Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

Most of all, she missed her mother and father so much. She missed them every minute of every day. She also missed her friends at school, especially Shrimpie.

She missed Dukado, her “fresh” little boy kitten.

And Angel, her “sweet” little boy kitten.

And Nintendo games and her clothes closet.

Having parties after school was so great.

So was taking a bath in the third-floor room over the gardens.

The more she thought about home, though, the more she remembered, the more Maggie Rose improved her memory list.

She missed the way she sometimes would get between her mother and father when they hugged or kissed. “We three,” she called it.

She missed characters her father had enacted for her, mostly when she was little. There was Hank, a big Southern-drawling father, who loved to exclaim “Whooooo’s talkin’ to you?” There was “Susie Wooderman.” Susie was the star of anything Maggie wanted to be in her father’s stories.

There was the primal ritual whenever they had to get into the car in cold weather. They would all holler at the top of their voices, “Yuck chuck-chuck, chuck-a, chuck-a, yuck chuck-chuck.”

Her mother would make up songs and sing them to her. Her mother had sung to her ever since she could remember.

She sang, “I love you so much, Maggie, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing in the whole wide world.” Maggie would sing, “Will you take me to Disneyland?” Her mom would answer, “I would do that, Maggie Rose.” “Would you give Dukado a big kiss on the mouth?” “I’d do it for you, Maggie Rose. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do.”

Maggie could remember whole days she had spent in school, going from class to class. She remembered Ms. Kim’s “special winks” for her. She remembered when Angel would curl up in a chair and sweetly make a sound like “wow.”

“I’d do anything for you, dear, anything, ’cause you mean everything to me.” Maggie could still hear her mom singing the words to her.

“Would you please, please come and take me home?” Maggie sang inside her head. “Would you please, please come?”

But no one sang anything. Not anymore. No one ever sang to Maggie Rose. No one remembered her anymore. Or so she believed in her broken heart.

CHAPTER 57

I MET WITH SONEJI/MURPHY half-a-dozen times over the next two weeks. He wouldn’t let me get close to him again, though he claimed this wasn’t so. Something had changed. I’d lost him. Both of him.

On the fifteenth of October, a federal judge ordered a stay, temporarily halting the commencement of the kidnapping trial. This was to be the final of several delaying tactics by Soneji/Murphy’s defense lawyer, Anthony Nathan.

Within one week, lightning speed for this kind of complex legal maneuvering, Judge Linda Kaplan had denied the defense requests. Requests for injunctions and restraining orders to the Supreme Court were also denied. Nathan called the Supreme Court “a very organized lynch mob” on all three TV networks. The fireworks were just beginning, he said to the press. He’d established a tone for the trial.

On the twenty-seventh of October, the trial of the State v. Murphy began. At five minutes to nine that morning, Sampson and I headed for a back entrance into the Federal Building on Indiana Avenue. As best we could, we were traveling incognito.

“You want to lose some money?” Sampson said as we turned the corner onto Indiana.

“I hope you’re not talking about wagering money on the outcome of this kidnapping and murder trial?”

“Sure am, sweet pie. Make the time pass faster.”

“What’s the bet?”

Sampson lit a Corona and took a victory puff. “I’ll take… I say he goes to St. Elizabeths, some hospital for the criminally insane. That’s the bet.”

“You’re saying that our judicial system does

n’t work.”

“I believe it in every bone in my body. Specially this time around.”

“All right—I’ll take guilty, two counts of kidnapping. Guilty, murder one.”