I had, of course. Maybe that"s why I got the vibe.
"Sarah, where are you?" I called out.
"In here," she said from the library off the living room.
She was standing behind a mahogany desk, staring down at a large open book she"d pulled from the shelves. It was a world atlas. She"d found her map.
"Well, I"m pretty sure you"re not planning your vacation," I said.
I was more right than I knew. In fact, at that moment, I was more right than we both knew.
Sarah was looking at a map of the United States, finding all the locations where Ned Sinclair had killed. She"d already circled the towns with a felt-tip pen.
"Sorry," she said as I reached the desk. "Couldn"t help myself. Think Breslow will forgive me?"
I looked around at what must have been a thousand books on the shelves. "I"m guessing no one"s going to notice," I said. "So tell me: what"s the problem? What"s bothering you?"
"I can"t figure out why Sinclair keeps skipping over John O"Haras who are closer to his last murder," she said. "That means there has to be something else. Another pattern."
"Was that the case with the latest one, in Casper?"
"Yeah. Driesen had already checked. He told me there were at least four O"Haras who were closer to his last victim," she said. "Why does Sinclair travel hundreds of miles more than he has to? Just to throw us off?"
"Maybe he scouts those closer O"Haras and determines he can"t isolate them, that it"s too risky," I said.
"So he moves on down the line?"
"That would easily explain it."
"I know," she said. "That"s the part that bothers me, John. It"s too easy. There"s something we"re not seeing, a pattern inside the pattern."
"But that"s all he"s shown us so far. One pattern after another," I said. "All the victims have the same name? Pattern. He kills moving from west to east? Pattern. He leaves behind a clue with each victim? Pattern."
Sarah"s eyes immediately went wide. She stared back down at the map.
"Oh, my G.o.d!" she said. "That"s it!"
"What is?"
She reached for the felt-tip on the desk. "The forest for the trees," she said. "The whole reason he"s doing it in this particular way."
"Because he wants to kill me."
"Yeah. But why?"
"It"s what you first told me, how you put it all together," I said. "He blames me for his sister"s death."
"Exactly. And every clue he left behind on the victims, they were like riddles, right? They all had the same answer."
My jaw dropped as Sarah jabbed the felt-tip pen smack-dab on Los Angeles, site of Eagle Mountain Psychiatric Hospital and Ned"s first victim, Ace, a.k.a. nurse John O"Hara. From there, she connected the dots, the locations of his next three victims.
Winnemucca, Nevada. Down to Candle Lake, New Mexico. Back up to Park City, Utah.
It was the letter N.
Ned Sinclair was spelling out Nora.
Chapter 110
SARAH ALMOST CHANGED her mind during the cab ride out to LaGuardia. She almost changed it again while we were waiting to board the plane.
"I can"t believe you talked me into this," she said at thirty-five thousand feet, somewhere over Pennsylvania.
"You"ve got nothing to worry about," I said. "You can always tell Driesen you were taking your vacation."
"To Birdwood, Nebraska?"
Okay, maybe not. But despite what Birdwood lacked in tourist appeal, the two of us couldn"t get there fast enough. Not only was it home to the only John O"Hara within a hundred miles, but on the heels of Candle Lake, New Mexico, and Casper, Wyoming, it was also in a perfect spot to round out the O in Nora.
Question was, had Ned Sinclair gotten there faster than we would? Apparently not.
"So how do you propose we work this?" asked Burt Melvin.
He was Birdwood"s chief of police and the recipient of the one phone call we made in advance of our trip. After renting a Jeep Grand Cherokee at North Platte Regional Airport, we made the ten-mile drive to Birdwood and met him at his station.
As soon as Melvin had heard the news of the latest victim in Casper, he a.s.signed around-the-clock protection to Hara, as he called him. Birdwood"s John O"Hara was Melvin"s longtime friend and the owner of the town"s hardware store. He was also a Vietnam vet and an avid hunter, which might explain why the guy was adamant about not fleeing his home to hide from some, quote, "deranged b.a.s.t.a.r.d looking to meet his maker."
"Where do you have your guys?" Sarah asked Melvin.
"One outside the front of his house, one inside covering the only other way in-a sliding gla.s.s door to a patio," he said.
"The one stationed out front, is he in a patrol car or an unmarked?" asked Sarah.
"Patrol car," he answered. "Why?"
I knew why. I also knew Sarah wanted to tread very carefully with her answer. We couldn"t come blowing into town, asking an officer to be a guinea pig.
"We can"t catch this killer by scaring him away," she said.
Melvin nodded, scratching the edge of his thick mustache. He sort of looked like the great catcher and former captain of the Yankees Thurman Munson.
"What are you suggesting?" he asked warily.