on Simon Conklin. The Bureau never followed up on it. I wrote a second report and sent copies to everyone on the original search team. In my report was something Simon Conklin had said about his boyhood friend, Gary Murphy. “Gary always said he was going to do important things.”

Not a thing happened. Simon Conklin wasn’t interviewed again by the FBI. They didn’t want to open up new leads. They wanted the kidnapping case of Maggie Rose Dunne closed.

CHAPTER 53

IN LATE SEPTEMBER, Jezzie Flanagan and I went away to the islands. We escaped for a long weekend. Just the two of us. It was Jezzie’s idea. I thought it was a good one. R & R. We were curious. Apprehensive. Excited about four uninterrupted days together. Maybe we wouldn’t be able to stand each other for that long. That’s what we needed to find out.

On Front Street on Virgin Gorda, hardly a head turned to look at us. That was nice for a change, different from D.C., where people usually stared.

We took scuba and snorkeling lessons from a seventeen-year-old black woman. We rode horses along a beach that ran uninterrupted for over three miles. We drove a Range Rover up into the jungle and got lost for a half day. The most unforgettable experience was a visit to an unlikely place that we named Jezzie and Alex’s Private Island in Paradise. It was a spot the hotel found for us. They dropped us off in a boat, and left us all alone.

“This is the most awe-inspiring place that I’ve ever been in my life,” Jezzie said. Look at all this water and sand. Overhanging cliffs, the reef out there.”

“It’s not Fifth Street. But it’s okay.” I smiled and looked around. I did a few three-sixties at the edge of the water.

Our private island was mostly a long shelf of white sand that felt like sugar under our feet. Beyond the beach was the lushest green jungle we had ever seen. It was dotted with white roses and bougainvillea. The blue-green sea there was as clear as spring water.

The kitchen at the inn had packed a lunch—fine wines, exotic cheeses, lobster, crabmeat, and various salads. Not another person was anywhere in sight. We did the natural thing. We took off our clothes. No shame. No taboos. We were alone in paradise right?

I started to laugh out loud as I lay on the beach with Jezzie. That was something else I was doing more than I had in a long, long time—smiling, feeling at peace with the surroundings. Feeling, period. I was incredibly thankful to be feeling. Three and a half years was too long a time for mourning.

“Do you have any idea how beautiful you really are?” I said to her as we lay together.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I carry a compact in my purse. Little mirror.” She looked into my eyes. She was studying something in them I would never see. “Actually, I’ve tried to avoid the issue of being attractive since I joined the Service. That’s how screwed up things are in macho-man Washington.”

Jezzie gave me a wink. “You can be so serious, Alex. But you’re also full of fun. I’ll bet only your kids get to see this side of you. Damon and Jannie know you. Booga, booga.” She tickled me.

“Don’t switch subjects on me. We were talking about you.”

“You were. Occasionally, I want to be pretty, but most times I just want to be Plain Jane. Wear big pink curlers to bed and watch old movies.”

“You’ve been beautiful all weekend. No pink curlers. Ribbons and fresh flowers in your hair. Strapless bathing suits. Occasionally, no bathing suits.”

“I want to be pretty right now. In Washington, it’s different. It’s one more problem to solve. Imagine going to see your boss. Important report you’ve been working on for months. The first thing he says is, ‘You look terrific in a dress, babe.’ You just want to say, ‘Fuck you, asshole.’”

I reached out and we held hands. “Thank you, for the way you look,” I said. “You look so beautiful.”

“I did it just for you.” Jezzie smiled. “And I’d like to do something else for you. I’d like you to do something for me, too.”

And so we did one another.