The Impaler

Chapter 31

Markham sat at the Resident Agency conference table with a sea of paperwork stretched out before him. He had been there all day; had gone home at 2 a.m. the night before and only punched four restless hours of sleep on the clock before returning to the Resident Agency at eight.

The story broke about four hours later, and was all over the news by three that afternoon—Rodriguez and Guerrera, Donovan and Canning, all connected in their grisly, graphic glory. The FBI had learned that the groundskeeper who’d discovered Donovan in the baseball field was going to talk. He’d already made a public statement and was scheduled to appear on Nancy Grace that evening. Gurganus would roll soon, too, he knew. They always did.

Word had also gotten out about the writing on Canning’s chest via “a reliable source inside the investigation.” Markham thought most likely one of Sergeant Powell’s boys had been paid off, and unless the FBI didn’t deal with this information swiftly, the vultures were going to be a pain in the ass about it. Fortunately, an FBI spokesperson had tem- porarily dodged the question during a press conference earlier that afternoon.

However, rather than seeing all the media attention as a roadblock, Markham relished the idea of getting the vultures to work for him for a change. And so the FBI decided to release an incomplete image of the writing found on Billy Canning’s torso. They would also alter the image to include a line of what they said “appeared to be Romanian.” This would satisfy the press and let them run with the Vlad angle while the FBI followed their real leads.

Their real leads.

Markham stared down at them on the table. It had taken him, along with Schaap and their consultant in the classical studies department at NC State, over twelve hours to put it all together—feverish bouts of research and discussion broken up by long stretches of waiting while this or that theory was followed up on. This last follow-up had taken the longest of them all. Markham had been waiting to hear back for almost two hours. But that was all right, for this last follow-up was indeed going to be the last—the most important piece of the puzzle; the proof that all his research had not been for naught.

“Here it is,” Schaap said, entering. “I got one of the boys preparing the JPEG scan as we speak.”

He handed Markham a copy of a black-and-white photograph.

Markham studied it for an entire minute without speaking.

“I’ll call Alan Gates,” he said finally.

But he did not move.

No, for the moment Sam Markham was content to just sit there gaping, unable to believe his eyes.