I immediately thought of Dr. Kline and all the great strides I was making with him. I could even hear his voice inside my head, telling me to keep my cool, stay under control. No more Agent Time Bomb.
But I couldn’t help it. Cornish had lit the fuse and there was no stopping me. I got up, walked straight over to him, and stood facing him toe to toe. Then, at the top of my lungs, I gave him my answer.
“TELL YOUR FUCKING CLIENT TO GO TO HELL!”
Cornish blinked slowly, took one step back, and nodded. “I understand,” he said.
Whether he really did or not, I didn’t know and I didn’t care. He turned and left without saying another word.
I waited until he disappeared around the corner, heading toward the front of the house. There was still half a beer left in my hand, and I polished it off with one long swig.
Then, without thinking, I added something else to my to-do list: clean up the broken glass from the patio.
Smash!
I heaved the bottle against the house so hard my shoulder nearly popped out of its socket.
Apparently, I hadn’t made the great strides that I’d thought.
In fact, I still had a long, long way to go.
Book Three
“Oh, the Places You’ll Go”
Chapter 50
“YOU MUST BE Agent Brubaker,” said the officer greeting Sarah outside the sheriff’s office in Candle Lake, New Mexico.
“Yes.” And you must still be in high school, Sarah thought as she shook the young man’s hand. Seriously, I have food in my refrigerator that’s older than you.
“Sheriff Insley asked that I bring you out to the lake as soon as you arrived,” he said. “He’s there now. You ready to go?”
“Is that where you’re looking for John O’Hara?”
“Yeah. O’Hara’s wife thought he’d gone either drinkin’ or fishin’, and there was no one who saw him at any of the bars in town.”
Drinkin’ or fishin’? Sarah eyed the officer for a moment, wondering if he had any idea how funny that sounded, in a town-of-Mayberry sort of way. He didn’t.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name,” she said.
“Peter,” he answered. “Peter Knoll.”
Sarah climbed into his Chevy Tahoe police interceptor, which was parked along the curb. Before she’d even buckled up, Knoll had flipped on the cherry and peeled out with sirens blaring. Boys and their toys…
“What else can you tell me about John O’Hara?” she asked once they hit the outskirts of town. “Besides the fact that he likes to drink and fish.”
Knoll thought for a few seconds, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. “He’s a retired plumber, I know that. Two children, only they’re hardly children anymore. Grown up and moved away, both of them.”
Sarah tucked her hair behind her ears. The windows were open, and the wind whipped through the Tahoe. God’s air-conditioning.
“Do you know if he was into books at all? Did he read a lot?” she asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. I’ve never been inside his home.”
“How long has he been missing?”
“We got the call from his wife early this morning. Officially, it hasn’t been a full twenty-four hours since she last saw him, but we weren’t about to nitpick,” he said. “I’ve got an uncle who always says that nitpicking is for nitwits.”
“Smart uncle,” said Sarah.
The houses started to thin out over the next few miles, until she saw nothing but trees and the occasional piece of roadkill. Knoll hung a left at an unmarked road, which quickly turned to dirt and gravel.
“The main entrance is still another minute or two up the road, but this is the shortcut to the teardrops,” he said.
“The what?”
“That’s the part of the lake with the best fishing. Only the locals know about it. If O’Hara’s out here, that’s where he’d be,” he said. “Sheriff Insley has another officer with him doing a search.”
“Is it a big area?”
“Yeah, with lots of little nooks,” he said. “Most of them are shaped like teardrops, that’s why the name.”
The road narrowed to little more than a sliver through the woods. Then they finally came upon a small clearing that served as a parking lot, where two patrol cars sat side by side. Knoll pulled up next to them, cutting the engine.
“Let me radio ahead to Sheriff Insley, let him know you’re here,” he said. But before he did he couldn’t help himself. “Why are you here? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“To help you find John O’Hara,” she answered. It certainly wasn’t a lie.
She was spared any follow-up questions by the sound of approaching voices. There was no need to radio Sheriff Insley. He was heading right for them.
Sarah stepped out and got a quick introduction to Insley and the other officer with him—Brandon Vicks—who looked no older than Knoll. Add their two ages and they still couldn’t join AARP.
“What’s the latest on our missing person?” she asked.
Insley removed his sheriff’s hat, scratching a forehead that featured an endless constellation of freckles.
“John O’Hara isn’t missing anymore,” he said in a deep drawl. “And it ain’t pretty.”
Chapter 51
SHERIFF DICK INSLEY had the look, the voice, the mannerisms—indeed, the whole aura—of a seasoned veteran, but twenty-one years between murders in his town was a long time. Sarah could practically see the wheels spinning in his head as he headed toward his patrol car to retrieve an evidence kit.
Sarah accompanied him, calmly convincing him that the first thing he needed to do was to show her the body.
The walk back down to the lake was along a steep and winding downhill path, with a few makeshift rope railings along the way. The results of Sarah’s morning wardrobe decision were officially in. The jeans were a good call. The cross-trainers on her feet were a really good call.
“Almost there,” said Insley, leading the way.
Sarah had this strange custom—more of a quirk, actually. Whenever she came upon a crime scene involving a dead body, her mind would immediately conjure up a newspaper headline about the killing—how it might read in the local paper. She couldn’t help it; her mind just did it. It was a reflex. A weird reflex, she always thought. That probably explained why she’d never told anyone about it.
After another hundred yards, the pathway ended at the water’s edge, where there was one of the curved inlets—a teardrop—that Officer Knoll had described. Because the inlet was bookended by thick brush, the rest of the lake was barely visible. John O’Hara had his own private fishing hole. He was all alone.
Until he wasn’t.
His large body was laid out on the ground, arms outstretched, legs apart. He looked as if he were making a snow angel. But there was no snow: instead, all that was beneath him was blood. Lots and lots of it. One shot to the chest and one point-blank to the head. He was basically a carbon copy of the photos Sarah had seen during her initial briefing back at Quantico.
The John O’Hara Killer was consistent, all right. Perversely dependable. Same name for each victim, same execution-style killing.
“Jesus, how am I going to tell Marsha?” muttered Insley under his breath, as if he were just realizing there was one more task on his postmurder must-do list. Breaking the news to O’Hara’s wife.
Sarah blinked, her mind spitting out a potential headline in the Candle Lake Gazette, or whatever the local paper was called.
SAD SCENE AT THE TEARDROPS.
Chapter 52
ACROSS THE LAKE, an orange glow began to seep through the tall pines. The sun was setting, and there were things that needed to be done in the remaining daylight. Isolating the killer’s footprints, for starters.
But as Sarah slipped on a pair of latex gloves, her immediate focus was O’Hara’s body. A copy of Ulysses had brought her here, a little parting gift from the killer. Would there be another?
; “Has anyone touched the victim in any way?” she asked Insley and his young entourage. It wasn’t so much a question, though, as it was a plea. Please tell me no one was foolish enough to disturb a crime scene.
“No,” said Insley. “We didn’t even check for a wallet.”
Translation: Candle Lake, New Mexico, was a small town. Closely knit. Neighborly. They didn’t need to ID John O’Hara, because they all knew him.
Carefully, Sarah began reaching into every pocket the victim had. She wasn’t about to undress him—a more thorough search could be done at the morgue—but she couldn’t help thinking that whatever it was she was looking for wouldn’t be too hard to find.
The killer wanted her to find it, right? Something that didn’t belong? It was a game, like that old bit from Sesame Street. “One of these things is not like the others.”
She kept searching, the shadows growing longer all around her.
The more she searched, though, the more she realized that this John O’Hara either traveled extremely light or had been picked clean.
Check the wallet for ID? There was no wallet.
Or anything else, for that matter. No pocket change, no cell phone, no chewing gum or ChapStick. There were also no car keys, which explained why O’Hara’s car, or whatever it was that got him to the lake, wasn’t parked up at the clearing.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Insley looked on in silence. He knew enough not to pepper Sarah with questions. If the FBI was involved, they had their reasons. If he didn’t need to know what they were, they sure as shit weren’t going to tell him.
The two young officers were another story. Especially Knoll. He simply was too green, too wet behind the ears, to know better.
“What are you looking for?” he asked Sarah.
Again, she didn’t have to lie. “I’m not sure,” she answered, standing up. “But I’m pretty sure it’s here somewhere.”
Sarah stepped back from John O’Hara’s corpse. She stepped back from everything. Suddenly, she realized the problem. She was so focused on what was in front of her that she couldn’t see the whole picture. Not what was there. But what was missing.
“Wait…where’s his fishing rod?” she asked Insley.
The sheriff glanced left and right, his expression saying it all. Good question.
“The killer probably took it,” said Knoll. “Just like he took John’s wallet and car.”
“Maybe,” said Sarah. “But the wallet and car serve a purpose. Why the fishing rod?”
“And what about his tackle box and fish bucket? John for sure would’ve had those, too, but they’re not here, either,” said the other officer. What was his name again? Sarah had already forgotten.
“Good point,” she said, stealing a peek at the nameplate on his uniform. VICKS, it read. Like the cough medicine.
“For all we know, the killer took the gear because he likes to fish, too,” said Knoll. “In fact, he could be fishing right now in another county, trying to catch his dinner.”
Sarah nodded. Knoll was being facetious to make a point she’d often heard when it comes to killers. You can’t always expect them to act logically. If they’re crazy enough to kill someone, they don’t think like the rest of us.
Still.
“Or maybe the gear is somewhere we haven’t looked yet,” she said.
“Sure,” said Vicks, agreeing with her. He glanced down at O’Hara. “Maybe John went looking for another inlet—right here—and that’s when the killer got him.”
“Which direction were you guys searching?” asked Sarah.
“Clockwise around the lake, north to south,” said Insley. “We’ve covered midnight through…oh, about ten o’clock.”
“Yeah, ten o’clock,” Vicks echoed.
In other words, most of the lake. But not all of it.
Like a synchronized swim team, they all turned to their left. Sarah gripped her hips with her hands and shrugged. “Let’s go see the news at eleven,” she said.
Chapter 53
THEY PUSHED THROUGH the brush along the lake’s edge, Insley leading the way. There was a certain music to the sound of the twigs snapping beneath their feet. Random, but still a rhythm. Like the first kernels of popcorn popping in a microwave.
With each step, the strange feeling Sarah was having grew stronger. It wasn’t really Insley leading the way. It was the killer. If he hadn’t outright orchestrated this little conga line along the lake, he at least knew it would happen. A sure thing. Like…well, clockwork.
“There!” said Insley, first through the brush.
Sarah didn’t have to look hard to see what he was pointing at. It was all right in front of her, everything that had been missing, smack in the middle of this next teardrop: a fishing rod lying on the ground next to a tackle box and bucket. Sort of creepy.
No, she thought. Definitely creepy.
“Okay, so we found the gear. Now what?” asked Knoll.
Boy, does this guy ask a lot of questions. And not the right ones, either.
Sarah simply ignored him. There was nothing to search for in the rod and bucket, but the dark green tackle box with its closed lid was just calling out to her. Beckoning. No doubt about it.
She walked straight to it, dropping to her knees. With the latex gloves still on, she flipped up the latch. It opened easily. Of course it did.
“Christ, that’s a lot of lures,” said Vicks, looking down over Sarah’s shoulder.
That was an understatement. The box was not one of those neatly organized jobs with separate compartments and multiple layers of sliding hinged drawers. It was simply one big catchall for seemingly every lure this John O’Hara had ever owned.
“Not that any of them were doing him much good,” said Knoll, looking into the empty fish bucket. “Talk about having no luck at the lake.”
Insley snickered while Sarah began sifting through the box, the endless hooks repeatedly grabbing at her latex gloves. Frustrated, she finally just flipped the box over, the lures spilling everywhere.
Staring at them all was like reading a Dr. Seuss book. There were long ones, short ones, fat ones, and skinny ones. Some were shiny silver, others were bright colors. There was even one with—
Wait: red light…Hold it right there.
Sarah’s eyes locked on something in the middle of the pile, a piece of folded white paper.
The lures were mostly old and rusty; some were even encrusted with the dried remains of worms. But this paper was new. Clean. White.
“What is it?” asked Insley. “Don’t hold us in suspense.”
Sarah unfolded the paper, her mind wishing for the impossible—like the killer’s name, address, and telephone number. Maybe even his Twitter handle and the best times to find him unarmed. Gee, wouldn’t that be a great ending for this case?
“It’s a receipt,” said Sarah, turning it right side up to read it. “From the Movie Hut?”
“That’s that vending machine,” said Vicks. “You know, the one they have at Brewer’s supermarket? You rent DVDs from it for, like, a buck a night.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Insley. “I’ve seen it. Never used it. Looks too complicated.”
“Hell, I’ve even kicked it,” said Knoll. “The thing ate my dollar one night.”
“What were you trying to rent?” asked Vicks.
“Speed Racer, I think.”
“Trust me, the machine was doing you a favor.”
The two chuckled. Even Insley cracked a slight smile. That is, he smiled until he noticed Sarah still staring at the receipt. “So what is it?” he asked her again. “What are you thinking?”
“Today’s the twenty-fourth, right?” she asked.
Insley nodded. “Yep. My daughter’s birthday, actually. Why?”
“Because this receipt is from today.”
He bent down to take a look. “That’s a little weird, isn’t it? If that’s the right word.”
“Yeah, I think that’s the right word,” she said. “Now look again. There??
?s something even weirder.”
Chapter 54
DEFINITELY WEIRDER.
Sarah had polished off her southwest-style burger and sweet-potato shoestring fries and was below the label on her second bottle of Bud. She was thinking about this killer she was closing in on.
To her left and right, the rest of the packed bar at Canteena’s was living up to its reputation as Candle Lake’s epicenter of nightlife. This according to Sheriff Insley, who had recommended the joint. And make no mistake: with its low ceiling, fifteen-watt lighting, and sawdust-covered floor, Canteena’s was definitely a “joint.”
Had Sarah been eavesdropping, she would’ve heard the shocked chatter from the locals around her about the murder of John O’Hara. What was Sheriff Insley saying? Are there any suspects? Do we have a murderer among us?
But Sarah wasn’t eavesdropping. The only thing she could hear was her own thoughts, loud and echoing in her head, and all centered around one single question: What was the killer trying to tell her with this latest clue?
Printed on the receipt from the Movie Hut was the title of the movie. It was You’ve Got Mail, the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy. A chick flick. In other words, not exactly the DVD that a drinkin’ and fishin’ kind of guy like John O’Hara would be renting.
Still, there was always the chance he was renting it for his wife, Marsha. Or so Sarah thought—right up until she and Insley made the drive across town to O’Hara’s white shingle ranch-style home to break the horrible news.
Turned out the O’Haras didn’t even own a DVD player.
The receipt was a clue, all right. Of that much Sarah was certain. As to what it actually meant, she had no idea.
Keep thinking, Brubaker. Keep your focus. The answer’s out there somewhere…this bastard just likes his mind games.
In the meantime, she had a date with Brewer’s supermarket in the morning to see if there was a security camera aimed at the so-called Movie Hut. Maybe the killer was caught on tape. Of course, she was hardly holding her breath. That seemed too sloppy for this guy, whoever he was.