James Patterson - Second Honeymoon

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.