Second Honeymoon

Chapter 39

HUMMEL HADN’T FORGOTTEN about the comment he made outside his office. He was just setting the table before explaining it.

“Every city in the country contributes their crime reports to ViCAP,” he began. “Most every town, too. But not every town, right?”

“Right,” said Sarah. “Usually because they have nothing to contribute, their crime rates being so low or nonexistent. Which is a good thing.”

“So even if, let’s say, a murder were to take place in one of these small towns, it might not even occur to the police there to report it to ViCAP. At least not right away.”

“I’m sure that’s happened,” she said. “Probably more than a few times.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” said Hummel. “Of course, how would you know for sure? The only way would be to monitor every town all the time.”

“Which was the reason behind ViCAP in the first place, so no one would have to. Still, like you said, some crimes are going to fall through the cracks.”

“Unless you knew exactly where to look,” he said, pointing at the copy of Ulysses.

Sarah didn’t follow. “What do you mean?”

“Ever been to Bloom, Wisconsin?”

Now she followed. Leopold Bloom was the main character in the book. “And there’s a John O’Hara living there? In Bloom?”

“Yes, but maybe the location isn’t based on a character,” he said. “For instance, what about Joyce, Washington?”

“That’s a real town?”

“Yes, and there are actually two John O’Haras living there.”

Sarah bobbed her head back and forth, thinking this through. “The killer, now at victim number three in his third different town, decides to throw us a bone and tip his hand where he’s going to kill next.”

“Or where he already has,” said Hummel. “These are small towns.”

“Unlike, say…Dublin, Ohio.”

Hummel pointed at her as though he were the host of a game show and she’d gotten the right answer.

“Exactly,” he said. “Decent-size city; they report everything to ViCAP. Still, there are three John O’Haras listed there, so I called anyway.”

“Wait—you’ve already made calls?”

“Yep.”

“You didn’t use—”

Hummel raised his palms, amused. “Don’t worry. I didn’t ask if there were any dead John O’Haras. Just any murders within the past twenty-four hours.”

“Were there?”

“No. Not in Dublin, not in Joyce, not in Bloom.”

Sarah looked at Hummel, deflated. His theory got an A for imagination but an F for outcome. Why is he telling me all this? There’s got to be a reason. A good one, I hope.

“Are there other towns?” she asked. She knew Bloom’s wife in the novel was named Molly. “Is there a Molly, Nebraska, for instance? A Molly, Wyoming?”

“No, but there is a Bloomfield, New Mexico,” he said.

Sarah frowned. “That’s kind of a stretch, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it was a lark, all right. But there’s one John O’Hara living there, so I called anyway and spoke to Cooper Millwood, the chief of police. Turns out they haven’t had a murder in that town for seventeen years. But then he said it was funny that I called.”

“Funny?”

“Not the ha-ha kind,” said Hummel. “Chief Millwood told me that he’d just spoken with his cousin, who’s the sheriff over in Candle Lake, a nearby town. They haven’t had a murder there for over twenty-one years. Just this morning, though? They got a report of a missing person.”

Sarah straightened up in her chair. “You’re kidding me.”

“What are the odds, right? Candle Lake resident John O’Hara hasn’t been seen for over twenty-four hours.”

Hummel was right. Sarah was only passing through. The first rule of catching a serial killer? Always go where the warmest body is.

Good-bye, Park City. Hello, Candle Lake.

All courtesy of the second rule of catching a serial killer.

If at all possible, get lucky.