Alex Cross 1 - Along Came A Spider

by Patterson, James

  “What happened in the dark room? What kind of room was it?”

  “She put me there, down in the basement. It was our cellar, and she put me down there almost every day.”

  He was beginning to hyperventilate. This was extremely difficult for him, a condition I'd seen many times with child-abuse victims. He shut his eyes. Remembering. Seeing a past he never really wanted to encounter again.

  “What would happen down in the basement?” “Nothing... nothing happened. I was just punished all the time. Left by myself.”

  “How long were you kept down there?”

  “I don't know... I can't remember everything!” His eyes opened halfway. He watched me through narrow slits.

  I wasn't sure how much more he could take. I had to be careful. I needed to ease him into the tougher parts of his history, with the feeling that I cared, that he could trust me, that I was listening.

  “Was it for a whole day sometimes? Overnight?”

  “Oh, no. No. It was for a long, long time. So I wouldn't forget anymore. So I'd be a good boy. Not the Bad Boy.” He looked at me, but said nothing more. I sensed that he was waiting to hear something from me.

  I tried praise, which seemed the appropriate response. “That was good, Gary, a good start. I know how hard this is for you.” As I looked at the grown man, I imagined a small boy kept in a darkened cellar. Every day. For weeks that must have seemed even longer than that. Then I thought about Maggie Rose Dunne. Was it possible that he was keeping her somewhere and that she was still alive? I needed to get the darkest secrets out of his head, and needed to do it faster than it's ever done in therapy Katherine Rose and Thomas Dunne deserved to know what had happened to their little girl.

  What happened to Maggie Rose, Gary? Remember Maggie Rose?

  This was a very risky time in our session.

  He could.become frightened and refuse to see me again if he sensed that I was no longer a “friend.” He might withdraw. There was even a chance of a complete psychotic break. He could become catatonic. Then everything 'Would be lost.

  I needed to keep praising Gary for his efforts. It was important that he look forward to my visits. “What you've told me so far should be extremely helpful,” I said to him. “You really did a great job. I'm impressed by how much you've forced yourself to remember.' ”Alex,“ he said as I started to leave ”honest to God, I didn't do anything horrible or bad. Please help me.,

  A polygraph test had been scheduled for him that afternoon. Just the thought of the lie detector made Gary nervous, but he swore he was glad to take it.

  He told me I could stay and wait for the results if I wanted to. I wanted to very much.

  The polygraph operator was a particularly good one who had been brought from D.C. for the testing. Eighteen questions were to be asked. Fifteen of those were 6 4controls." The other three were to be used for scoring the lie detector test.

  Dr. Campbell met with me about forty minutes after Soneji/Murphy had been taken down for his polygraph.

  Campbell was flushed with excitement. He looked as if he might have jogged from wherever they had staged the test. Something big had happened.

  “He got the highest score possible,” Campbell told me. “He passed with flying colors. Plus tens. Gary Murphy could be telling the truth!”

  Along Came A Spider

  CHAPTER 49

  @RY muRPHY could be telling the truth!

  I held a command performance in the board(;room inside Lorton Prison the following afte noon. The important audience included Dr. Campbell rfrom the prison, federal District Attorney James Dowd, a representative from the governor of Maryland's offi ce, two more attorneys from the attorney general's office in Washington, and Dr. James Walsh, from the state's health board, as well as the prison's advisory staff.

  It had been an ordeal to get them together. Now that I had succeeded, I couldn't lose them. I wouldn't get another chance to ask for what I needed.

  I felt as if I were back taking my orals at Johns Hopkins. I was dancing fast on the high wire. I believed the entire Soneji/Murphy investigation was at stake, nght hem in this room.

  “I want to try regressive hypnosis on him. 'nere's no risk, but there's a chance for high reward,” I announced to the group. "I'm certain Soneji/Murphy will

  254 be a good subject, that we'll find out something we can use. Maybe we'll learn what happened to the missing girl. Certainly something about Gary Murphy."

  Several complex jurisdictional questions had already been raised,by the case. One lawyer had told me the issues would make for an excellent bar-exam question. Since state lines had been crossed, the kidnapping and murder of Michael Goldberg had fallen under federal jurisdiction and would be tried in federal court. The killings in McDonald's would be tried in a Westmoreland court. Soneji/Murphy could also be tried in Washington for one or more of the killings he had apparently committed in Southeast.

  “What would you ultimately hope to accomplish?” Dr. Campbell wanted to know. He'd been supportive, and was continuing to be so. Like me, he read skepticism on several faces, especially Walsh's. I could see why Gary didn't care for Walsh. He seemed meanspirited, petty, and proud of it.

  "A lot of what he's told us so far suggests a severe dissociative reaction. He appears to have suffered a pretty horrible childhood. There was physical abuse, maybe sexual abuse as well. He may have begun to split off his psyche to avoid pain and fear back then. I'm not saying that he's a multiple, but it's a possibility. He had the kind of childhood that could produce such a rare psychosis.

  Dr. Campbell picked up. “Dr. Cross and I have talked about the possibility that Soneji/Murphy undergoes 'fugue states.' Psychotic episodes that relate to both amnesia and hysteria. He talks about 'lost days,' 'lost weekends,' even 'lost weeks.' In such a fugue state, a patient can wake in a strange place and have no idea how he got there, or what he had been doing for a prolonged period. In some cases, the patients have two separate personalities, often antithetical personalities. This can also happen in temporal lobe epilepsy.”

  “What are you guys, a tag team?” Walsh grumped from his seat. “Lobe epilepsy. Give me a break, Marion. The more youfool around like this, the better his chance of getting off in a courtroom,” Walsh warned.

  “I'm not fooling around,” I said to Walsh. “Not my style. ”

  The D.A. spoke up, intervening between Walsh and me. James Dowd was a serious man in his late thirties or early forties. If Dowd got to try the case of Soneji/ Murphy, he would soon be an extremely famous attorney.

  “Isn't there a possibility that he's created this apparently psychotic condition for our benefit?” Dowd asked. “That he's a psychopath, and nothing more than that?”

  I glanced around the table before answering his questions. Dowd clearly wanted to hear our answers; he wanted to learn the truth. The representative from the governor's office seemed skeptical and unconvinced, but open-minded. The attorney general's group was neutral so far. Dr. Walsh had already heard enough from me and Campbell.

  “That's a definite possibility,” I said. “It's one of the reasons I'd like to try the regressive hypnosis. For one thing, we can see if his stories remain consistent.”

  “If he's susceptible to hypnosis,” Walsh interjected.

  “And if you can tell whether or not he'd been hypnotized. ”

  “I suspect that he is susceptible, ” I answered quickly.

  .,And I have my doubts that he is. Frankly, I have MY doubts about you, Cross. I don.'t care that he likes to talk to you. Ps chiatry isn't about liking your doctor."

  “What he likes is that I listen.” I glared across the table at Walsh. It took a lot of self-control not to jump on the officious bastard.

  “What are the other reasons for hypnotizing the prisoner?” the govemor's representative spoke up.

  “Frankly, we don't know enough about what he's done during these fugue states,” Dr. Campbell said.

  Neither does he. Neither do his wife and family, who
m I've interviewed several times now."

  I added, “We're also not sure how many personalities might be operating.... The other reason for hypnosis”-l paused to let what I was about to say sink in“-is that I do want to ask him about Maggie Rose Dunne. I want to try and find out what he did with Maggie Rose.”

  “Well, we've heard your arguments, Dr. Cross. Thank you for your time and efforts here, ” James Dowd said at the end of the presentation. “We'll have to let you know.”

  I decided to take things into my own hands that evening.

  I called a reporter I knew and trusted at the Post. I asked him to meet me at Pappy's Diner on the edge of Southeast. Pappy's was one place where we would ver be spotted, and I didn't want anyone to know

  'd met. For both our sakes.

  Lee Kovel was a graying yuppie, and kind of an asshole, but I liked him. Lee wore his emotions on his sleeve: his petty jealousies, his bitterness about the sad state of journalism, his bleeding-heart tendencies, his occasional arch-conservative traits. It was all out there for the world to see and react to.

  Lee plopped down next to me at the counter. He was wearing a gray suit and light blue running shoes. Pappy's draws a real nice cross-section: black, Hispanic, Korean, working-class whites who service Southeast in some way or other. But no one anything like Lee.

  “I stick out like a sore thumb in here,” he complained. “I'm way too cool for this place.” “Now who's going to see you here? Bob Woodward? Evans and Novak?”

  “Very funny, Alex. What's on your mind? Why didn't you call me when this story was hot? Before this sucker got caught?”

  “Would you give this man some hot, very black coffee,” I said to the counterman. “I need to wake him up. I turned back to Lee. ” I'm going to hypnotize Soneji inside the prison. I'm going looking for Maggie Rose Dunne in his subconscious. You can have the exclusive. But you owe me one," I told Lee.

  Lee Kovel almost spit out his reaction. "Bullshit! Let's hear it all, Alex. I think you left out some parts.

  “Right. I'm working to get permission to hypnotize Soneji. There are a lot of petty politics involved. If you leak the story in the Post, I think it will happen. The theory of self-fulfilling prophecies. I'll get permission. Then you get an exclusive.”

  The coffee came in a beautiful old diner cup. Light brown with a thin blue line under the rim. Lee slurped the java, thoughtful as hell. He seemed amused that I was trying to manipulate the established order in D.C. It appealed to his bleeding heart. “And if you do hear something from Gary Soneji, I'll be the second to know. After yourself, Alex.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, but yeah. That'll be our deal. Think about it, Lee. It's for a worthy cause. Finding out about Maggie Rose, not to mention your ca reer. ”

  I left Kovel to finish his Pappy's coffee and begin to shape his story. Apparently, that's what he did. It appeared in the morning edition of the Post.

  Nana Mama is the first one up at our house every day. Probably, she's the fitst one up in the entire universe. That's what Sampson and I used to believe when we were ten or eleven, and she was the assistant principal of the Garfield North Junior High School.

  Whether I wake up at seven, or six, or five, I always come down to the kitchen to find a kght blazing and Nana already eating breakfast, or firing it up over her stove. Most mornings, it is the very same breakfast. A single poached egg; one corn muffin, buttered; weak tea with cream and double sugar.

  She will also have begun to make breakfast for the rest of us, and she recognizes the variety of our palates. The house menu might include pancakes and either pork sausage or bacon; melon in season; grits, or oatmeal, or farina, with a thick pat of butter and a generous mound of sugar on top; eggs in every shape and form.

  Occasionally a grape jelly omelet appears, the only dish of hers that I don't care for. Nana does the omelet too brown on the outside, and, as I've told her, eggs and jelly make about as much sense to me as pancakes and ketchup. Nana disagrees, though she never eats the jelly omelets herself. The kids love them.

  Nana sat at the kitchen table on that morning in March. She was reading the Washington Post, which happens to be delivered by a man named Washington. Mr. Washington eats breakfast with Nana every Monday morning. This was a Wednesday, and an important day for the investigation.

  Everything about the breakfast scene was so familiar, and yet I was startled as I entered the kitchen. One more time, I was made aware of how much the kidnapping had entered into our private lives, the lives of my family members.

  The headline of the Washington Post read:

  SONEJI/MURPHY

  TO BE HYPNOTIZED

  Attached to the story I could see photographs of both Soneji/Murphy and me. I'd heard the news late the night before. I had called Lee Kovel to give him his exclusive because of our deal.

  I read Lee's story while eating two morning prunes. It said that certain unnamed “sources,were skeptical about the opinions of psychologists assigned to the kidnapper”; that “medical findings may have an effect on the trial”; that “if proven insane, Soneji/Murphy could get a sentence as lenient as three years in an institution. ” Obviously, Lee had spoken to other sources after he talked to me.

  “Why don't they just come out and say what they mean,” Nana mumbled over her toast and cup of tea. I guess she didn't care for Lee's writing style.

  “Why don't they say what?” I asked.

  “The obvious thing here. Somebody doesn't want you messing with his neat little case. They want Tideclean justice. Not necessarily the truth. Nobody seems to want the truth here, anyway. They just want to feel better right away. They want the pain to be over. People have a low tolerance for pain, especially lately. Ever since Dr. Spock began rearing our children for us.”

  “Is that what you've been plotting down here over your breakfast? Sounds a little like Murder, She Wrote - ”

  I poured myself some of her tea. No sugar or cream. I took a muffin and put a couple of link sausages between the halves.

  “No plots. Reality as plain as the nose on your face, Alex. ”

  I nodded at Nana. She might be right, but it was too deflating to deal with before six in the morning. “Nothing like prunes this early in the morning,” I said. “ Mmm, mmm good.”

  “Hmmm.” Nana Mama frowned. “I might go easy on those prunes for a while if I were you. I suspect you're going to need an extra supply of bull from here on, Alex. If I may be so blunt with you.”

  "Thank you, Nana. Your directness is appreciated.

  “You're very welcome. For your breakfast, and this splendid advice: Don't trust white people.” “Very good breakfast,” I said to her.

  “How is your new girlfriend?” asked my grandmother. She never misses a trick.

  Along Came A Spider

  CHAPTER 50

  HERE WAS A HIGH-PITCHED HUMMING in the air as

  I climbed out of my car at the prison. The noise was a physical thing. Reporters from newspapers and TV stations were loitering everywhere outside Lor ton. They were waiting for me. So was Soneji/Murphy.

  He had been moved to a regular cell in the prison.

  As I walked from the parking lot in a light drizzle,

  TV cameras and microphones jabbed at me from a dozen different angles. I was there to hypnotize Gary Soneji/

  Murphy, and the press knew it. I was today's big bite of news. “Thomas Dunne says you're trying to get Soneji hos pitalized, that you'll have him set free in a couple of years. Any comment, Detective Cross?”

  “I have nothing to say right now.” I couldn't talk to any of the reporters, which didn't make me real popular.

  I'd made a deal with the attorney general's office before they finally agreed to the sessions.

  Hypnosis is commonly used in psychiatry these days. Is often administered by the treating psychiatrist, or a psychologist. What I hoped to discover over several interviews was what had happened to Gary Soneji/Murphy during his “lost days,” his escapes from the re
al world. I didn't know whether this would happen quickly or, indeed, happen at all.

  Once I was inside Gary's prison cell, the process was simple and straightforward. I suggested that he relax and close his eyes. Next, I asked Gary to breathe in, then out, very evenly and slowly. I told him to try to clear his mind of every thought. Finally, to count down slowly from one hundred.

  He appeared to be a good subject for hypnosis. He didn't resist, and he slipped deeply into a suggestible state. As far as I could tell, he was under. I proceeded as if he were, anyway. I watched him for signs to the contrary, but I saw none.

  His breathing had slowed noticeably. In the beginning of the session, he was more relaxed than I had seen him before. We chatted about casual, nonthreatening subjects for the first few moments. Since he had actually “come to” or become “himse@” in the parking lot of the McDonald's, I asked Gary about that once he was fully relaxed.

  “Do you remember being arrested at a McDonald's in Wilkinsburg?”

  There was a brief pause-then he said, “Oh, yes, of course I do.”

  “I'm glad you remember, because I have a couple of questions about the circumstances at McDonald's. I'm a little unclear about the sequence of events. Do you remember anything you might have eaten inside the restaurant?”

  I could see his eyes rolling behind the closed lids. He was thinking about it before answering. Gary had on thongs and his left foot was tapping rapidly.

  “No... no... can't say that I do. Did I actually eat there? I don't remember. I'm not sure if I ate or not. ”

  At least he didn't deny he'd been inside the McDonaid's. “Did you notice any people at the McDonald's?” I asked. “Do you remember any customers? A counter girl you might have spoken to?”

  “Mmmm... It was crowded. No one in particular comes to mind. I recall thinking that some people dress so badly it's comical. You see it in any mall. All the time at places like HoJo's and McDonald's.”

  In his mind, he was still inside the McDonald's. He'd come that far with me. Stay with me, Gary.