Along Came a Spider

“Three years before, my wife had been murdered in a drive-by shooting. That murder, like the majority of murders in Southeast, had never been solved.”

Alex Cross reflects on the death of his wife, Maria, a tragedy that motivates his dedication to justice. In Maria’s absence, Alex sometimes struggles to maintain a clear head and care for himself and his family. Maria is one of many victims of crimes in Washington Southeast, in which crimes are often underreported or unsolved due to socioeconomic disparity—touching on the theme of Discrimination in Society.

“Still seated on the bike, Jezzie Flanagan pulled off a black helmet to reveal longish blond hair. She looked to be in her late twenties. Actually, she’d turned thirty-two that summer. Life was threatening to pass her right by. She was a relic now, ancient history, she believed.”

Jezzie Flanagan enters the plot on a motorcycle, having given up her youth to maintain a respectable position in a male-dominated space. In hindsight, this description reveals part of Jezzie’s motive for becoming involved in the kidnapping of Michael Goldberg and Maggie Rose Dunne: a desire to enjoy life before it ends.

“For a while he thought about Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, his all-time favorite couple. That calmed him some. He thought about Baby Charles; and about that poor fool, Bruno Hauptmann, who had obviously been framed for the brilliantly conceived and executed crime. He was convinced that the Lindbergh affair was the century’s most elegant crime, not just because it remained unsolved—many, many crimes went unsolved—but because it was important and unsolved.”

Gary discusses the Lindbergh kidnapping, theorizing it was the perfect crime because the real criminal got away and left a lasting impact on society at the time. This is what Gary seeks with his own actions, a sort of fame that is unending.

“‘This was his picture on the wall—the face in this mirror,’ I offered a theory to Sampson. ‘It’s the key picture here, the central one. He wants to be the star of all this.’”

Illustrating the theme of Psychology in Police Work, Alex uses his psychology training to assess why Gary possesses pictures and articles of famous people and famous crimes. He recognizes Gary’s own desire for fame.

“Jezzie could have been a contender, she often thought to herself. She almost had it made. All she needed was one decent break, and she’d finally realized she had to make that break for herself. She was committed to it.”

Jezzie pushes herself to succeed at everything she does. Here, she reflects on the fact that she has to make her own breaks if she’s going to be successful. While it seems like Jezzie is reflecting on her career, the novel later frames this quote as a reflection on financial success, about stealing ransom money. She is not unlike Gary in that she desires things that come with fame, but she is more willing to remain under the radar than Gary.

“The man was too heavyset to be Soneji, I thought. Unless he had on some kind of brilliant disguise and lots of padding. The actor angle came to mind again. I hoped to God he wasn’t an imposter. Someone who’d found out what was going on in Florida, then contacted us to go for the ransom. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened in a kidnapping case.”

Alex speculates that the contact man who meets him at Disney World to pick up Maggie’s ransom is an imposter seeking to steal the money after reading about the kidnapping case—which later proves to be true. It is Jezzie and two of her Secret Service agents who schemed to steal the money. This quote captures Alex’s intuition and pushes him to continue investigating the ransom drop-off even after Gary’s capture.

“That was the beginning of everything: a story he had made up when he was twelve years old. A story he told himself over and over to keep from going insane. A daydream about a crime committed twenty-five years before he was born.”

Gary begins to reveal his childhood abuse by describing the ways he soothed himself during punishments. His obsession with the Lindbergh kidnapping stems from this abuse and lays the groundwork for his claim of having dissociative identity disorder (DID), as childhood abuse can create a situation where a child develops a different personality (an alter).

“Life and death went on in Southeast. Sampson and I were back on the Sanders and Turner murder cases. Not surprisingly, little progress had been made in solving the six homicides. Not surprisingly, nobody cared.”

Alex’s reflections on the Sanders and Turner murder cases illustrate not only the theme of discrimination in society but the world in which Alex was raised, continues to live, and is raising his children. Southeast Washington is a neighborhood like many urban neighborhoods across the United States, illustrating a widespread lack of concern for their residents. Furthermore, this particular neighborhood exists in the nation’s capital, the heart of the government meant to protect all citizens, not just the affluent.

“Maggie Rose Dunne’s second sneaker was lying on Vivian Kim’s bedroom floor. The killer was leaving what the pathologists call ‘artistic touches.’ He’d left an overt message this time—the signature of signatures. I was shaking as I bent down over the little girl’s sneaker. Here was the most sadistic humor at work. The pink sneaker, in shocking contrast to the bloody crime scene.

Gary Soneji had been in the bedroom. Soneji was the project killer, too. He was The Thing. And he was back in town.”

Gary’s choice to leave Maggie’s sneaker at the scene of Vivian Kim’s murder works as he hoped, shocking investigators and connecting Maggie’s kidnapping to the murders of the Turner and Sanders families. This moment is key, as it incriminates Gary in both cases and further pushes Alex to solve the kidnapping.

“We had found Gary Soneji—but it didn’t feel right. The monster’s house was a perfect suburban beauty, a gingerbread house on a well-maintained street in Wilmington, Delaware.”

The contrast of Gary Murphy’s home with Gary Soneji’s crimes is startling, and seems to reinforce Gary Murphy’s later claim of DID. Gary Murphy is framed as a simple suburban husband and father, a mild-mannered door-to-door salesman. On the other hand, Gary Soneji is a serial killer and kidnapper obsessed with committing the perfect crime and becoming famous.

“We both had a little too much to drink, but not a lot too much. No myths involved. Just two people alone, in a strange town, on a very strange night in both of our lives.”

Alex second-guesses his desire to spend the night with Jezzie, understanding that an intimate relationship between them could come with trouble. His concern is based on their working relationship and racial identities. However, this moment foreshadows the difficult end to their relationship due to Jezzie’s false intentions, rather than either of Alex’s initial concerns.

“If I followed him, what he was telling me was that he was a multiple personality…truly Gary Soneji/Murphy.”

Gary’s assertion that he has DID begins with him claiming he cannot remember being arrested, let alone committing any crimes. Alex is blindsided by this assertion and seeks the truth, which is implied to be deception. Gary’s Criminal Manipulation shows the lengths he will go to avoid being punished for his crimes, and yet still take credit for them.

“Somebody doesn’t want you messing with his neat little case. They want Tide-clean justice. Not necessarily the truth. Nobody seems to want the truth here, anyway. They just want to feel better right away. They want the pain to be over. People have a low tolerance for pain, especially lately.”

Nana Mama’s honest opinion about law enforcement’s struggle to clear the kidnapping case speaks to high-profile cases with the potential to ruin careers. It is clear from whom Alex developed his interest in psychology and drive to seek justice despite the odds.

“Of all the times we were together, it was the one I’d never forget. Our visit to paradise.”

Alex reflects on his visit to Virgin Gorda with Jezzie, and the day trip they made to a private island. This highlight of their relationship foreshadows its eventual end during a second trip to the island—which proves memorable for darker reasons.

“But no one sang anything. Not anymore. No one ever sang to Maggie Rose. No one remembered her anymore. Or so she believed in her broken heart.”

Maggie’s chapters not only hint at her location but show that she is still alive despite law enforcement’s belief that she was killed. She shows resilience, holding on to memories of the past as she struggles through the reality of her kidnapping. At the same time, she fears that life has gone on without her, that no one cares about her anymore despite Alex and her parents fighting to find her.

“Eight different psychiatrists and psychologist were brought to the stand to build the case that Gary Soneji/Murphy was in control of his actions; that he was a deviate sociopath; that he was rational, cold-blooded, and very sane.”

Gary’s case rests on the validity of his claim of DID. Experts cannot agree on Gary’s diagnosis because DID is rare and often difficult to prove; in fact, some doctors don’t even believe DID exists. This doubt continues to plague Alex as he observes Gary both at trial and during their private meetings.

“But she was gone! Maggie Rose wasn’t there when Soneji came back again. She was gone! Somebody else had taken the girl out of there!”

Gary reveals under hypnosis that Maggie was taken from her original hiding place by someone else, which was foreshadowed by Maggie’s chapters detailing different voices and a van that smelled of old vegetables. Gary’s claim pushes Alex to reconsider the contact man for the ransom drop-off—later revealed to be someone working for Jezzie and two of her Secret Service agents.

“The door opened, and Jezzie stood there fully dressed. She stared at the frizzy-haired woman and didn’t bother to conceal her contempt.”

The night Alex and Jezzie are exposed by a tabloid reporter, Jezzie opens the motel door fully dressed. When Jezzie’s role in the kidnapping case is revealed, this moment seems like a setup to allow her a graceful exit from the Secret Service, especially when Alex’s similar act with a reporter from the Washington Post pressured the government to give him permission to hypnotize Gary.

“Maybe there hadn’t been an ‘accomplice’ after all, but someone watching Gary Soneji/Murphy as he staked out potential murder victims? Who could it have been?”

Alex’s continued investigation into the kidnapping leads him back to a previous witness and a better understanding of what she saw. He long thought Gary had an accomplice because of the witness’s testimony, but now realizes Gary was being watched by this alleged accomplice—and this person could have prevented his murder of the Sanders. This moment leads Alex to the only people who would have been in a position to perform such surveillance—the Secret Service.

“You’re telling me now that you were fully conscious of everything you did. There was never a split personality. No fugues. You played both parts. Now you’re tired of playing Gary Murphy.”

Gary appears to admit he never had DID to Alex not long after receiving a life sentence in prison. However, he claims to have DID again later in the novel. At this point, Gary is determined to take credit for his crimes, so he calls Alex—but continues to claim that someone else took Maggie, reinforcing Alex’s investigation into the Secret Service.

“‘Jezzie Flanagan is the complication,’ Weithas said.

I was stunned. I felt as if I’d been punched hard in the stomach. For the last few minutes, I knew something else was coming from them. I just sat there, feeling cold and empty inside, well on my way to feeling nothing.

‘We believe she’s deeply involved in this with the two men. Has been from the start. Jezzie Flanagan and Mike Devine have been lovers for years.’”

Alex learns Jezzie has been lying to him, kidnapped Maggie, and stole the ransom money. Despite being a trained psychologist, he missed Jezzie’s suspicious behavior—but this is unsurprising for a man who found love after years of grieving his late wife. This moment shows the depth of Alex’s character, as he struggles between his affection for Jezzie and his search for truth.

“You keep looking for the good in people. But it’s not there! Your case will get blown up. You’ll look like a fool in the end, a complete and utter fool. They’ll all turn on you again.”

After being exposed by Alex, Jezzie exposes her own motives as well as the depth of Alex’s character. Jezzie expresses the difficulties of a job strongly influenced by politics, in which the truth doesn’t always matter. She believes things never change, showing that at some point in her life, she gave up on seeking truth—instead deciding to take what she wants. On the other hand, Alex refuses to give up, even in the face of politics that often strive to hide the truth.

“He’d forget about Detective Cross. But Alex Cross would never, ever forget about him. Or about his own missing children.”

Gary targets the children of famous people, including Alex’s children, because he wants their parents to suffer—a desire that reflects his hatred for his own abusive parents. In his own way, Gary is punishing his parents for the physical and emotional pain they inflicted on him.