Cat & Mouse

“Some days I think I’ve gotten used to what’s happened, but then suddenly it’s fresh and incomprehensible to me all over again,” he told us as the midday breeze ruffled his longish white hair.

“Did you stay close to Gary as he got older?” I asked cautiously. I was studying his build, which was large. His arms were thick and looked as if they could still do physical damage.

“I remember long talks with Gary from the time he was a boy right up until it was alleged he’d kidnapped those two children in Washington.” Alleged.

“And you were taken by surprise?” I said. “You had no idea?”

Walter Murphy looked directly at me-for the first time. I knew that he resented my tone, the irony in it. How angry could I make him? How much of a temper did the old man have?

I leaned in and listened more closely. I watched every gesture, every tic. Collected the data.

“ Gary always wanted to fit in, just like everybody else does,” he said abruptly. “He trusted me because he knew I accepted him for what he was.”

“What was it about Gary that needed to be accepted?”

The old man shifted his eyes to the peaceful-looking pine woods surrounding the farm. I could feel Soneji in those woods. It was as if he were watching us.

“He could be hostile at times, I’ll admit. His tongue was sharp, double-barbed. Gary had an air of superiority that ruffled some tail feathers.”

I kept at Walter Murphy, didn’t give him space to breathe. “But not when he was around you?” I asked. “He didn’t ruffle your feathers?”

The old man’s clear blue eyes returned from their trip into the woods. “No, we were always close. I know we were, even if the expensive shrinks say it wasn’t possible for Gary to feel love, to feel anything for anybody. I was never the target for any of his temper explosions.”

That was a fascinating revelation, but I sensed it was a lie. I glanced at Sampson. He was looking at me in a new way.

“These explosions at other people, were they ever premeditated?” I asked.

“Well, you know damn well he burned down his father and stepmother’s house. They were in it. So were his stepbrother and stepsister. He was supposed to be away at school. He was an honor student at the Peddie School in Hightstown. He was making friends there.”

“Did you ever meet any of the friends from Peddie?” The quickening tempo of my questions made Walter Murphy uneasy. Did he have his grandson’s temper?

A spark flared in the old man’s eyes. Unmistakable anger was there now. Maybe the real Walter Murphy was appearing.

“No, he never brought his friends from school around here. I suppose you’re suggesting that he didn’t have friends, that he just wanted to seem more normal than he was. Is that your two-bit analysis? Are you a forensic psychologist, by the way? Is that your game?”

“Trains?” I said.

I wanted to see where Walter Murphy would go with it. This was important, a test, a moment of truth and reckoning.

C’mon, old man. Trains?

He looked off into the woods again, still serene and beautiful. “Mmm. I’d forgotten, hadn’t thought of the trains in a while. Fiona’s son, her real son, had an expensive set of Lionel trains. Gary wasn’t allowed to even be in the same room with them. When he was ten or eleven, the train set disappeared. The whole damn set, gone.”

“What happened to the train set?”

Walter Murphy almost smiled. “They all knew Gary had taken it. Destroyed it, or maybe buried it somewhere. They spent an entire summer questioning him as to the train set’s whereabouts, but he never told them squat. They grounded him for the summer and he still never told.”

“It was his secret, his power over them,” I said, offering a little more “two-bit analysis.”

I was beginning to feel certain disturbing things about Gary and his grandfather. I was starting to know Soneji and, maybe in the process, getting closer to whoever had attacked the Cross house in Washington. Quantico was researching possible copycat theories. I liked the partner angle-except for the fact that Soneji had never had one before.

Who had crept into Cross’s house? And how?

“I was reading some of Dr. Cross’s detective logs on the way here,” I told the grandfather. “ Gary had a recurring nightmare. It took place here on your farm. Are you aware of it? Gary ’s nightmare at your farm?”

Walter Murphy shook his head. He was blinking his eyes, twitching. He knew something.

“I’d like your permission to do something here,” I finally said. “I’ll need two shovels. Picks, if you have them.”

“And if I say no?” he raised his voice suddenly. It was the first time he’d been openly uncooperative.

And then it struck me. The old man is acting, too. That’s why he understood so much about Gary. He looks off into the trees to set his mind and gain control for the next few lines he has to deliver. The grandfather is an actor! Just not as good as Gary.

“Then we’ll get a search warrant,” I told him. “Make no mistake. We will do the search anyway.”

Chapter 86