Second Honeymoon Part 41

The best way to cut through them? A good old-fashioned phone call.

a.s.suming you could get someone to call you back.

Sarah had left two messages for Lee McConnell, chief administrator at Eagle Mountain. Of course, this guy would probably sooner get a root ca.n.a.l than have to discuss a patient who escaped on his watch.

"Round three," mumbled Sarah as she started dialing.

She couldn't be sure, but the woman who answered seemed to be different from the one she'd spoken to the previous two times. A temp, maybe? That would certainly explain her announcing chipperly that "Mr. McConnell just walked in; let me patch you through." What followed was easily ten seconds of dead air, during which McConnell was probably busy chewing out the poor woman for not checking with him first. Finally, he picked up.

"Agent Brubaker? Lee McConnell," he said. "Talk about timing. I was just about to call you back."

Yeah, right. And I was just about to elope with Johnny Depp.

Sarah riffled through her notes, checking for the name she'd scribbled down. McConnell's patient. Or former patient, as it were.

She found it.

"So what can you tell me about Ned Sinclair?" she asked.

Chapter 64

THERE WAS A hitch in McConnell's voice. Not a stutter or stammer but, weirdly, something more like a swallow, a sort of dyspeptic reflex, as if the pastrami-on-rye sandwich he had for lunch was repeating on him. The result was that he randomly accentuated words for no reason.

Talk about a Monty Python skit, she thought. Paging John Cleese...

"Ned Sinclair, huh? What...would...you like to know about him?" he asked.

Sarah suppressed a laugh and asked her first question, a no-brainer. "What's his race? Is he white, black, Hispanic?"

If Ned Sinclair wasn't white, this was going to be a very short conversation.

"He's white," said McConnell. "I'm afraid I don't have his file...in...front of me, so I can't give you height and weight, or even exactly how old he is."

"Can you ballpark his age?"

"I'd say thirtyish, maybe a bit older. I didn't have much interaction with him; in fact, no one here...really...did. Ned Sinclair barely spoke."

The age, thirtyish, was a possible match, but the part about his not speaking couldn't be any more different from the guy back at Canteena's. Jared Sullivan was definitely a talker, a very smooth talker.

"What else can you tell me about him?" she asked.

"The guy you'd probably want to speak with is the admitting psychiatrist. Ned was his patient for some time, but I don't know his name offhand," he said. "Let me actually...grab...the file. Hold on a second, okay?"

Before Sarah could even respond, she was listening to a trombone-heavy Muzak version of the Beatles' "The Long and Winding Road." Not an appropriate song t.i.tle when you've been put on hold.

If only to kill a few seconds, she quickly checked her e-mails. Make that singular. There was only one new message since she last checked after leaving the Oval Office. An invitation to the next state dinner? A seat at the president's table?

Sarah smiled. A girl could always dream...

She looked at the sender's name. Who? She didn't recognize it at first. Then it came to her.

Mark Campbell. From her call log.

He was the sheriff from Winnemucca, Nevada, the town where the first John O'Hara victim lived.

Sarah's eyes slid over to the subject heading and immediately lit up.

FOUND SOMETHING, it read.

Chapter 65

SARAH QUICKLY CLICKED on the e-mail, the promise of "found something" edging her closer to the screen. The message couldn't load fast enough.

Meanwhile, she was still on hold with McConnell. Where did he go for Ned Sinclair's file? Cleveland?

She'd originally spoken to Sheriff Campbell in Winnemucca before heading out to Park City. The thinking was simple. If the John O'Hara Killer had indeed left behind that copy of Ulysses, perhaps he'd also left something behind with his first victim. A clue that hadn't been found yet.

She wanted Campbell to reexamine the crime scene, every last inch of it, paying particular attention to the victim himself.

"Check all the clothing again," she'd told him. "Socks, underwear...everything."

Sarah knew she was being a pain in the a.s.s, but it had to be done, simple as that. Sometimes the only way to catch a break is to chase down the long shots.

Campbell's e-mail popped open at the exact moment McConnell got back on the line. Figured.

"Sorry about that," said McConnell. "Couldn't find it at first, but I've got it now."

Curiously, he didn't seem to be emphasizing random words in his sentences anymore, or maybe that was because Sarah was barely listening to him. Her ears had given way to her eyes as she began reading Campbell's message.

"You were right," it began.

Campbell described how his men had overlooked the cuffed hems that the first John O'Hara victim had on his khaki slacks. Peeling them back, the sheriff found a small, crumpled piece of paper, a note that was jammed into the fold of the right cuff, as if it were a prayer stuffed into the Western Wall. On it were two handwritten lines.

Sleep now little children who hear the monster roar.

Make me a witness of what he has in store.