Page 100 of Return of the Spider
“No!”
“Mr. Beech,” his young attorney finally said, “I think we should stop now.”
“I didn’t do nothing, man,” he snarled at him. “Nothing.”
Sampson asked Beech where he’d been on the evenings of theBulldog murders. Beech said probably where he always was, in his dump of an apartment or at Diggs’s double-wide.
“I don’t go out. I don’t do nothing ’cept work and bow-hunt in the fall, fish for bass in the summer. Stay away from all women. Especially young ones.”
“What about Diggs?” I asked.
Beech shook his head, struggling with something. “I don’t know. I mean, I’m not paid to be the dude’s keeper, am I? But I’ll tell you what, and this is no lie: Eamon’s been known to disappear now and then. And when I asked him where he’d got to, he told me I didn’t want to know.”
CHAPTER
82
On the sunday afterThanksgiving, Gary Soneji continued to act the part of the attentive husband, one who was sorry to soon be leaving his family yet again. He played with Roni outside in the leaves on the blustery fall day. He held Missy’s hands as darkness approached and told her that he’d be back from the road on Friday evening and said how much he was looking forward to Christmas Eve.
“Can’t you stay tonight and drive south first thing in the morning?” she asked. “The traffic will be heavy on the interstate.”
That was true, but he had places to be. “I’m taking back roads to Philly. I’ll spend the night there and drive the rest of the way to my first appointment in the morning. There’s some company Marty wants me to pitch to in Spofford, Virginia.”
Missy gave a faux pout. “We’ll miss you, Gary. This new you.”
“And the new Gary will miss you, Missy, and Roni. I promise I’ll call every night.”
As he was leaving a few minutes later, he looked up to see his wife holding Roni, who was in her cute pink sweatshirt, both of them waving. He waved back and quickly drove away.
As he almost always did after leaving, Soneji felt a weight come off his shoulders. But even a mantle of invisibility could be heavy, right?
Heading toward the interstate, he turned on the radio and searched for an all-news station. He found one on the AM dial, broadcasting out of Philadelphia.
He did not have to wait long before he heard what he wanted, an update on the big story in the region. He’d read about it briefly in thePhiladelphia Inquirerthat very morning, and he wanted to know more, much more.
The radio announcer said, “Police from three states and the District of Columbia as well as agents from the FBI and the BATF are still searching a remote farm in Chester County for clues to five homicides in the Washington, DC, area. Two felons convicted of sex crimes, forty-two-year-old Eamon Diggs and thirty-seven-year-old Harold Beech, have been arrested based on evidence gathered at the farm, including the remains of a booby trap that exploded when detectives began their search.
“Both men await arraignment and extradition hearings tomorrow in Chester County. WKW-AM will be there for the latest on these troubling crimes.”
When the broadcast moved on to football coverage, Soneji turned the radio off, feeling pleased with himself. He’d questioned whether he’d gone over the top by booby-trapping the driveway, but it had worked to turn all investigative leads toward the rapists.
The police surely had the van by now. They had to be tearing that thing apart.
Driving south on I-95, past the exit that led toward the Pennsylvania border, Chester County, and the farm, Soneji went from smug to ecstatic. He’d created suspicions that were now pointing the investigation and prosecution in a direction entirely opposite from him. In his mind, Soneji was already the there-but-not-there man, easy to overlook.
The traffic on I-95 south wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. When he approached the Beltway sometime later, he slowly came down off that euphoric high and allowed himself to cast his mind forward, to imagine his future both near and distant.
First, he saw himself getting through the whole wedding farce, of course. Then he saw himself snatching Cheryl Lynn Wise and bringing her to…
He shook his head, telling himself he could not bring the girl to his uncle’s cabin. He had to take her to another place, a new place, one that had no connection to him. He couldn’t just go off like Bruno Hauptmann, snatching the Lindbergh baby and murdering him within hours. That was unacceptable as far as Soneji was concerned. Besides, he had more important issues to address in the short term—and keeping his part-time teaching job at Washington Day School was one hundred percent his long-term plan.
There was no way he was leaving a place with so many opportunities to indulge his various hungers anytime soon.
CHAPTER
83
At our staff meetingthe Monday morning after Thanksgiving, Chief Pittman loudly praised the work Sampson and I had done in bringing Eamon Diggs and Harold Beech to justice.
