Along Came a Spider (Alex Cross 1)

I asked Gary if Nathan was as smart as he was. Gary smiled and said, “Why do you always say I’m smart when I’m not? If I were so smart, would I be here?”

He hadn’t strayed once from the Gary Murphy persona in weeks. He’d also declined to be hypnotized again.

I watched Gary’s super-lawyer, Anthony Nathan, as he obnoxiously swaggered around the front of the courtroom. He was certainly manic, widely known for infuriating witnesses during cross-examination. Did Gary have the presence of mind to select Nathan? What had drawn the two of them together?

In one way, though, it seemed a natural pairing—a borderline madman defending another madman. Anthony Nathan had already proclaimed: “This will be an absolute zoo. A zoo, or a Wild West frontier justice show! I promise you. They could sell tickets for a thousand dollars a seat.”

My pulse was racing as the bailiff finally stood before the assemblage and called the room to order.

I saw Jezzie across the room. She was dressed like the important person that she is in the Service. Pin-striped suit, heels, shiny black attaché case. She saw me, and rolled her eyes.

On the right side of the courtroom, I saw Katherine Rose and Thomas Dunne. Their presence brought even more of an aura of unreality. I couldn’t help thinking of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh and of the world-famous kidnapping trial that had taken place sixty years before.

Judge Linda Kaplan was known as an eloquent and energetic woman who never let lawyers get the best of her. She had been on the bench for less than five years, but had already handled some of the biggest trials in Washington. Often, she stood during entire proceedings. She was known to rule her courtroom with complete authority.

Gary Soneji/Murphy had been quietly, almost surreptitiously, escorted to his place. He was already seated, looking well behaved, as Gary Murphy always did.

Several well-known journalists were present, at least a couple of them writing books about the kidnapping.

The opposing lawyer teams looked supremely confident and well prepared on the first day, as though their cases were invincible.

The trial began with a small flourish, opening-bell theatrics. At the front of the courtroom, Missy Murphy began to sob. “Gary didn’t hurt anybody,” she said in an audible voice. “Gary would never hurt another person.”

Someone in the courtroom audience called out, “Oh, give us a break, lady!”

Judge Kaplan smacked her gavel and commanded, “Silence in this courtroom! Silence! That will be enough of that.” Sure it will.

We were off and running. Gary Soneji/Murphy’s Trial of the Century.

CHAPTER 58

EVERYTHING SEEMED to be in perpetual motion and chaos, but especially my relationship to the original investigation and the trial. After court that day, I did the one thing that made total sense to me: I played flag-football with the kids.

Damon and Janelle were whirlwinds of activity, competing for my attention throughout the afternoon, smothering me with their need. They distracted me from unpleasant prospects that would stretch on for the next few weeks.

After dinner that night, Nana and I stayed at the table over a second cup of chicory coffee. I wanted to hear her thoughts. I knew they were coming, anyway. All during the meal, her arms and hands had been twirling like Satchel Paige about to deliver a screwball.

“Alex, I believe we need to talk,” she finally said. When Nana Mama has something to say, she gets quiet first. Then she talks a lot, sometimes for hours.

The kids were busy watching Wheel of Fortune in the other room. The game-show cheers and chants made for good domestic background noise.

“What shall we talk about?” I asked her. “Hey, did you hear that one in four kids in the U.S. now lives in poverty? We’re going to be the moral majority soon.”

Nana was real composed and thoughtful about whatever was coming. She had been preparing this speech. I could tell that much. The pupils in her eyes had become brown pinpoints.

“Alex,” she said now, “you know that I’m always on your side when something is important.”

“Ever since I arrived in Washington with a duffel bag and, I think, seventy-five cents,” I said to her. I could still vividly remember being sent “up North” to live with my grandmother; the very day I’d arrived in Union Station on the train from Winston-Salem. My mother had just died of lung cancer; my father had died the year before. Nana bought me lunch at Morrison’s cafeteria. It was the first time I ever ate in a restaurant.

Regina Hope took me in when I was nine. Nana Mama was called “The Queen of Hope,” back then. She was a schoolteacher here in Washington. She was already in her late forties, and my grandfather was dead. My three brothers came to the Washington area at the same time that I did. They stayed with one relative or another until they were around eighteen. I stayed with Nana the whole time.

I was the lucky one. At times Nana Mama was a super queen bitch because she knew what was goo

d for me. She had seen my type before. She knew my father, for good and bad. She had loved my mother. Nana Mama was, and is, a talented psychologist. I named her Nana Mama when I was ten. By then, she was both my nana and my mama.

Her arms were folded across her chest now. Iron will. “Alex, I believe I have some bad feelings about this relationship you’re involved in,” she said.

“Can you tell me why?” I asked her.