Cat and Mouse

unlikely the better for his ego.
    Things about my last visit were flashing back. Nasty memories. It was Roni’s birthday party. She was seven. Gary Soneji had been inside the house that time, but he had managed to escape. A regular Houdini. A very smart, very creepy creep.
    Soneji could be inside now. Why did I have the unsettling feeling that I was walking into a trap?
    I waited on the back porch, not sure what to do next. I rang the bell. Something was definitely wrong about the case, everything about it was wrong. Soneji here in Wilmington? Why here? Why kill people in Union and Penn Stations?
    “Alex!” Sampson shouted. “Alex! Over here! Come quick. Alex,
now!”
    I hurried across the yard with my heart in my throat. Sampson was down on all fours. He was crouched in front of a doghouse that was painted white and shingled to look like the main residence. What in hell was inside the doghouse?
    As I got closer, I could see a thick black cloud of flies.
    Then I heard the buzzing.

Chapter 35

    “ O H, GODDAMN it, Alex, look at what that madman did. Look at what he did to her!”
    I wanted to avert my eyes, but I had to look. I crouched down low beside Sampson. Both of us were batting away horse-flies and other unpleasant swarming insects. White larvae were all over everything — the doghouse, the lawn. I held a handkerchief bunched over my nose and mouth, but it wasn’t enough to stifle the putrid smell. My eyes began to water.
    “What the hell is wrong with him?” Sampson said. “Where does he get his insane ideas?”
    Propped up inside the doghouse was the body of a golden retriever, or what remained of it. Blood was spattered everywhere on the wooden walls. The dog had been decapitated.
    Firmly attached to the dog’s neck was the head of Meredith Murphy. Her head was propped perfectly, even though it was too large proportionately for the retriever’s body. The effect was beyond grotesque. It reminded me of the old Mr. Potato Head toys. Merdith Murphy’s open eyes stared out at me.
    I had met Meredith Murphy only once, and that had been almost four years before. I wondered what she could have done to enrage Soneji like this. He had never talked much about his wife during our sessions. He had despised her, though. I remembered his nicknames for her: “Simple Cipher,” “The Headless Hausfrau,” “Blonde Cow.”
    “What the hell is going on inside that sick, sorry son of a bitch’s head? You understand this?” Sampson muttered through his handkerchief-covered mouth.
    I thought that I understood psychotic rage states, and I had seen a few of Soneji’s, but nothing had prepared me for the past few days. The current murders were extreme, and bloody. They were also clustered, happening much too frequently.
    I had the grim feeling Soneji couldn’t turn off his rage, not even after a new kill. None of the murders satisfied his need anymore.
    “Oh, God.” I rose to my feet. “John, his little girl,” I said. “His daughter, Roni. What has he done with her?”
    The two of us searched the wooded half lot, including a copse of bent, wind-battered evergreens on the northeast side of the house. No Roni. No other bodies, or grossly severed parts, or other grisly surprises.
    We looked for the girl in the two-car garage. Then in the tight, musty crawl space under the back porch. We checked the trio of metal garbage cans neatly lined alongside the garage. Nothing anywhere. Where was Roni Murphy? Had he taken her with him? Had Soneji kidnapped his daughter?
    I headed back toward the house, with Sampson a step or two behind me. I broke the window in the kitchen door, unlocked it, and rushed inside. I feared the worst. Another murdered child?
    “Go easy, man. Take it slow in here,” Sampson whispered from behind. He knew how I got when children were involved. He also sensed this could be a trap Soneji had set. It was a perfect place for one.
    “Roni!” I called out. “Roni, are you in here? Roni, can you hear me?”
    I remembered her face from the last time I’d been in this house. I could have drawn her picture if I had to.
    Gary had told me once that Roni was the only thing that mattered in his life, the only good thing he’d ever done. At the time, I believed him. I was probably projecting my feelings for my own kids. Maybe I was fooled into thinking that Soneji had some kind of conscience and feelings because that was what I wanted to believe.
    “Roni! It’s the police. You can come out now,