Alex Cross 01 - Along Came a Spider Read online

  “I don’t think so,” Michael Goldberg said, shaking his head. “What’s this little so-called glitch all about?”

  Maggie Rose didn’t say anything yet. She was feeling afraid for some reason. Something had happened. Something was definitely wrong. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach. Her mom always told her she had too active an imagination, so she tried to look cool, act cool, be cool.

  “We just received a phone call from the Secret Service,” said Ms. Kim. “They’ve gotten a threat. It concerns both you and Maggie. It’s probably a crank call. But we’re going to hustle you both home as a precaution. Just a safety precaution. You guys know the drill.”

  “I’m sure you’ll both be back before lunch,” Mr. Soneji added in support, though he didn’t sound too convincing.

  “What kind of threat?” Maggie Rose asked Mr. Soneji. “Against Michael’s father? Or does it have to do with my mom?”

  Mr. Soneji patted Maggie’s arm. Time and again, the teachers at the private school were amazed at how grown-up most of these kids were.

  “Oh, the usual kind we get now and then. Big talk, no action. Just some jerk looking for attention, I’m sure. Some creep.” Mr. Soneji made an exaggerated face. He showed just the right amount of concern, but he made the kids feel secure.

  “Then why do we have to go all the way home to Potomac, for crying out loud?” Michael Goldberg grimaced and gesticulated like a miniature courtroom lawyer. In many ways he was a cartoon version of his famous father, the secretary.

  “Just to be on the safe side. Okay? Enough said. I’m not going to have a debate with you, Michael. Are we ready to travel?” Mr. Soneji was nice, but firm.

  “Not really.” Michael continued to frown and shake his head. “No way, José Canseco. Seriously, Mr. Soneji. This isn’t fair. It isn’t right. Why can’t the Secret Service come here and stay till school’s over?”

  “That’s not the way they want to do it,” Mr. Soneji said. “I don’t make up the rules.”

  “I guess we’re ready,” said Maggie. “C’mon, Michael. Stop arguing. This is a done deal.”

  “It’s a done deal.” Ms. Kim offered a helpful smile. “I’ll send over your homework assignments.”

  Both Maggie Rose and Michael started to laugh. “Thank you, Ms. Kim!” they said in unison. Leave it to Ms. Kim to have a good joke to fit the situation.

  The halls outside the classroom were nearly empty, and very quiet. A porter, a black man named Emmett Everett, was the only person who saw the trio as they left the school building.

  Leaning on his broom, Mr. Everett watched Mr. Soneji and the two children walk the length of the long hallway. He was the last person to see them all together.

  Once outside, they hurried across the school’s cobble-stoned parking lot, which was framed by elegant birch trees and shrubbery. Michael’s shoes made clicking noises against the stones.

  “Dork shoes.” Maggie Rose leaned into him and made a joke. “Look like dork shoes, act like dork shoes, sound like dork shoes.”

  Michael had no argument. What could he say? His mother and father still bought his clothes at freaking Brooks Brothers. “What am I supposed to be wearing, Miss Gloria Vanderbilt? Pink sneakers?” he offered lamely.

  “Sure, pink sneakers.” Maggie beamed. “Or lime green Air-outs. But not shoes for a funeral, Shrimpster.”

  Mr. Soneji led the children to a late-model blue van parked under elm and oak trees that went the length of the administration building and school gym. Nonsynchronous bouncing basketballs echoed from inside the gym.

  “The two of you can jump right in back here. Upsydaisy. There we go,” he said. The teacher helped boost them up and into the back of the van. His eyeglasses kept slipping down his nose. Finally, he just took them off.

  “You’re driving us home?” Michael asked.

  “I know it’s no Mercedes stretch, but it’ll have to do, Sir Michael. I’m just following the instructions we got on the phone. I spoke to a Mr. Chakely.”

  “Jolly Chollie.” Michael used his nickname for the Secret Service agent.

  Mr. Soneji climbed inside the blue van himself. He pulled the sliding door shut with a bang.

  “Just be a sec. Make a little room for you guys here.”

  He rummaged through cardboard boxes stacked toward the front of the van. The van was a mess. It was the antithesis of the orderly, almost compartmentalized, math teacher’s style in school. “Sit anywhere, kids.” He kept talking while he looked for something.

  When he turned again, Gary Soneji was wearing a scary, rubbery-looking black mask. He held some kind of metal implement in front of his chest. It looked like a miniature fire extinguisher, only it was more sci-fi than that.

  “Mr. Soneji?” Maggie Rose asked, her voice rising in pitch. “Mr. Soneji!” She threw her hands in front of her face. “You’re frightening us. Stop kidding around!”

  Soneji was pointing the small metal nozzle right at Maggie Rose and Michael. He took a fast step toward them. He planted both of his rubber-soled black brogans firmly.

  “What’s that thing?” Michael said, not even sure why he said it.

  “Hey, I give up. Take a whiff, boy genius. You tell me.”

  Soneji hit them with a blast of chloroform spray. He kept his finger on the trigger for a full ten seconds. Both children were covered with mist as they collapsed into the back seat of the van.

  “Out, out, bright lights,” Mr. Soneji said in the quietest, gentlest voice. “Now no one will ever know.” That was the beauty of it. No one would ever know the truth.

  Soneji climbed into the front and fired up the blue van. As he drove from the parking area, he sang “Magic Bus” by The Who. He was in an awfully good mood today. He was planning to be America’s first serial kidnapper, among other things.

  CHAPTER 5

  I GOT an “emergency” call at the Sanders house at about quarter to eleven. I didn’t want to talk to anybody with more emergencies.

  I had just spent ten minutes with the news folks. At the time of the project murders, some of the newsies were my buddies. I was a press pet. I’d even been featured in the Washington Post’s Sunday magazine section. I talked about the murder rate among black people in D.C. once again. This past year there had been nearly five hundred killings in our capital. Only eighteen victims were white. A couple of reporters actually made a note of that. Progress.

  I took the phone from a young, smart S.I.T. detective, Rakeem Powell. I was absently palming a biddy basketball that must have belonged to Mustaf. The ball gave me a funny feeling. Why murder a beautiful little boy like that? I couldn’t come up with an answer. Not so far, anyway.

  “It’s The Jefe, the chief.” Rakeem frowned. “He’s concerned.”

  “This is Cross,” I said into the Sanders telephone. My head was still spinning. I wanted to get this conversation over with real fast.

  The mouthpiece smelled of cheap musk perfume. Poo’s or Suzette’s fragrance, maybe both of theirs. On a table near the phone were photos of Mustaf in a heart-shaped frame. Made me think of my own two kids.

  “This is Chief of Detectives Pittman. What’s the situation over there?”

  “I think we have a serial killer. Mother, daughter, a little boy. Second family in less than a week. Electricity was shut off in the house. He likes to work in the dark.” I ticked off a few gory details for Pittman. That was usually enough for him. The chief would leave me alone with this one. Homicides in Southeast don’t count for much in the greater scheme.

  A beat or two of uneasy silence followed. I could see the Sanders family Christmas tree in the TV room. It had been decorated with obvious care: tinsel, shiny dime-store decorations, strings of cranberries and popcorn. There was a homemade tinfoil angel on top.

  “I heard it was a dealer got hit. Dealer and two prostitutes,” The Jefe said.

  “No, that’s not true,” I said to Pittman. “They’ve got a nice Christmas tree up.”

  “Sure it is.
Don’t bullshit me, Alex. Not today. Not right now.”

  If he was trying to get a rise out of me, he got one. “One victim is a three-year-old little boy in his pajamas. He may have been dealing. I’ll check into it.”

  I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t say a lot of things. Lately, I’d been feeling I was on the edge of exploding. Lately means for about three years or so.

  “You and John Sampson hustle over to Washington Day,” Pittman said. “All hell has broken loose here. I’m serious.”

  “I’m serious, too,” I said to the chief of detectives. I tried to keep my voice down. “I’m sure this is a signature killer. It’s bad here. People are crying in the streets. It’s almost Christmas.”

  Chief Pittman ordered us to come to the school in Georgetown, anyway. All hell had broken loose, he kept repeating.

  Before I left for Washington Day, I phoned the serial-killer unit inside our own department; then the “super unit” at the FBI’s Quantico base. The FBI has computer files of all known cases of serial killings, complete with psychiatric profiles matching M.O.’s up with a lot of unpublished serial-killing details. I was looking for a match on age, sex, type of disfigurement.

  One of the techies handed me a report to sign as I left the Sanders house. I signed my usual way—with a †.

  Cross.

  Tough guy from the tough part of town, right.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE PRIVATE-SCHOOL SURROUNDINGS were a little intimidating for Sampson and me. This was a long, long way from the schools and people of Southeast.

  We were two of only a few blacks inside the Washington Day School lobby. I’d heard there were supposed to be African kids, the children of diplomats, at the private school, but I didn’t see any. Just clusters of shocked teachers, children, parents, police. People were crying openly on the front lawns and inside the school’s lobby.

  Two little kids, two little babies had been kidnapped from one of Washington’s most prestigious private schools. I understood that it was a sad, tragic day for everybody involved. Leave it at that, I told myself. Just do your job.

  We went about our police business. We tried to suppress the fury we were feeling, but it wasn’t easy. I kept seeing the sad eyes of little Mustaf Sanders. A uniform told us we were wanted in the headmaster’s office. Chief of Detectives Pittman was there waiting for us.

  “Be cool,” Sampson advised. “Live to fight another day.”

  George Pittman usually wears a gray or blue business suit on the job. He favors pin-striped dress shirts and striped silver-and-blue neckties. He’s a Johnson & Murphy shoe and belt man. His gray hair is always slicked back so it fits his bullet head like a tight helmet. He is known as The Jefe, the Boss of Bosses, Il Duce, Thee Pits, Georgie Porgie…

  I think I know when my trouble with Chief of Detectives Pittman began. It was after the Washington Post ran that story on me in the Sunday magazine section. The piece detailed how I was a psychologist, but working Homicide and Major Crimes in D.C. I had told the reporter why I continued to live in Southeast. “It makes me feel good to live where I live. Nobody’s going to drive me out of my own house.”

  Actually, I think it was the title chosen for the article that pushed Chief Pittman (and some others in the department) over the edge. The young journalist had interviewed my grandmother while researching the piece. Nana had been an English teacher, and the impressionable writer ate that up. Nana had proceeded to fill his head with her notion that because black people are basically traditionalists, they would logically be the very last people in the South to give up religion, morals, and even formal manners. She said that I was a true Southern man, having been born in North Carolina. She also questioned why it was that we idolize near-psychotic detectives in films, TV, books, and newspaper articles.

  The title of the piece, which ran over my brooding photograph, was “The Last Southern Gentleman.” The story caused big problems inside our very uptight department. Chief Pittman especially took offense. I couldn’t prove it, but I believed the story had been placed by someone in the mayor’s office.

  I gave a one-two-three rap on the door of the headmaster’s office and Sampson and I walked in. Before I could say a word, Pittman held up his right hand. “Cross, you just listen to what I have to say,” he said as he came over to us. “There’s been a kidnapping at this school. It’s a major kidnapping —”

  “That’s a real bad thing,” I butted in immediately. “Unfortunately, a killer has also struck the Condon Terrace and Langley neighborhoods. The killer’s hit two times already. Six people are dead so far. Sampson and I are the senior people on that case. Basically, we’re it.”

  “I’m apprised of the situation in the Condon and Langley projects. I’ve already made contingencies. It’s taken care of,” Pittman said.

  “Two black women had their breasts sliced off this morning. Their pubic hair was shaved while they were tied up in bed. Were you apprised of that?” I asked him. “A three-year-old boy was murdered, in his pajamas.” I was shouting again. I glanced at Sampson and saw him shaking his head.

  A group of teachers in the office looked our way. “Two young black women had their breasts sliced off,” I repeated for their benefit. “Someone’s wandering around D.C. this morning with breasts in his pocket.”

  Chief Pittman gestured toward the headmaster’s inner office. He wanted the two of us inside the room. I shook my head. I wanted to have witnesses when I was around him.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Cross.” He lowered his voice and spoke very close to my face. The odor of stale cigarettes billowed out at me. “You think I’m out to get you, but I’m not. I know you’re a good cop. I know your heart’s usually in the right place.”

  “No, you don’t know what I’m thinking. Here’s what I’m thinking! Six black people are dead already. A crazed, homicidal killer is out there. He’s in heat. He’s sharpening his eyeteeth. Now two white kids have been kidnapped, and that’s a horrible thing. Horrible! But I’m already on a fucking case!”

  Pittman suddenly jabbed his index finger at me. His face was very red. “I decide what cases you’re on! I decide! You’re experienced as a hostage negotiator. You’re a psychologist. We have other people to send into Langley and Condon. Besides, Mayor Monroe has specifically asked for you.”

  So that was it. Now I understood everything. Our mayor had intervened. It was all about me.

  “What about Sampson? At least leave him on the project murders,” I said to the chief of detectives.

  “You got any complaints, take them up with the mayor. You’re both working on this kidnapping. That’s all I have to say to you at this time.”

  Pittman turned his back on us and walked away. We were on the Dunne-Goldberg kidnapping case, like it or not. We didn’t like it.

  “Maybe we should just go back to the Sanders house,” I said to Sampson.

  “Nobody miss us here,” he agreed.

  CHAPTER 7

  A GLEAMING, black BMW K-1 motorcycle squeezed between the low fieldstone gates of the Washington Day School. The driver was I.D.’d, then the bike sped down a long narrow road toward a gray cluster of school buildings. It was eleven o’clock.

  The BMW K-1 streaked to sixty in the few seconds it took to get to the administration building. The motorcycle then braked easily and smoothly, barely throwing gravel. The rider slid it in behind a pearl-gray Mercedes stretch limousine with diplomat’s plates DP101.

  Still seated on the bike, Jezzie Flanagan pulled off a black helmet to reveal longish blond hair. She looked to be in her late twenties. Actually, she’d turned thirty-two that summer. Life was threatening to pass her right by. She was a relic now, ancient history, she believed. She had come straight to the school from her lake cottage, not to mention her first vacation in twenty-nine months.

  That latter fact helped to explain her style of dress that morning: the leather bike jacket, the faded black jeans with leg warmers, thick leather belt, the red-and-black chec
kered lumberman’s shirt, and the worn engineering boots.

  Two D.C. policemen rushed up on either side of her. “It’s okay, officers,” she said, “here’s my I.D.” After eyeing the identification, they backed away quickly and became solicitous. “You can go right in,” one of them said. “There’s a side door just around those high hedges, Ms. Flanagan.”

  Jezzie Flanagan managed a friendly smile for the two harried-looking policemen. “I don’t exactly look the part today, I know. I was on my vacation. I race the bike. I raced it here.”

  Jezzie Flanagan took the shortcut across a pristine lawn that was lightly coated with frost. She disappeared inside the school’s administration building.

  Neither of the D.C. policemen took his eyes off her until she was gone. Her blond hair blew like streamers in the stiff winter wind. She was definitely stunning to look at, even in dirty jeans and work boots. And she had a very powerful job. They both knew that from her I.D. She was a player.

  As she made her way through the front lobby, someone grabbed at her. Someone caught a piece of Jezzie Flanagan, which was typical of her life in D.C.

  Victor Schmidt had hooked onto her arm. Once upon a time, and this was difficult for Jezzie to imagine now, Victor had been her partner. Her first, in fact. Now he was assigned to one of the students at the Day School.

  Victor was short and balding. A stylish GQ sort of dresser. Confident for no particularly good reason. He’d always struck her as misplaced in the Secret Service, maybe better suited for lower rungs of the diplomatic corps.

  “Jezzie, how’s it going?” he half whispered, half spoke. He never seemed to go all the way on anything, she remembered. That had always bugged her.

  Jezzie Flanagan blew up. Later, she realized she had really been on edge when Schmidt stopped her. Not that she needed an excuse for the flare-up. Not that morning. Not under the circumstances.