Page 56 of Return of the Spider
“What was that, Denny?” Brenda Miles said.
He said nothing, waited, heard her come closer. As he’d hoped she would, she stepped out of the hall and looked around for the source of the thud.
Soneji took a half a step forward and flipped the rope over her platinum-blond do, her pert nose, and her chin. When he felt the loop hit her chest and stop, he wrenched back, almost taking her off her feet.
Stunned by the assault, the woman did not fight back at first, but then she began to struggle and kick at him with her spiked heels.
“Whoa there, Ms. Brenda,” Soneji said as he hauled her around, breaking her necklace. He got her up on her toes, both of them facing the big mirror.
Albert DeSalvo had hated seeing himself in mirrors while he attacked his victims. In one case, the Boston Strangler confessed that he became so disgusted with the reflected image of himself choking a Danish girl, he released her and begged her not to tell the police.
But Soneji had no qualms about mirrors. He leered at the reflection of Brenda Miles and himself as he twisted the rope. The fake pearls slipped off her necklace one by one as the fight seeped out of her.
Her fingers let go of the rope. Her arms dropped to her sides. Her eyes glazed over, wide open like her mouth, and she sagged down.
Only then did Soneji realize he was panting and inflamed with something like lust from her smell, from the adrenaline of it all.
And he’d been able to watch his own fascination in the mirror as the light went out of her eyes. He didn’t understand why DeSalvo disliked mirrors, but he completely understood the man’s obsession with strangling. He lowered Brenda Miles gently to the floor. She’d been so close to him!
He slipped the rope from her neck and admired the abraded wound it had left. Strangulation, he decided, was a very beautiful thing before, during, and after.
Soneji put the rope back in the Ziploc, which he stashed inside the coverall. He went into the kitchen and saw a crock filled with cooking utensils. He chose a wooden spoon and returned to the dead woman. He undid her pants and pulled them down around her knees with some difficulty, then rolled her over so she was facedown on the floor.
“Sorry about this, Ms. Brenda,” he said. He pushed her panties aside and jammed the spoon handle where it should not have been.
Then he retrieved the toolbox, flipped off the lights, walked onto the darkened porch in the dusk, and shut the door behind him. He heard kids playing in adjoining yards and saw headlights coming in both directions. He turned his collar up, tugged down the brim of his cap, and marched to the sidewalk. He held the toolbox on his right shoulder and lifted his left arm to further shield his face as he hurried across the street between two sets of approaching headlights. He reached the white van. The car to his right passed by a second before the car to his left.
Soneji opened the van door and climbed in. The drivers might have gotten a solid look at him, but they could not possibly identify him.
CHAPTER
44
Early on saturday, sampsonand I had filed reports on our surveillance of Valentine Rodolpho. Monday was supposed to be our day off, but Chief Pittman’s personal assistant called us both into work early.
When we got to his office, we found Detectives Edgar Kurtz and Corina Diehl already there, both looking hungover and pissed to be here on what was supposed to be their day off too. Also there were Lieutenant Stacey Lindahl, commander of the narcotics unit, and undercover officer Nancy Donovan, who glared at us like we were traitors.
“Lieutenant Lindahl and I have read your reports on Rodolpho,” Pittman said to me and John. “You indicate, Detective Sampson, Detective Cross, that you observed Officer Donovan hug and kiss Valentine Rodolpho.”
We nodded, but I felt bad about the decision to report the undercover officer. I felt worse after Donovan blasted us.
“Try ‘You observed her hugged and kissedbyRodolpho,’” she said angrily. “Try ‘She made only the slightest of hugs and no reciprocity to his kiss.’”
Sampson held up his hands. “We didn’t expect you to be there, and suddenly you were in his arms and then skipping away. What did you want us to do, not report it?”
She shouted, “You could have told me you were putting Rodolpho under surveillance!”
“Calm down, Officer,” Lieutenant Lindahl said. “Don’t make this worse.”
I held up my hands too. “You are a difficult person to get in touch with, Officer Donovan, but you’re right, we should have told you.”
“If you’re following him without my knowledge, you are compromising my safety and my ability to work! Why were you following him, anyway?”
“Because you mentioned in one of your recent reports that Rodolpho is the weakest link.”
She calmed down. “I think he is. I also think there’s no way he’s going to expose his weaknesses to you or almost anyone else. Even with his leg, he’s too proud for that.”
Detective Diehl said, “But you think he’ll expose his weaknesses to you?”
