Second Honeymoon

Chapter 32

“JESUS, THERE MUST be hundreds of John O’Haras out there,” said Eric Ladum, a technical analyst sitting across from Sarah. Whenever he was away from his keyboard, he was always twirling a pen just to keep his fingers busy.

“More like a thousand,” responded Driesen. “Give or take.”

Sarah turned to the Gang of Three sitting along the opposite wall. They hadn’t said a word. They hadn’t even been introduced. But Sarah now knew why they were in the room. She knew who they were.

Driesen continued, detailing the police investigations for the first two victims. Both were killed with two shots from a .38. One through the head, the other through the chest. There were no suspects or solid leads, and the bodies were all “clean,” meaning there was no evidence, trace or otherwise, left behind.

“Now comes the third O’Hara,” said Driesen. “A ski instructor living in Park City, Utah. He was found yesterday morning on the patio behind his house.”

Then the crime-scene photos of the guy appeared on the screen. He was lying faceup—that is, with what was left of his face looking at the sky—in a pool of dried blood, the edges of which had the splattered appearance of a close-range shot. It would be a closed casket for sure.

During her first year with the unit, when the gory handiwork of serial killers flashed up on a screen during briefings, Sarah would always turn away in disgust for a second or two. It was instinct. A coping mechanism. The way her mind reacted to seeing something so unsettling and out of the norm.

Now, for better or worse, Sarah barely blinked.

“In the right pocket of a Windbreaker worn by the victim there was a paperback copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses,” said Driesen. He paused for a moment as if fishing for questions. Eric Ladum, still twirling his pen, was more than happy to bite.

“You think it was placed by the killer?” the analyst asked.

Driesen nodded. “I do.”

“Was anything highlighted? A passage? Some words?” asked Ladum.

“No,” said Driesen. “Every page intact. Not even a dog-ear.”

“Wait, hold on a second,” said Sarah, chiming in. “We’re talking about a guy named O’Hara, right? Ulysses is practically a second Bible for the Irish.”

“That’s true, but this O’Hara lives in Utah and the book came from Bakersfield, California,” said Driesen. “It’s a library book.”

“Was it checked out?” she asked.

“No such luck.”

“Have we contacted the library to see—”

Driesen cut her off. “Yes, the library has one copy that’s unaccounted for.”

“Since when?”

“Since—”

“Congratulations!” came a voice from the side of the room, cutting them both off. It belonged to one of the Gang of Three, the one Sarah couldn’t quite place. With only a single word he’d managed to convey an annoying trifecta of impatience, arrogance, and sarcasm.

As everyone turned to him, he stood up. “Not only do we have this guy on three murders, but we can also nail him on a stolen library book. Well done, people! Just marvelous.”

Ty Agosta leaned forward, placing his elbow patches on the table. The criminal psychiatrist figured there was no crime in asking a simple question.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” he asked.

But it was as if Agosta had never opened his mouth or been in the room, for that matter. He was flat-out ignored.

“Listen, maybe the killer is trying to tell us something or maybe he isn’t,” said the mystery guest. “What I need you to tell me, though, is how you plan on catching this psycho.”

And just like that, two bells went off in Sarah’s head.

The first was the guy’s name. Jason Hawthorne. He was deputy director of the Secret Service. He wasn’t there on behalf of his boss, or even his boss’s boss, the secretary of Homeland Security.

The reason Jason Hawthorne and his sandwich-eating entourage were in the room was due to everyone’s boss.

The president.

That was the second bell that went off in Sarah’s head.

The president’s brother-in-law was named John O’Hara.