Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 66

HE VERDICT in the Soneji/Murphy trial was coming down soon.

The jury went out on the eleventh of November. They returned after three days, amid nonstop rumors that they had been unable to decide either the guilt, or the innocence, of the defendant. The whole world seemed to be waiting.

Sampson picked me up that morning and we rode to the courthouse together. The weather had turned warin, after a brief cool spell that foreshadowed winter.

As we approached Indiana Avenue, I thought about Jezzie. I hadn't seen her in over a week. I wondered if she would show up in court for the verdict. She'd called me. She told me she was down in North Carolina. That was all she'd really said. I was a loner again, and I didn't like it.

I didn't see Jezzie outside the courthouse, but Anthony Nathan was climbing out of a silver Mercedes stretch. This was his big moment. Reporters climbed all

361 over Nathan. They were like city birds on stale bread crumbs. The TV and print people tried to grab a little piece of me and Sampson before we could escape up the courthouse steps. Neither of us was too excited about being interviewed again.

“Dr. Cross! Dr. Cross, please,” one of them called out. I recognized the shrill voice. It belonged to a local TV news anchorwoman.

We had to stop. They were behind us, and up ahead. Sampson hummed a little Martha and the Vandellas, “Nowhere to Run.”

“Dr. Cross, do you feel that your testimony might actually help to get Gary Murphy off the hook for murder one? That you may have inadvertently helped him to get away with murder?”

Something finally snapped inside me. “We're just happy to be in the Super Bowl,” I said straight-faced into the glare of several minicam lenses. “Alex Cross is going to concentrate on his game. The rest will take care of itself. Alex Cross just thanks Almighty God for the opportunity to play at this level. ” I leaned in toward the reporter who'd asked the question. “You understand what I'm saying? You're clear now?”

Sampson smiled and said, “As for me, I'm still open for lucrative endorsements in the sneaker and the softdrink categories.” Then we continued up the steep stone steps and into the federal courthouse.

As Sampson and I entered the cavernous federal courthouse lobby, the noise level might have done real damage to our eardrums. Everyone was pushing and milling about, but in a sort of civilized manner, the way folks in evening wear push into your back at the Kennedy Center.

Soneji/Murphy wasn't the first criminal trial where multiple personality was the center of the defense. It was by far the most celebrated case, though. It had raised emotional questions about guilt and innocence, and those questions genuinely left the verdict in doubt.... If Gary Murphy was innocent, how could he be convicted of kidnapping and murder? His lawyer had planted that question in all of our minds.

I saw Nathan again upstairs. He had accomplished everything he'd hoped for with his courtroom session. “Clearly, there are two personalities battling each other inside the defendant's mind,” he'd told the jurors during his summation. “One of them is as innocent as you are. You cannot convict Gary Murphy of kidnapping or murder. Gary Murphy is a good man. Gary Murphy is a husband and a father. Gary Murphy is innocent!”

It was a difficult problem and dilemma for the jurors. Was Gary Soneji/Murphy a brilliant and evil sociopath? Was he aware, and in control, of his actions? Had there been an “accomplice” to the kidnapping and at least one child-murder? Or had he acted alone from the beginning?

No one knew the truth except maybe Gary himself. Not the psychology experts. Not the police. Not the press. And not me.

Now how would the jury of Gary's “peers” decide? The first real event of the morning occurred when

Gary was escorted into the packed, noisy courtroom. He looked his usual clean-cut and characteristically boyish self in a plain blue suit. He looked as if he worked in some small-town bank, not like someone on trial for kidnapping and murder.

There was a smattering of applause. It proved that even kidnappers can have a cult following these days. The trial had definitely attracted its share of weirdos and sick creeps.

“Who says America doesn't have any more heroes?” Sampson said to me. "They like his crazy ass. You can see it in their shiny, beady little eyes. He's the new and improved Charlie Manson. Instead of a berserk hippie, a berserk yuppie

“The Son of Lindbergh,” I reminded Sampson. “I wonder if this is how he wanted it to turn out. All part of his master plan for fame?”

The jury filed into the courtroom. The men and women looked dazed and unbearably tense. What had they decided-probably very late the night before?

One of the jurors stumbled as they moved one by one into the dark mahogany jury box. The man went down on one knee and the procession behind him stopped. That one brief moment seemed to underscore the frailty and humanity of the whole trial process.

I glanced at Soneji/Murphy and thought I saw a faint smile cross his lips. Had I witnessed a tiny slipup? What thoughts were racing through his head now? What verdict did he expect?

In any event, the persona known as Gary Soneji, the “Bad Boy,” would have appreciated the irony of the moment. Everything was ready now. An incredible extravaganza. With him at center stage. No matter what, this was the biggest day of his life. I want to be somebody!

“Has the jury reached a verdict?” Judge Kaplan asked once they were seated.

A small, folded slip of paper was passed to the judge. Judge Kaplan's face was expressionless as she read the verdict. Then it went back to the jury foreman. The process of due process.

The foreman, who had remained standing, began to speak in a clear but shaky voice. He was a postal worker named James Heekin. He was fifty-five, and had ruddy, almost crimson, coloring that suggested high blood pressure, or maybe just the stress of the trial.

James Heekin proclaimed, “On two charges of kidnapping, we find the defendant guilty. On the charge of the murder of Michael Goldberg, we find the defendant guilty. ” James Heekin never used the name Murphy, just the defendant.

Chaos broke out all over the courtroom. The noise was deafening as it echoed off the stone pillars and marble walls. Reporters raced for the telephones in the hallway. Mary Warner was emotionally congratulated by all the young associates on her staff. Anthony Nathan and his defense team quickly left the room, avoiding questions.

There was a strangely poignant moment in the front of the courtroom.

As court officers were leading Gary away, his wife, Missy, and his little girl, Roni, ran up to him. The three of them fiercely hugged. They sobbed openly.

I had never seen Gary cry before. If it was a perfor mance, it was another brilliant one. If he was acting in front of the courtroom, the scene was entirely believable.

I couldn't take my eyes off him. Not until a pair of court officers finally pried Gary away and led him out of the courtroom.

If he was acting, there hadn't been a single false move. He was completely absorbed with his wife and little girl. He never once looked around the courtroom to see if he had an audience.

He played it perfectly.

Or was Gary Murphy an innocent man who had just been convicted of kidnapping and murder?