Page 54 of Return of the Spider
“What’s with the razor wire?” Sampson said. “I mean, that’s a lot of expensive equipment in there, but it seems like he’s going overboard.”
Looking through my binoculars, I picked up movement inside the fence to our left. “And why are the two big guys near the gate carrying rifles?”
“Gotta be to protect all the humanitarian and philanthropic pursuits going on in there.”
“A Nobel Peace Prize is in the offing for Prince.”
“Without a doubt.”
CHAPTER
41
Wednesday evening, gary sonejikept watch on Eamon Diggs’s double-wide until midnight, when a drunk Harold Beech left in his beater Subaru. Soneji waited until the lights in the double-wide had been off for half an hour before making his move.
Wearing latex gloves, he came in from the east, creeping through the pines toward the game pole where Diggs had had his deer hanging. The carcass was no longer there, but it didn’t matter. The block and tackle remained, along with the rope that passed through the pulley overhead and was tied off around one of the tree trunks. Soneji went to the rope, untied a length equal to his spread arms, and cut it off.
He ground dirt into the freshly cut end, retied the remaining rope around the tree trunk, went to the clothesline and tore off a small piece of a faded flannel shirt hanging there, then hurriedback to the Saab. He drove to the pull-off near Diggs’s late grandmother’s farm, cut through the woods wearing a headlamp, and retrieved the battered white panel van from the shed.
He navigated the van down back roads at or below the speed limit all the way to the Pine Barrens and arrived at his own cabin shortly before four a.m. He slept for six hours, then got up and went for a run. He always made sure to keep himself in good shape.
It was a crisp, chill morning in the Pine Barrens, the first real break in the weather. He could almost see his breath near the end of his route, which took him on an old two-track trail through public land that abutted the rear of his fifteen-acre property, farthest from the cabin and the road.
Soneji crossed his property line and cut left into the woods where he’d left two rocks arranged in a V shape just off the trail. His heart began to beat faster when he approached an uprooted and fallen birch tree.
He went to the massive root system, which had torn away a good foot of soil, and stood there looking at the exposed earth, knowing who lay deep in the dirt and reliving the memories of his best moments with Joyce Adams. He grew stronger and even more sure of himself.
That kidnapping had gone off without a hitch. And Joyce’s terror had been more than real. For Soneji, it had been soul-affirming, everything he’d ever desired.
Thoughts of the pleasure he’d enjoyed with his captive at the cabin swirled in Soneji’s mind, made him want to have another experience just like the one he had with Joyce. Maybe even better.
He looked at the grave and silently promised her she would not be alone much longer. As soon as his studies were complete,he planned to bring many others to this little cabin to feed his hungers, and when he was done with them, they would join Joyce here in the Pine Barrens for eternity.
Walking back through the trees to the trail and out to the yard, Soneji recognized that he was not ready yet for that phase of his secret life. He still had much to learn if he hoped to avoid detection later.
On the porch, he retrieved two gallon-size Ziploc bags. One contained the length of bloody, dirty nylon rope he’d taken from Diggs’s place. The other held a clean white marine rope of the same length. He took out that rope and went to an old fence post along the drive.
Soneji imagined the top of the fence post as a neck. He wrapped both ends of the rope around his fists and began experimenting with how best to quickly flip the slack line over an imaginary head, clear the chin, and cinch the rope tight around the windpipe.
He had to feel his way to the best technique because the master had not given details about that, had said only that he’d used his hands or a rope or an electrical cord.
But the Boston Strangler had taught him many things. After killing thirteen women in the 1960s, Albert DeSalvo had confessed. He’d been remarkably open and comprehensive with police and with his defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey, who later wrote a book about the case.
DeSalvo had said that the key to strangling was getting close to your victim before you attacked. To do that, you had to set your victim at ease by appearing unthreatening. The Boston Strangler had often gained entry to women’s apartments by posing as a repairman sent by their landlord.
Soneji’s main takeaway from DeSalvo was that you had to fitinto your environment so plausibly that the victims would let their guard down and offer you an opportunity to attack. He thought about that as he practiced his garroting technique and decided the repairman angle could work for him too.
He thought about other places that his presence might be naturally accepted by a solitary victim and remembered a conversation he’d overheard between his mother and an aunt, then a real estate agent. She’d told his mother she hated doing open houses because she felt vulnerable being alone in them.
He considered that as he flipped the rope over the fence post and leaned back against it, imagining a struggle.
That could work nicely,Soneji thought.Especially on a Saturday afternoon.
CHAPTER
42
At four p.m. onSaturday, Soneji parked the white Ford Econoline van on a tree-lined suburban street in Groveton, Virginia, down the road from a home with anOPEN HOUSEsign out front.
