Chapter 32
"JESUS, THERE MUST be hundreds of John O"Haras out there," said Eric Ladum, a technical a.n.a.lyst 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 a.n.a.lyst asked.
Driesen nodded. "I do."
"Was anything highlighted? A pa.s.sage? 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.
Chapter 33
"SARAH, CAN I see you in my office?" asked Driesen as the conference room emptied after the briefing. He was in the middle of a good-bye handshake with Hawthorne, which was clearly not a mutual-admiration moment.
"Sure," Sarah answered, as if it were no big deal. But it was a very big deal.
There were two levels of briefings that took place at the BAU. Both were cla.s.sified, but only one was completely unfiltered. That briefing was the one that took place in Driesen"s office. Like the original Lucky Strike cigarettes, Driesen gave it to you straight.
With Hawthorne gone, Sarah followed Driesen past his secretary, Allison, and into his corner office, which looked out over a large marine training field.
"Close the door behind you," he said, heading behind his desk.
She did, then sat down in one of the two chairs facing him. He stared at her for a moment. Then, of all things, he let go with a chuckle.
Sarah did the same.
There was nothing funny about a serial killer and the fact that there were three innocent people dead, but sometimes battlefield humor was the only way to stay sane. In this case, the implied joke was about the president. Specifically, what he might have been thinking in the far-and definitely off-the-record-reaches of his mind when he was first briefed about the John O"Hara Killer.
I"ve got one target you can have for free, buddy. Take him, he"s yours.
John O"Hara, the president"s brother-in-law, was a major-league screwup. If he wasn"t being caught by the TMZ cameras stumbling out of a Manhattan bar at 3:00 a.m., he was on cable television-at about the same time-starring in his own infomercial selling "authentic" presidential sheets and pillowcases. "Just like they have in the Lincoln Bedroom!"
Probably because he"d stolen them.