Second Honeymoon Part 25

"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. "h.e.l.l, 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 h.e.l.luva 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, cla.s.sic or no cla.s.sic," he said. "John was no James Joyce fan. h.e.l.l, 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?

"a.s.suming 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."

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?"