Along Came a Spider - James Patterson [99]
“How did you feel when the police arrested you?”
“I felt like it couldn’t be happening. No way. It had to be a bad dream. I told them I was a salesman, told them where I lived in Delaware. Anything I could think of to show they had the wrong person. Not a criminal. I don’t have any record with the police.”
I said, “We talked about the time just before you were arrested. That day. When you went into the fast-food restaurant.”
“I don’t… I’m not sure if I can remember. Let me try and think about it….” Gary appeared to be struggling a little. Was it an act? Or was he uncomfortable with the truth as he remembered it now?
Originally, I’d been surprised that he had revealed the Soneji persona in our prison session. I wondered if he would do it again. Especially under these difficult circumstances.
“You stopped to go to the bathroom inside the McDonald’s restaurant. You also wanted some coffee, to keep you alert on your drive.”
“I remember… I remember a little of that. I can see myself at the McDonald’s for sure. I remember being there….”
“Take your time. We have plenty of time, Gary.”
“Very crowded with people. The restaurant area was crowded, I mean. I went up to the bathroom door. Then I didn’t go inside for some reason. I don’t know why not. That’s funny, but I don’t remember.”
“What were you feeling then? When you remained outside the rest room. Do you remember how you felt?”
“Agitated. Getting worse. I could feel the blood pumping inside my head. I didn’t understand why. I was upset, and I didn’t know why.”
Soneji/Murphy was staring straight ahead. He was looking to the left of where I sat. I was a little surprised at how easy it was for me to forget the courtroom audience that was watching both of us.
“Was Soneji there in the restaurant?” I asked him.
He tilted his head slightly. The gesture was oddly touching.
“Soneji’s in there. Yes, he’s in the McDonald’s.” He became excited. “Pretending to get coffee, but he looks angry. He’s, I think he’s really mad. Soneji’s a nut case, a bad seed.”
“Why is he mad? Do you know? What is it that gets Soneji angry?”
“I think it’s because… things got ruined on him. The police were unbelievably lucky. His plan to be famous got screwed up. Totally messed up. Now he feels like Bruno Richard Hauptmann. Just another loser.”
This was news. He hadn’t talked about the actual kidnapping before. I was oblivious to everything in the courtroom. My eyes stayed on Gary Soneji/Murphy.
I tried to sound as casual and nonthreatening as I could. Easy does it. Nice and slow. This was like walking on the edge of a chasm. I could help him, or we could both fall in. “What went wrong with Soneji’s plan?”
“Everything that could go wrong,” he said. He was still Gary Murphy. I could see that. He had not transferred into the Soneji personality. But Gary Murphy knew about Gary Soneji’s activities; under hypnosis, Gary Murphy knew Soneji’s thoughts.
The courtroom remained silent and very still. There wasn’t a flicker of motion anywhere in my peripheral vision.
More details about the kidnapping came from Gary. “He checked on the Goldberg boy, and the boy was dead. His face was all blue. Must have been too much of the barbiturate…. Soneji couldn’t believe that he’d made a mistake. He’d been so thorough and careful. He’d talked to anesthesiologists beforehand.”
I asked a key question: “How did the boy’s body get so bruised and beaten? What exactly happened to the Goldberg boy?”
“Soneji went a little crazy. He couldn’t believe his bad luck. He hit the Goldberg boy’s body over and over with a heavy shovel.”
The way he was talking about Soneji was extremely credible so far. It was possible that he was a multiple-personality victim after all. That would change everything about the trial, and possibly the verdict.
“What shovel was that?” I asked.
He was talking faster and faster now. “The shovel he used to dig them up. They were buried in the barn. They had an air supply for a couple of days. It was like a fallout