Second Honeymoon

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.