Along Came a Spider

under elm and oak trees that went the length of the administration building and school gym. Nonsynchronous bouncing basketballs echoed from inside the gym.
    “The two of you can jump right in back here. Upsydaisy. There we go,” he said. The teacher helped boost them up and into the back of the van. His eyeglasses kept slipping down his nose. Finally, he just took them off.
    “You’re driving us home?” Michael asked.
    “I know it’s no Mercedes stretch, but it’ll have to do, Sir Michael. I’m just following the instructions we got on the phone. I spoke to a Mr. Chakely.”
    “Jolly Chollie.” Michael used his nickname for the Secret Service agent.
    Mr. Soneji climbed inside the blue van himself. He pulled the sliding door shut with a bang.
    “Just be a sec. Make a little room for you guys here.”
    He rummaged through cardboard boxes stacked toward the front of the van. The van was a mess. It was the antithesis of the orderly, almost compartmentalized, math teacher’s style in school. “Sit anywhere, kids.” He kept talking while he looked for something.
    When he turned again, Gary Soneji was wearing a scary, rubbery-looking black mask. He held some kind of metal implement in front of his chest. It looked like a miniature fire extinguisher, only it was more sci-fi than that.
    “Mr. Soneji?” Maggie Rose asked, her voice rising in pitch. “Mr. Soneji!” She threw her hands in front of her face. “You’re frightening us. Stop kidding around!”
    Soneji was pointing the small metal nozzle right at Maggie Rose and Michael. He took a fast step toward them. He planted both of his rubber-soled black brogans firmly.
    “What’s that thing?” Michael said, not even sure why he said it.
    “Hey, I give up. Take a whiff, boy genius. You tell me.”
    Soneji hit them with a blast of chloroform spray. He kept his finger on the trigger for a full ten seconds. Both children were covered with mist as they collapsed into the back seat of the van.
    “Out, out, bright lights,” Mr. Soneji said in the quietest, gentlest voice. “Now no one will ever know.” That was the beauty of it. No one would ever know the truth.
    Soneji climbed into the front and fired up the blue van. As he drove from the parking area, he sang “Magic Bus” by The Who. He was in an awfully good mood today. He was planning to be America’s first serial kidnapper, among other things.

CHAPTER 5

    I GOT an “emergency” call at the Sanders house at about quarter to eleven. I didn’t want to talk to anybody with more emergencies.
    I had just spent ten minutes with the news folks. At the time of the project murders, some of the newsies were my buddies. I was a press pet. I’d even been featured in the
Washington Post’s
Sunday magazine section. I talked about the murder rate among black people in D.C. once again. This past year there had been nearly five hundred killings in our capital. Only eighteen victims were white. A couple of reporters actually made a note of that. Progress.
    I took the phone from a young, smart S.I.T. detective, Rakeem Powell. I was absently palming a biddy basketball that must have belonged to Mustaf. The ball gave me a funny feeling. Why murder a beautiful little boy like that? I couldn’t come up with an answer. Not so far, anyway.
    “It’s The Jefe, the chief.” Rakeem frowned. “He’s concerned.”
    “This is Cross,” I said into the Sanders telephone. My head was still spinning. I wanted to get this conversation over with real fast.
    The mouthpiece smelled of cheap musk perfume. Poo’s or Suzette’s fragrance, maybe both of theirs. On a table near the phone were photos of Mustaf in a heart-shaped frame. Made me think of my own two kids.
    “This is Chief of Detectives Pittman. What’s the situation over there?”
    “I think we have a serial killer. Mother, daughter, a little boy. Second family in less than a week. Electricity was shut off in the house. He likes to work in the dark.” I ticked off a few gory details for Pittman. That was usually enough for him. The chief would leave me alone with this one. Homicides in Southeast don’t count for much in the greater scheme.
    A beat or two of uneasy silence followed. I could see the Sanders family Christmas tree in the TV room. It had been decorated with obvious care: tinsel, shiny dime-store decorations, strings of cranberries and popcorn. There was a homemade tinfoil angel on top.
    “I heard it was a dealer got hit. Dealer and two