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 s.h.i.t 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.
Chapter 53
THEY PUSHED THROUGH the brush along the lake"s edge, Insley leading the way. There was a certain music to the sound of the twigs snapping beneath their feet. Random, but still a rhythm. Like the first kernels of popcorn popping in a microwave.
With each step, the strange feeling Sarah was having grew stronger. It wasn"t really Insley leading the way. It was the killer. If he hadn"t outright orchestrated this little conga line along the lake, he at least knew it would happen. A sure thing. Like...well, clockwork.
"There!" said Insley, first through the brush.
Sarah didn"t have to look hard to see what he was pointing at. It was all right in front of her, everything that had been missing, smack in the middle of this next teardrop: a fishing rod lying on the ground next to a tackle box and bucket. Sort of creepy.
No, she thought. Definitely creepy.
"Okay, so we found the gear. Now what?" asked Knoll.
Boy, does this guy ask a lot of questions. And not the right ones, either.
Sarah simply ignored him. There was nothing to search for in the rod and bucket, but the dark green tackle box with its closed lid was just calling out to her. Beckoning. No doubt about it.
She walked straight to it, dropping to her knees. With the latex gloves still on, she flipped up the latch. It opened easily. Of course it did.
"Christ, that"s a lot of lures," said Vicks, looking down over Sarah"s shoulder.
That was an understatement. The box was not one of those neatly organized jobs with separate compartments and multiple layers of sliding hinged drawers. It was simply one big catchall for seemingly every lure this John O"Hara had ever owned.
"Not that any of them were doing him much good," said Knoll, looking into the empty fish bucket. "Talk about having no luck at the lake."
Insley snickered while Sarah began sifting through the box, the endless hooks repeatedly grabbing at her latex gloves. Frustrated, she finally just flipped the box over, the lures spilling everywhere.
Staring at them all was like reading a Dr. Seuss book. There were long ones, short ones, fat ones, and skinny ones. Some were shiny silver, others were bright colors. There was even one with-
Wait: red light...Hold it right there.
Sarah"s eyes locked on something in the middle of the pile, a piece of folded white paper.
The lures were mostly old and rusty; some were even encrusted with the dried remains of worms. But this paper was new. Clean. White.
"What is it?" asked Insley. "Don"t hold us in suspense."
Sarah unfolded the paper, her mind wishing for the impossible-like the killer"s name, address, and telephone number. Maybe even his Twitter handle and the best times to find him unarmed. Gee, wouldn"t that be a great ending for this case?
"It"s a receipt," said Sarah, turning it right side up to read it. "From the Movie Hut?"