beautifully; everything did. Soneji invented it himself. lie built it himself.” My pulse was hammering. My throat was very, very dry. “What about the little girl? What about Maggie Rose?” I asked him.
“She was fine. Soneji gave her Valium the second time. To put her back to sleep. She was terrified, screaming-because it was so dark under the ground. Pitch-black. But it wasn't that bad. Soneji had seen worse himself. The basement.”
I proceeded very cautiously at this point. I didn't want to lose him here. What about the basement? I'd try to get back to the basement later.
“Where is Maggie Rose now?” I asked Gary Mur phy “Don't know,” he said without hesitation.
Not, she's dead. Not, she's alive.... Don't know. Why would he block that information? Because he knew I wanted it? Because everyone in that courtroom wanted to know the fate of Maggie Rose Dunne? “Soneji went back to get her,” he said next. “The FBI had agreed to the ten-million ransom. Everything all set. But she was gone! Maggie Rose wasn't when Soneji came back again. She was gone! Somebody else had taken the girl out of there!”
The spectators in the courtroom were no longer quiet. But I still kept my concentration on Gary.
Judge Kaplan was reluctant to bang her gavel and ask for order. She did stand up. She motioned for quiet, but it was a useless gesture. Somebody else had taken the girl out of there. Somebody else had the girl now.
I rushed in a few more questions before the room went completely out of control, and maybe Soneji/Murphy with it. My voice remained soft, surprisingly calm under the circumstances.
“Did you dig her up, Gary? Did you rescue the little girl from Soneii? Do you know where Maggie Rose is now?” I asked him.
He didn't like that line of questioning, He was perspiring heavily. His eyelids flickered. “Of course not. No, I had nothing to do with any of it. It was Soneji all the way. I can't control him. Nobody can. Don't you understand that?”
I leaned way forward in my chair. “Is Soneji here right now? Is he here with us this morning?”
Under any other circumstances, I wouldn't have tried to push him this far. “Can I ask Soneji what happened to Maggie Rose?”
Gary Murphy shook his head repeatedly from side to side. He knew something else was happening to him now.
“ It's too scary now,” he said. His face was dripping with perspiration and his hair was wet. 'It's scary.
Soneji's real bad news! I can't talk about him anymore. I won't. Please, help me, Dr. Cross! Please, help me.'
“All right, Gary, that's enough.” I brought Gary out of hypnosis immediately. It was the only humane thing to do under the circumstances. I had no choice.
Suddenly, Gary Murphy was back in the courtroom with me. His eyes focused on mine. I saw nothing but fear in them. The courtroom crowd was out of control. TV and print reporters rushed to make calls to their newsrooms. Judge Kaplan slammed her gavel over and over again.
Somebody else had Maggie Rose Dunne.... Was that possible?
“It's all right, Gary,” I said. “I understand why you were afraid. ”
He stared at me, then his eyes very slowly trailed around the loudly buzzing courtroom. “What happened?” he asked. “What just happened in here?”
Along Came A Spider
CHAPTER 63
STILL REMEMBERED some Kafka. In particular, the chilling opening of Kafka's The Trial: “Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning. ” That was what Gary Murphy wanted us to believe: that he was trapped in a nightmare. That he was as innocent as Joseph K.
I had my picture taken a couple of dozen times as I left the courthouse. Everybody had a question to ask. I had no comments to make. I never miss a good chance to shut up.
Was Maggie Rose still alive? the press wanted to know. I wouldn't say what I thought, which was that she probably wasn't.
As I was leaving the courthouse, I saw Katherine and Thomas Dunne walking toward me. They were flanked by TV and print newspeople. I wanted to talk to Katherine, but not to Thomas. “Why are you helping him?” Thomas Dunne raised
344 his voice. “Don't you know he's lying? What's wrong with you, Cross?”.
Thomas Dunne was extremely tense and red-faced. Out of control. The veins in his forehead couldn't have been more prominent. Katherine Rose looked miserable, completely desolate.
“I've been called as a hostile witness,” I said to the Dunnes. “I'm doing my job, that's all.”
“Well, you're doing your job badly.” Thomas Dunne continued to attack me. “You lost our daughter in Florida. Now you're trying to free her kidnapper.” I'd had enough from Thomas Dunne finally. He'd made personal attacks on me in the press and on TV. As much as I wanted to get his daughter back, I wasn't about to take any more abuse from him.
“The hell I am!” I shouted back as cameras shushed and whirred around us. “I've had my hands tied. I've been taken off the case, on a whim, then put back on. And I'm the only one who's gotten any results.”
