Gary Soneji wasn't anywhere in the dining room. Just more police, kids in birthday hats, pets, mothers and dads with their mouths open in disbelief.
“I think Gary went upstairs,” one of the fathers finally said. “What's going on here? What the hell is going on?”
Craig and Reilly were already crashing back down the stairs into the front hallway.
“Not up there,” Reilly yelled. One of the kids said, “I think Mr. Murphy went down to the cellar. What'd he do?”
We ran back to the kitchen and down to the cellarScorse, Reilly, and myself. Sampson went back upstairs to double-check.
No one was anywhere in the two small cellar rooms. There was a storm door to the outside. It was closed and locked from the outside.
Sampson came down a moment later, two stairs at a clip. “I checked over the whole upstairs. He's not there! ”
Gary Soneji had disappeared again.
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 38
KA Y, let's dial it up a notch! Let's do some serious rock and roll. Let's play for keeps now, Gary thought as he ran for it.
He'd had escape plans in mind since he'd been fifteen or sixteen years old. He'd known the so-called authorities would come for him someday, somehow, somewhere. He'd seen it all in his mind, in his elaborate daydreams. The only question was when. And maybe, for what? For which of his crimes?
Then they were there on Central Avenue in Wilmington! The end of the celebrated manhunt. Or was it the beginning?
Gary was like a programmed machine from the moment he spotted the police. He almost couldn't believe that what he'd fantasized so many times was actually happening. They were there, though. Special dreams do come true. If you're young at heart.
He had calmly paid the pizza delivery boy. Then he went down the stairs and out through the cellar. He used
196 a special half-hidden door and went into the garage. He relocked the door from the outside. Another side door led to a tiny alley into the Dwyers' yard. He relocked that door, also. Jimmy Dwyer's snow boots were sitting on the porch steps. Snow was on the ground. He took his neighbor's boots.
He paused between his house and the Dwyers'. He thought about letting them catch him then and theregetting caught-just like Bruno Hauptmann in the Lindbergh case. He loved that idea. But not yet. Not here.
Then he was running away, down a tight row of alleys. between the houses. Nobody but kids used the little alleyway, which was overgrown with high weeds and littered with soda cans.
He felt as if he had tunnel vision. Must have something to do with the fear he felt in every inch of his body. Gary was afraid. He had to admit that he was. Face the adrenaline facts, pal.
He ran through backyard after backyard, down good old Central Avenue. Then into the deep woods of Downing Park. He didn't see a soul on the way.
Only when he glanced back once could he see them moving toward his house. Saw the big black Kaffirs Cross and Sampson. The vastly overrated Manhunt. The Federal Bureau in all its glory.
He was sprinting now, full out toward the Metro train station, which was four blocks from the house. This was his link to Philly, Washington, New York, the outside world He must have mtide it in ten flat-something like that. He kept himself in good shape. Powerful legs and arms, a washboard-flat stomach.
An old VW was parked at the station. It was always parked there-the trusty Bug from his unholy youth. The “scene of past cfimes,” to put it mildly. Driven just enough to keep the battery alive. It was time for more fun, more games. The Son of Lindbergh was on the move again.
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 39
AMPSON AND I were still at the Murphy house at well past eleven o'clock. The press was gathered behind bright yellow ropes outside. So were a cou ple of hundred close friends and neighbors from around the community of Wilmington. The town had never had a bigger night Another massive manhunt had already been set in motion along the Eastern Seaboard, but also west into
Pennsylvania and Ohio. It seemed impossible that Gary
Soneji/Murphy could get away a second time. We didn't believe he could have planned this escape the way he'd planned the one out of Washington.
One of the kids at the party had spotted a local police cruiser doing a fide-by minutes before we arrived in the neighborhood. The boy had innocently mentioned the police car to Mr. Murphy. He had escaped through sheer luck! We'd missed catching him by a few minutes at most.
