I waited on the back porch, not sure what to do next. I rang the bell. Something was definitely wrong about the case, everything about it was wrong. Soneji here in Wilmington? Why here? Why kill people in Union and Penn Stations?

“Alex!” Sampson shouted. “Alex! Over here! Come quick. Alex, now!”

I hurried across the yard with my heart in my throat. Sampson was down on all fours. He was crouched in front of a doghouse that was painted white and shingled to look like the main residence. What in hell was inside the doghouse?

As I got closer, I could see a thick black cloud of flies.

Then I heard the buzzing.

“OH, GODDAMN it, Alex, look at what that madman did. Look at what he did to her!”

I wanted to avert my eyes, but I had to look. I crouched down low beside Sampson. Both of us were batting away horse-flies and other unpleasant swarming insects. White larvae were all over everything-the doghouse, the lawn. I held a handkerchief bunched over my nose and mouth, but it wasn’t enough to stifle the putrid smell. My eyes began to water.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Sampson said. “Where does he get his insane ideas?”

Propped up inside the doghouse was the body of a golden retriever, or what remained of it. Blood was spattered everywhere on the wooden walls. The dog had been decapitated.

Firmly attached to the dog’s neck was the head of Meredith Murphy. Her head was propped perfectly, even though it was too large proportionately for the retriever’s body. The effect was beyond grotesque. It reminded me of the old Mr. Potato Head toys. Merdith Murphy’s open eyes stared out at me.

I had met Meredith Murphy only once, and that had been almost four years before. I wondered what she could have done to enrage Soneji like this. He had never talked much about his wife during our sessions. He had despised her, though. I remembered his nicknames for her: “Simple Cipher,” “The Headless Hausfrau,” “Blonde Cow.”

“What the hell is going on inside that sick, sorry son of a bitch’s head? You understand this?” Sampson muttered through his handkerchief-covered mouth.

I thought that I understood psychotic rage states, and I had seen a few of Soneji’s, but nothing had prepared me for the past few days. The current murders were extreme, and bloody. They were also clustered, happening much too frequently.

I had the grim feeling Soneji couldn’t turn off his rage, not even after a new kill. None of the murders satisfied his need anymore.

“Oh, God.” I rose to my feet. “John, his little girl,” I said. “His daughter, Roni. What has he done with her?”

The two of us searched the wooded half lot, including a copse of bent, wind-battered evergreens on the northeast side of the house. No Roni. No other bodies, or grossly severed parts, or other grisly surprises.

We looked for the girl in the two-car garage. Then in the tight, musty crawl space under the back porch. We checked the trio of metal garbage cans neatly lined alongside the garage. Nothing anywhere. Where was Roni Murphy? Had he taken her with him? Had Soneji kidnapped his daughter?

I headed back toward the house, with Sampson a step or two behind me. I broke the window in the kitchen door, unlocked it, and rushed inside. I feared the worst. Another murdered child?

“Go easy, man. Take it slow in here,” Sampson whispered from behind. He knew how I got when children were involved. He also sensed this could be a trap Soneji had set. It was a perfect place for one.

“Roni!” I called out. “Roni, are you in here? Roni, can you hear me?”

I remembered her face from the last time I’d been in this house. I could have drawn her picture if I had to.

Gary had told me once that Roni was the only thing that mattered in his life, the only good thing he’d ever done. At the time, I believed him. I was probably projecting my feelings for my own kids. Maybe I was fooled into thinking that Soneji had some kind of conscience and feelings because that was what I wanted to believe.

“Roni! It’s the police. You can come out now, honey. Roni Murphy, are you in here? Roni?”

“Roni!” Sampson joined in, his deep voice just as loud as mine, maybe louder.

Sampson and I covered the downstairs, throwing open every door and closet as we went. Calling out her name. Dear God, I was praying now. It was sort of a prayer anyway. Gary -not your own little girl. You don’t have to kill her to show us how bad you are, how angry. We get the message. We understand.

I ran upstairs, taking the creaking wooden steps two at a time. Sampson was close behind me, a shadow. It usually doesn’t show on his face, but he gets as upset as I do. Neither of us is jaded yet.

I could hear it in his voice, in the shallow way he was breathing. “Roni! Are you up here? Are you hiding somewhere?” he called out.

“Roni! It’s the police. You’re safe now, Roni! You can come out.”

Someone had ransacked the master bedroom. Someone had invaded this space, desecrated it, broken every piece of furniture, overturned beds and bureaus.

“You remember her, John?” I asked as we checked the rest of the bedrooms.

“I remember her pretty good,” Sampson said in a soft voice. “Cute little girl.”

“Oh, no-nooo-”

Suddenly I was running down the hallway, back down the stairs. I raced through the kitchen and pulled open a hollow-core door between the refrigerator and a four-burner stove.

We both hurried down into the basement, into the cellar of the house.

My heart was out of control, beating, banging, thuding loudly inside my chest. I didn’t want to be here, to see any more of Soneji’s handiwork, his nasty surprises.

The cellar of his house.

The symbolic place of all Gary ’s childhood nightmares.

The cellar.

Blood.

Trains.

The cellar in the Murphy house was small and neat. I looked around. The trains were gone! There had been a train set down here the first time we came to the house.

I didn’t see any signs of the girl, though. Nothing looked out of place. We threw open work cabinets. Sampson yanked open the washer, then the clothes dryer.

There was an unpainted wooden door to one side of the water heater and a fiberglass laundry sink. There was no sign of blood in the sink, no bloodstained clothes. Was there a way outside? Had the little girl run away when her father came to the house?

The closet! I yanked open the door.

Roni Murphy was bound with rope and gagged with old rags. Her blue eyes were large with fear. She was alive!

She was shaking badly. He didn’t kill her, but he had killed her childhood, just as his had been killed. A few years before, he had done the same thing with a girl called Maggie Rose.

“Oh, sweet girl,” I whispered as I untied her and took out the cloth gag her father had stuffed into her mouth. “Everything is all right now. Everything is okay, Roni. You’re okay now.”

What I didn’t say was, Your father loved you enough not to kill you-but he wants to kill everything and everyone else.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, baby. Everything is okay,” I lied to the poor little girl. “Everything is okay now.”

Sure it is.