Along Came a Spider

slowly stripped away the chain and opened the door. Gary stepped into the apartment. He pulled a long hunting knife from under his work jacket. He pointed it at the teacher’s face. “Don’t scream.
Do not scream
, Vivian.”
    “How do you know my name?” she asked. “Who are you?”
    “Don’t raise your voice, Vivian. There’s no reason to be afraid… I’ve done this before. I’m just your garden-variety robber.”
    “What do you want?” The teacher had begun to tremble.
    Gary thought for a second before he answered her scared-rabbit question. “I want to send out another message over the TV, I guess. I want the fame I so richly deserve,” he finally said. “I want to be the scariest man in America. That’s why I work in the capital. I’m
Gary
. Don’t you remember me, Viv?”

CHAPTER 34

    SAMPSON AND I raced down C Street in the heart of Capitol Hill. I could hear the breath inside my nose as I ran. My arms and legs felt disjointed.
    Squad cars from the department and EMS ambulances had the street completely blocked off. We’d had to park on F Street and sprint the last couple of blocks. WJLA-TV was already there. So was CNN. Sirens screamed everywhere.
    I spotted a clique of reporters up ahead. They saw Sampson and me coming. We’re about as hard to miss as the Harlem Globetrotters in Tokyo.
    “Detective Cross? Dr. Cross?” the reporters called out, trying to slow us down.
    “No comment,” I waved them off. “From either of us. Get the fuck out of the way.”
    Inside Vivian Kim’s apartment, Sampson and I passed all the familiar faces — techies, forensics, the DOA gang in their ghoulish element.
    “I don’t want to do this anymore,” Sampson said. “Whole world’s flowing down the piss-tubes. It’s too much, even for me.”
    “We burn out,” I mumbled to him, “we burn out together.”
    Sampson grabbed my hand and held it. That told me he was as fucked up about this as he got. We went inside the first bedroom on the right side of the hallway. I tried to be still inside. I couldn’t do it.
    Vivian Kim’s bedroom was beautifully laid out. Lots of exquisite, black-and-white family photographs and art posters covered most of the wall space. An antique violin was hung on one wall. I didn’t want to look at the reason I was there. Finally, I had to.
    Vivian Kim was pinned to the bed with a long hunting knife. It was driven through her stomach.
Both her breasts had been removed. Her pubic hair had been shaved
. Her eyes had rolled back in her head, as if she had seen something unfathomable during her last moments.
    I let my eyes wander around the bedroom. I couldn’t look at Vivian Kim’s mutilated body. I stared at a splash of bright color on the floor. I caught my breath. Nobody had said anything about it on the way up. Nobody had noticed the most important clue. Fortunately, nobody had moved the evidence.
    “Look at this here.” I showed Sampson.
    Maggie Rose Dunne’s second sneaker was lying on Vivian Kim’s bedroom floor. The killer was leaving what the pathologists call “artistic touches.” He’d left an overt message this time — the signature of signatures. I was shaking as I bent down over the little girl’s sneaker. Here was the most sadistic humor at work. The pink sneaker, in shocking contrast to the bloody crime scene.
    Gary Soneji had been in the bedroom. Soneji was the project killer, too. He was The Thing. And he was back in town.

CHAPTER 35

    GARY SONEJI was still in Washington, indeed. He was sending out special-delivery messages to his fans. There was a difference now. He was baiting us, too. Sampson and I got a dispensation from The Jefe: we could work on the kidnapping as long as it was linked to the other murder investigations. It definitely was.
    “This is our day off, so we must be having fun,” Sampson said to me as we walked the streets of Southeast. It was the thirteenth of January. Bitter cold. Folks had fires blazing in the garbage cans on almost every street corner. One of the brothers had FUC U 2 razorcut on the back of his head. My sentiments exactly.
    “Mayor Monroe doesn’t call anymore. Doesn’t write,” I said to Sampson. I watched my breath launch clouds in the freezing air.
    “See, there is a silver lining,” he said into the wind. “He’ll come around when we catch The Thing. He’ll be there to take all the bows for us.”
    We walked along, goofing on the situation and on each other. Sampson rapped lyrics from pop