The Impaler

Chapter 27

Willow Brook Cemetery was large for Johnston County. It sat on roughly six acres surrounded by lush farmland, and contained family plots dating back to the late 1800s. Markham knew the cemetery’s namesake brook lay somewhere behind the copse of willow trees to the south, but he could never hear it babbling during his nighttime visits. He’d also read somewhere that the adjoining field had been purchased by the county, which planned on expanding the cemetery along its eastern border.

The stormy skies looked purplish by the time Markham arrived at the cemetery’s western entrance. He drove past it about a hundred yards and turned right onto the narrow country road that ran parallel to the northern edge of the property. He followed the low fieldstone wall until it banked south again, upon which he parked his SUV at the corner and immediately made for the field. Now he ran along the eastern wall. The grass was high—his shoes, the cuffs of his trousers instantly soaked—but he made good time; covered the two hundred yards like an Olympic sprinter and stopped at the spot where Rodriguez and Guerrera had been impaled.

Markham had been to the cemetery only once during the daytime, but had been able to determine the victims’ exact location by the pattern of stonework behind them in the crime scene photographs. First thing he’d done the week before was to wedge a bike reflector in the wall to help him find his position at night—he’d forgotten to retrieve it on his last visit—and thus pried the reflector loose and hopped over the wall.

It was raining harder now, the cloudy skies flirting with nightfall, and Markham patted his inside jacket pocket to make sure he’d remembered his Maglite. He had, but he hoped he wouldn’t be at the cemetery long enough to need it. He stuck the reflector between the stones on the inside of the wall and began walking back and forth among the gravestones in twenty-yard lengths, row by row—one eye on the gravestones, the other on the reflector.

He found what he was looking for on his third pass: a small, inconspicuous headstone about four rows back and facing west.

It bore the name of LYONS.

“So that’s why you didn’t write on Rodriguez and Guer-rera,” Markham whispered. “Whoever is in the sky watching you didn’t need your messages to understand.”

Suddenly, the ring of his BlackBerry startled him. He answered it.

“Hello?”

“It’s Schaap.”

“Go ahead.”

“The forensics team finished its sweep of the alley behind Angel’s.”

“And?”

“They found the shells, Sam. Under the Dumpster, two of them, nine millimeter. Same caliber as the bullets the ME pulled from Rodriguez and Guerrera. All we need now is the ballistics test to make it official.”

“Then that’s where it happened,” Markham said. “Rodriguez and Guerrera were lovers. They had to be. Vlad killed them together in the alley—but he was careless.”

“Safe to say then that Vlad is hunting homosexuals?”

“The evidence would seem to point that way.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I missed something here at the cemetery,” Markham said after a moment. “There’s a headstone with the name of Lyons directly west from the spot at which Rodriguez and Guerrera were impaled.”

“Holy shit. And Rodriguez calling himself the beautiful lion, that means—”

“Yes. We were right about Rodriguez being part of the message itself—about Vlad not needing to write on him and Guerrera.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

“I’m thinking that if I missed this here, I might have missed something else, too.”

“But the headstone is only meaningful now because you know of the connection to Leo—because you know what to look for.”

“Right,” Markham said, walking. “That’s why I need to get back to Donovan’s.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes. I need to figure out for sure how the lawyer fits into the picture. Now tell me, did you find out anything yet about the constellation?”

“Only stuff about the physical layout of Leo itself—major stars and whatnot. Been busy with the forensics team, the evidence collection.”

“I understand, go ahead.”

“Well, there are basically two visualizations of the constellation Leo, both of which contain the same base stars. The traditional version, the one you were using, consists of nine stars with a triangular-shaped body and a sickle-shaped head. However, a more recent visualization, by H. A. Rey, alters and expands the constellation’s traditional shape into fifteen stars and depicts the lion figure walking.”

“H. A. Rey? The same guy who wrote the Curious George books?”

“Very good, Mr. Former English Teacher. Rey published a book in the fifties in which he came up with more concrete, almost cartoonlike visualizations of the traditional constellations by adding stars or connecting them in different patterns.”

“Let’s go with the nine-star version for now. Older and more recognizable. Anything on how it might relate to the ancient writing?”

“Not yet. I got the name of a professor in the classical studies department at NC State—some guy with whom we’ve worked in the past—but we probably won’t hear back from him until tomorrow.”

“Okay. I’m going to head over to Donovan’s and then I’ll meet you back at the RA. I have a feeling it’s going to be a late night.”

“Check. And I’ll alert Cary PD you’re back at Donovan’s.”

“Thanks.” Markham reached his TrailBlazer and slipped inside. “One more thing,” he said, turning the ignition. “I remember from my research that Leo Minor is one of the constellations near Leo, too. It’s made up of only three or four stars, I believe, but I ’d like you to look into that as well.”

“Leo Minor? Why Leo Minor?”

“Just a hunch,” Markham said, driving off. “But there are three stars in the Starlight Theater logo. Also, the name on the gravestone is plural.”