Of course, the fact that he was totally smokin’ hot was a bonus.
Sarah pressed her ear tight against the door. She thought she could hear music coming from inside the apartment, but it didn’t seem loud enough to cover up the sound of the doorbell.
Then it dawned on her. It was just a hunch, but her hunches had been pretty good of late. Turning around, Sarah reached under the fire-hose cabinet attached to the wall opposite Ted’s door, her hand blindly feeling for a small magnetic box.
The definition of trust in a fledgling relationship? When he tells you where he keeps his spare key.
Maybe after tonight, she’d tell him where she kept hers.
Chapter 35
SARAH LET HERSELF into the apartment, standing still in the foyer for a moment to determine the source of the music. It was coming from Ted’s bedroom, at the end of the hall.
She was hardly a jazz aficionado, but within two steps she easily recognized Gerry Mulligan’s baritone saxophone. Ted was a huge fan who listened almost religiously to Mulligan’s recordings, especially the live ones. Carnegie Hall, Glasgow, the Village Vanguard.
“Mully’s a god,” he was fond of telling her, usually over their second bottle of Bordeaux, which they shared while hanging out on the couch.
After she’d taken a few more steps down the hallway, Sarah could hear something else. It was running water. Just as she’d thought.
Sure enough, when she reached Ted’s bedroom she could see that the door to his bathroom was closed. He was taking a shower. There was even a little steam slipping out through the bottom of the door.
She smiled. Perfect. She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face.
The only decision left was when to lose the raincoat.
Sarah quietly opened the bathroom door, then tiptoed in her bare feet across the tile, the steam billowing all around her, thick as a San Francisco fog. Ted liked his showers hot.
Later, she was sure, he’d crack a goofy joke about her making this one even hotter.
Here goes nothing. I can’t believe I’m doing this.
The raincoat dropped to the floor as Sarah opened the fogged-up shower door. She even threw her arms out as if to say, “Ta-da! Here I am!”
Surprise, honey!
Ted was surprised, all right. Incredibly so.
Of course, so was the other woman in the shower with him.
Chapter 36
IT ACTUALLY TOOK a few seconds for it all to sink in for Sarah—a few long, torturous, and utterly humiliating seconds that seemed to last an eternity.
This is really happening, isn’t it? And I’m standing here buck naked to boot.
“Sarah, wait!” said Ted.
But she wasn’t about to wait. Who would? Sarah scooped up her raincoat, hastily gathering it to her chest before running out of the bathroom. As if the situation couldn’t get worse, she slipped on the wet tile, nearly falling, twisting an ankle.
“Damn you, Ted!”
Ted’s bedroom was a blur as she hobbled through it, but even so she still caught the clues she’d somehow overlooked. The indentations on not one but two pillows on top of the unmade bed. The two wineglasses on the table next to it. Was it a Bordeaux, you prick? How did she not see any of it?
She already knew why. Because she’d trusted him.
There was a part of her that wanted to turn back, to have it out with Ted right there in front of the “other woman,” whoever the hell she was.
But that part of her stood no chance against the unbearable pain she was feeling. In those few seconds standing almost paralyzed in front of the shower, she’d surrendered to her instincts, and those instincts had told her to run. Flee! Scram! Get outta there! She couldn’t help it.
And that stung Sarah even more.
At work she always managed to garner the courage, the moxie, the balls to stand her ground no matter what the situation. But here—not wearing her badge, not wearing anything—she could only run. She felt helpless, ridiculous, and ashamed.
“Sarah, stop! Please!” Ted called out. He was behind her now, racing to catch up while tying a towel around his waist. He was dripping wet.
Sarah stopped in the foyer. She didn’t want this playing out beyond his apartment and possibly in front of a neighbor. Besides, she still had only the raincoat pressed against her body.
“Turn around,” she said.
Ted blinked, confused. “What?”
She glanced down at herself. He wasn’t about to see her naked, not now. Not ever again.
He got it. “Oh.”
Sarah put on the raincoat while Ted faced the other way. “I just want to explain,” he said over his shoulder.
“Explain? What’s there to explain? You made a big mistake and I made an even bigger one by thinking you were different from every other player in D.C.”
He turned back around. “I’m not a player, Sarah. What are you even doing here? You should’ve told me you were coming home.”
“Why? So you could keep lying to me?”
“I never actually lied.”
“This isn’t a courtroom, Ted. You’re not a lawyer right now.”
“I could say the same for you.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means you never stop being who you are.”
“Is that what this is about? My job? You should’ve told me if you had a problem with my being an agent.”
“I didn’t think I did,” he said.
“So the girl in the shower, what does she do?”
He didn’t want to answer, but Sarah stared at him until he finally did.
“She works in my office,” he said.
“Is she another attorney?” But Sarah knew she wasn’t.
“She’s a paralegal,” he said sheepishly.
“You mean she works for you. You oversee her.”
“So you’re a shrink now, too, huh? Fine!” he said with a huff. “Next you’re going to tell me that I’m threatened by you.”
“Are you?”
“You know what? I came out here to apologize, but fuck it, I’m not sorry.”
“I can see that. I get it, Ted. Trust me, I do.”
“I’m a guy, Sarah. A guy doesn’t like having a girlfriend who—” He stopped.
“What? What were you going to say?” she asked. “Apparently, I can take it.”
“How do you think it makes me feel to know that my FBI-trained girlfriend can kick my ass?” he blurted out.
Sarah shook her head. “First of all, it’s ex-girlfriend, if that’s what I was to you. And second, as for how it feels…I don’t know,” she said. “But maybe it feels something like this.”
She balled her fist and decked him with a roundhouse punch so hard that he crashed back against the wall, knocking a framed photo of him on his Harley-Davidson to the floor, the glass shattering into pieces.
Calmly, and without another word, Sarah turned and started to walk out of the apartment. Her work here was done.
But then Sarah couldn’t resist. She turned back to Ted, who was still sitting on the floor, holding his jaw.
“So? How does it feel to have your ass kicked by a girl? I’m not even that big, Ted.”
Chapter 37
MAYBE IT WAS just a coincidence or maybe it was karma, but the song streaming through Sarah’s iPod headphones the next afternoon as the plane began its descent into Salt Lake City was Sheryl Crow’s “A Change Would Do You Good.”
She could only hope. Fingers crossed. Toes, too. But you know what else? She hated the way it had ended with Ted. She just hated it. It was embarrassing, just awful. And sad, too. She thought that she’d loved him.
The drive from the airport out to Park City was a good start. With nothing but wide-open road in front of her and soaring mountains on the horizon, it was like a forty-minute deep breath. Convertibles never looked good on expense reports, so Sarah made the most of the sunroof on her rented Chevy Camaro 2SS.
Sometimes it just
feels damn good to stick a hand up toward the sky at sixty-five miles an hour and feel the cool air whip past your fingertips.
Sooner than she thought possible, she was in Park City at the police department.
“Agent Brubaker, I’m Steven Hummel. Good to meet you,” said the local chief of police.
He greeted her personally at the front entrance of the station instead of sending out his secretary or some assistant. That was always a good sign. A good rapport usually followed.
Sure enough, Chief Hummel was the down-to-earth sort, which made sense for a town that could have doubled as the western field office of L.L.Bean. Park City was a hiker’s paradise in the summer and—the two-week invasion by soulless Hollywood types for the Sundance Film Festival every January notwithstanding—a skier’s paradise in winter.
Hummel may have been buttoned up in his uniform, but as she looked at his tan, weathered face and tousled salt-and-pepper hair, Sarah could easily picture his off-duty look. Jeans, a plaid shirt, and probably a cold, locally brewed beer in his hand.
“Come,” he said. “Let’s head back to my office. We’re ready for you.”
Halfway there they were intercepted by a gum-chewing young buck of an officer who “just happened” to be in their path. Clearly, he was angling for an introduction.
“Agent Brubaker, this is Detective Nate Penzick,” said Hummel, obliging.
Penzick stuck out his chest. His hand followed. “Welcome to Park City,” he said.
Except there was nothing about his tone that made Sarah feel welcome. Right away she knew Penzick was the homicide detective assigned to the O’Hara case.
This happened occasionally when she would show up in a town or city—an officer, or maybe two, who didn’t want to be told how to do his job by some federal agent. Not that Sarah ever had any intention of doing that. Still, for the Detective Penzicks of the world, the preconceived notion stuck like glue. All FBI agents think they’re hot shit.
“Thanks,” said Sarah with a smile, ignoring Penzick’s tone as well as the G.I.-Joe-meets-kung-fu handshake he was giving her. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Kill ’em with kindness, she always believed. Although on this particular afternoon, after the night she’d had, it took a little extra willpower not to grab this guy by his starched lapels and explain that wannabe macho guys weren’t exactly on her Christmas card list right now. So cool it with the attitude, dude, okay?
Penzick squinted. “The chief has been pretty tight-lipped as to why you’re here, but I’m guessing it has to do with the O’Hara murder,” he said.
“That’s right,” said Sarah. There was no point lying to the guy.
Penzick was chomping so hard on his gum you could hear his jawbone cracking. If Chief Hummel was as laid-back as a Sunday afternoon, this guy was Monday morning rush hour.
“So what’s up with the secrecy?” he asked. “I mean, we all play for the same team, don’t we?”
Sarah glanced at a frowning Hummel, who was immediately regretting the introduction.
“No, seriously, what’s the deal?” pressed Penzick. “What’s the government hiding this time?”
Hummel finally stepped in. “I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive Nate here,” he said. “He hasn’t been the same since The X-Files went off the air.”
Oh, snap.
“Very funny, Chief,” said Penzick. But he got the hint. Shut it down, cowboy. He turned to Sarah, adopting the most polite tone he could fake. “I look forward to working with you, Agent Brubaker.”
“Don’t worry, Nate,” said Hummel, glancing at his watch. “I’d be surprised if Agent Brubaker is still in Park City an hour from now.”
Sarah turned to him. This was news to her, straight from the left field bleachers. Huh? I just got here. Where do you think I’m going?
Hummel didn’t let on, at least not in front of his young detective. “As I suggested before,” he said, “let’s go to my office.”
Chapter 38
THE WAY HUMMEL acted after closing the door to his office, Sarah was thinking that maybe his comment about her leaving town within the hour was meant to be some kind of joke. Either that or the guy suffered from a serious case of short-term memory loss. She was definitely confused—but curious.
Hummel offered no explanation. Instead, he walked directly to a drawer behind his desk, opened it, and removed two disposable latex gloves and an evidence bag containing the paperback copy of Ulysses.
“I suppose you want to see this first,” he said.
Sarah put on the gloves and flipped through the book. Indeed, it was exactly as advertised—a library copy with nothing highlighted, no notes added, and, as Driesen had stated, “not even a dog-ear.”
Hummel leaned back in the chair behind his desk, clasping his hands behind his head. “I remember having to read it in college,” he said. “Hell, I barely understood the CliffsNotes.”
“I know what you mean,” said Sarah. “It’s not exactly a beach read, is it?”
“I’m pretty sure of one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“It didn’t belong to the victim.”
“Okay. How do you know?”
“Because I knew John O’Hara,” he said. “How does the saying go? Guys wanted to be him, girls wanted to be with him? He was a helluva good guy. But one thing he wasn’t was—” Hummel paused, searching for the right, or maybe most respectful, way of putting it. “Let’s just say the only thing I ever saw John read was a menu.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“Not with a nine-hundred-page book steeped in Irish dialect that reads like a pretzel, classic or no classic,” he said. “John was no James Joyce fan. Hell, he wasn’t even a Stephen King fan.”
Sarah nodded. Fair point.
Like Hummel, she’d read Ulysses in college as well. That was more than a decade ago. Before the flight out that morning, she’d downloaded it on her Kindle and started to read it again after takeoff. Somewhere over Kansas she waved the white flag and surrendered to her iPod.
Why couldn’t the killer have left behind the latest Patricia Cornwell novel instead?
“Assuming the killer did leave the book behind, do you have any thoughts on what it might mean?” asked Hummel.
“Not yet. Do you?”
He smiled. “Funny you should ask. Actually, I think I do.”
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.”
&nbs
p; 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.”
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