Second Honeymoon Part 42

Sarah's first thought was that it came from an old children's book, albeit one she didn't know. She read the lines again. Maybe it was from a poem. Or maybe it wasn't from anything-except the killer's own mind.

She brought up Google while McConnell continued talking. He was reciting the highlights from Ned Sinclair's file in bullet-point fas.h.i.+on. "Mathematics PhD...professor at UCLA...fired nearly four years ago..."

Sarah typed in the lines from the e-mail.

McConnell droned on. "Diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder...unnatural fixation with sibling...Nora, his sister..."

"d.a.m.n!" Sarah muttered under her breath as she looked at her screen.

The search results-there were thousands of them. She forgot to put the lines in quotation marks. Quickly, she added them, and-bingo-thousands of results turned into one.

It was a website for a certain musical group. The name said it all.

Sarah suddenly jumped up from her chair, practically lunging for her shoulder bag, which was on the floor behind her. The DVD of You've Got Mail was in the side pocket. She flipped it over to the back, scanning the credits. She'd read the name, knew it well, but wanted to make sure.

Back at her desk she rifled through her notes on Ulysses. She was positive she'd written it down, the woman James Joyce married.

"What did you say Ned's sister's name was again?" she asked McConnell, interrupting him.

His dyspeptic swallow and punching of random words had returned. But there was nothing random about this one word. It was dead-on.

"His sister's name was...Nora," he said.

Chapter 66

THE CALLER ID on my cell said QUEENS MED. EXAM.

I put down my gla.s.s of OJ, muted the small television in my kitchen, and answered "h.e.l.lo?" before the second ring.

"Agent O'Hara, this is Dr. Papenziekas," he said.

The deputy medical examiner was getting back to me in the morning, as promised. Bright and early, too.

"What's your verdict on our airport couple?" I asked. "You have anything good for me?"

"You were right," he said.

"Cyclosarin?"

"Lots of it."

"Are you sure?"

I'd expected the doctor with the Noo Yawk att.i.tude to fire back with a smarta.s.s retort like, "Hey, n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s, feel free to get a second opinion if you want!" But the ground had s.h.i.+fted a bit. I was no longer just some random guy with a crazy hunch. I was clearly on to something.

So the att.i.tude was gone. Sidelined. "Yes, I'm sure it's cyclosarin," he said. "I take it you've had some experience with poisoning?"

"Yes," I answered. Firsthand, no less. Let's just say I'm very careful who cooks for me nowadays.

"Of course, this isn't just any poison," he said, his voice trailing off.

He was hinting around now, trying to see what, if anything, I might tell him. I could practically read his mind, what he was thinking. A busy New York airport. A deadly substance unleashed by terrorists.

But I wasn't about to elaborate, if for no other reason than I still didn't know what to make of all this. Two dead newlywed couples, both victims of an exotic poison. It wasn't officially a pattern, but-call me Einstein-it was certainly more than a coincidence.

"When are you due to deliver the autopsy report?" I asked.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Unless, of course, there's a reason I shouldn't be delivering it."

I had to hand it to the guy; he wasn't giving up easily. He was basically offering to delay the report in exchange for my telling him how I knew he should look for cyclosarin.

The fact that he had TMZ on the TV in his office when I was there made complete sense now. Dr. Papenziekas liked to be in the know. Of course, I couldn't really blame him; he spent his days dissecting dead people. Anything to liven things up, right?

"That's okay," I said. "You can release that autopsy report when-"

"Jesus Christ!" he blurted out.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you anywhere near a television?"

Clearly, he had one front and center.

"Yeah, why?" I asked.

"Turn to CNN, because...um...well..." He was stumbling over his words, as if trying to figure out how to explain it. "It's...um..."

I pushed him. "What? What is it?"

Finally, he spit it out.

"It's you!" he said.

Chapter 67