Along Came a Spider

inside. A sales book of some sort was on the front seat. His company is called Atlantic Heating, out of Wilmington, Delaware.”
    Mrs. Scott looked from face to face, either to make sure that she was being clear, or that we were getting all of what she had just said.
    “Yesterday, I saw the same car drive through the neighborhood. I saw the car the morning the woman on C Street was killed. I said to my friend here, ’This can’t all be a coincidence, can it?’ Now, I don’t know if he’s the one you’re looking for, but I think you should talk to him.”
    Sampson looked at me. Then the two of us did a rare thing of late. We broke into smiles. Even the ladies decided to join in. We had something. We had a break, finally, the first of the case.
    “We’re going to talk to the traveling salesman,” I said to Mrs. Scott and Quillie McBride. “We’re going to Wilmington, Delaware.”

CHAPTER 36

    GARY MURPHY got home at a little past five on the following afternoon, January 14. He’d gone into the office, just outside Wilmington. Only a few people had been there, and he’d planned to get some useless paperwork done. He had to make things look good for a little while longer.
    He’d ended up thinking about larger subjects. The master plan. Gary just couldn’t get serious about the paper blizzard of bills and invoices littering his desk. He kept picking up crumpled customer bills, glancing at names, amounts, addresses.
    Who in their right fucking mind could care about all the invoices? he was thinking to himself. It was all so brutally small-time, so dumb and petty. Which was why the job, and Delaware, were such a good hiding spot for him.
    So he accomplished absolutely nothing at the office, except blowing off a few hours. At least he’d picked up a present for Roni on the way home. He bought Roni a pink bike with training wheels and streamers. He added a Barbie Dream House. Her birthday party was set for six o’clock.
    Missy met him at the front door with a hug and a kiss. Positive reinforcement was her strong suit. The party gave her something to think about. She’d been off his back for days.
    “Great day, honey. I kid you not. Three home visits set up for next week. Count them, three,” Gary told her. What the hell. He could be charming when he wanted to be.
Mr. Chips goes to Delaware
.
    He followed Missy into the dining room, where she was setting out brightly colored plastic and paper for the party of parties. Missy had already hung a painted sheet on one wall — the kind they held up for football games at U.D., University Dumb. This one said: GO RONI — SEVEN OR BUST!
    “This is pure genius, hon. You can make something out of nothing. This all looks fantastic,” Gary said. “Things are sure looking up now.”
    Actually, he was starting to get a little depressed. He felt out of it and wanted to take a nap. The idea of Roni’s birthday party seemed exhausting suddenly. There sure hadn’t been any parties when he was a kid.
    The neighbors started to arrive right at six o’clock. That was good, he thought. It meant the kids really wanted to come. They liked Roni. He could see it on all of their little Balloonhead faces.
    Several of the parents stayed for the party. They were friends of his and Missy’s. He dutifully played bartender while Missy started the kids on an assortment of games: Duck-Duck-Goose, Musical Chairs, Pin the Tail.
    Everybody was having a good time. He looked at Roni, and she was like a spinning top.
    Gary had a recurring fantasy — he murdered everyone attending a child’s birthday party. A birthday party — or maybe a children’s Easter egg hunt. That made him feel a little better.

CHAPTER 37

    THE HOUSE was two-story, white-painted brick, on a wooded half-lot. It was already surrounded by cars: station wagons, Jeeps, the family vehicles of suburbia.
    “This
can’t
be his house,” Sampson said as we parked on a side street. “The Thing doesn’t live here. Jimmy Stewart does.”
    We had found Gary Soneji — but it didn’t feel right. The monster’s house was a perfect suburban beauty, a gingerbread house on a well-maintained street in Wilmington, Delaware. It was a little less than twenty-four hours since we’d spoken to Mrs. Scott in D.C. In that time, we had tracked down Atlantic Heating in Wilmington. We had gathered the original Hostage Rescue Team together.
    Lights were shining through most of the house windows. A Domino’s delivery truck arrived at