The Impaler

Chapter 20

Markham identified himself and was buzzed through the gate. He followed the driveway around a clump of trees and up to the house—one of those large, plantation-style repros with big white columns and lots of land surrounding it. The storm from the hunting lodge had followed him back to Raleigh, but through the rain he could make out someone sitting on the porch smoking.

It was Tracy Donovan. He recognized her blond hair and the trendy pink tracksuit from the countless family photos he’d sifted through the week before.

Markham parked his TrailBlazer at the end of a line of cars. There’d be no calling hours for Randall Donovan this week, Schaap had told him—only a small, private funeral for the lawyer’s family and closest friends. That was smart, Markham thought. The scumbags this guy dealt with, who knows who might show up?

Markham felt beneath the seats for his umbrella—he was sure he’d brought one—and when he didn’t find it, he exited the TrailBlazer with his briefcase over his head, ran across the soggy lawn, and bounded up the steps to the porch. Tracy Donovan didn’t move, didn’t even draw from her cigarette, but only tracked him with her eyes as if his presence was inevitable to her.

“All those movies,” she said finally. “I never asked myself why the FBI always shows up unannounced. You have that look about you. Like the others. Unannounced.”

Markham pegged her to be in her mid-thirties; knew from her pictures that she had been quite attractive before her husband’s disappearance—athletic, blond, blue-eyed with nice skin. But now she looked old and haggard; her dry hair pulled back like bundled straw, her face pale and blotchy with hollow red eyes.

The ashtray beside her was overflowing with cigarette butts.

“Forgive me, ma’am,” Markham said. He shook off his briefcase and showed his ID, gave her the standard intro, and was invited to sit down. The rain was blowing from behind the house, the porch entirely dry.

“The children are inside,” she said. “They’re old enough to know what’s going on, so I’ll ask you like I asked the others to keep your voice down. The reporters—were there any outside the front gate?”

“No. They’re still bothering you?”

“Since day one. But we’ve got our cameras on them, too. There’s one by the gate, hidden in the topiaries. I bet you didn’t see that now, did you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I take it my sister only let you in because she could tell you weren’t one of them. She doesn’t bother me with all that anymore. Been everything to me and the kids during all this. You’ve read those stories they printed about Randy? Calling him dirty and corrupt; lying down with dogs and getting up with fleas—that kind of thing?”

“Yes, I did. And I’m sorry that your family has to go through this. Truly, I am.”

Tracy Donovan snuffed her cigarette and lit another. Markham noticed the blisters between her index and middle fingers. She’d been letting the cigarettes burn down to her skin—intentionally or unintentionally, he wasn’t sure.

“You know,” she exhaled, “Randy came from nothing. He grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, in a working-class district made up of Italians mostly—all of them suspicious of anyone who didn’t have a vowel at the end of his name. There was this kid who used to pick on Randy in elementary school. Some punk from a broken home who didn’t make it past the eighth grade. Made my husband’s life miserable. Long story short, this guy grows up to be a small-time hood, gets busted on a narcotics rap, and is looking at twenty years minimum. But as fate would have it, guess who ends up being his attorney all those years later? That’s right. Randy’s first case with the public defender’s office. Scumbag didn’t remember Randy, but Randy remembered him. Most people you’d think would still hold a grudge, but not Randy. No, he did everything he could to get him a lighter sentence. Even kept tabs on him after he was paroled. That was Randy. Main thing for him was that everybody got a fair shake, no matter who you were. Didn’t read about that little story in the newspapers, now did you?”

Markham told her about the discovery of Billy Canning—showed her his picture, explained the details of the murder, and said that it was only a matter of time before the press got wind of the story.

“I don’t know if he’s connected to my husband, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Not exactly,” Markham said.

“Then what?”

“I know you’ve been questioned a lot since your husband’s disappearance, but I ’d like to ask you a few questions about your marriage. Specifically, about your sex life with your husband.”

Tracy Donovan smiled, but Markham noticed her hand begin to tremble, the smoke rising from her cigarette in thin, white squiggles.

“The police and the FBI already asked me that. And I’ll tell you what I told them. Randy would never cheat. All of you wasting your time searching for love letters, for shady dealings on his computers when you should’ve been out looking for his—”

She stopped—took a long drag off her cigarette and exhaled slowly. “Only thing they found,” she said after a moment, “were Internet records of some porn sites. No scandalous e-mails or pictures, no evidence of an affair or shady dealings with Colombian cartels out to kill him. Nothing you wouldn’t find on any other forty-five-year-old, devoted father of two’s computer.”

“That’s not quite what I wanted to ask you,” Markham said. “But since you brought up the investigation of your husband’s Internet activity, did the authorities mention what types of porn sites he was visiting?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did they indicate to you whether the sites were straight or gay?”

Tracy Donovan leveled her eyes at him—raised a trembling hand to her lips and took a drag off her cigarette. The ash needed to be tapped, but she ignored it.

“Special Agent Markham,” she began slowly. “Are you asking me if I think my husband was a closet homosexual?”

“Billy Canning, the man we found up north, was a known homosexual. I don’t know yet about Rodriguez and Guer-rera, but we’re trying to establish a connection between the killer’s victims—a profile of the types of men Vlad likes to hunt.”

Tracy Donovan smiled thinly.

“It just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?” she said, her eyes beginning to well.

“Please forgive me for the line of questioning, but so far the FBI can find nothing to tie all four of the victims together other than a loose parallel to the victims of the historical Vlad Tepes. We’re just trying to explore every avenue. Perhaps something we might have missed up front.”

“Randy and I had quite an active sex life,” Tracy Donovan said after a moment. “At least compared to what the girls at the country club tell me about their husbands. Usually two or three times a week. There are some DVDs back at the house in his top dresser. After Amber was born, we went through a bit of a dry spell, and it was Randy who suggested that we watch the DVDs to spice things up. All guy-girl stuff with the obligatory lesbian scenes thrown in for good measure. It seemed to do the trick; he was really into them at first and always got off pretty quickly. But we hadn’t watched them in years. No need to, quite frankly. No, in the last few years Randy was, well, pretty randy, if you’ll forgive the pun. Does that satisfy you?”

“And never once in your relationship did you ever suspect your husband might be a homosexual? Might be having an affair with another man, perhaps?”

“Randy was very neat around the house,” she said dryly. “Was a snappy dresser and did sing the occasional show tune. He even teared up the first time he watched Disney’s Tarzan with the kids—the part where Tarzan’s ape mother dies. So I guess you’re right. A raging queen my husband was, yes.”

Markham looked away into the rain, and Tracy Donovan took another drag from her cigarette—let the ash fall on her bosom and absently brushed it away.

“For the record,” she said after a heavy silence. “I loved being married to Randall Donovan. He was a good husband, a good father who always made time for his family.” Her voice began to break. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him, no matter what you and the fucking press might think.”

Another woman with blond hair stepped out onto the porch. Tracy Donovan’s sister. Markham recognized her from the photos.

“You all right, T?” she asked. “Anything I can get you?”

Her sister shook her head, snuffed her cigarette into the ashtray, and stood up.

“I have family inside,” Tracy Donovan said. “The funeral is on Saturday. All I ask is that you let us alone until then to grieve in peace.”

She made to leave, then stopped at the front door and turned back.

“One more thing,” she said. “If it’s your intention to slander my husband’s name in the press any further, I suggest you think twice before leveling accusations about his private life in public. Randall Donovan wasn’t the only Donovan in this family to pass the bar in North Carolina.”

The women disappeared inside—slammed the front door loudly and left Sam Markham alone on the porch with only the rain for company.