The Impaler

Chapter 75

Markham arrived at the Resident Agency to find Andy Schaap’s office empty. He flicked on the light and sat at his desk—stared grimly at the scattered papers before him and picked up a stack with a yellow Post-it note on top.

First batch just came in, the note read. Markham stuck the Post-it to Schaap’s computer screen. It was a fax from the Marines—a list of Iraq War veterans from units that fit Dr. Underhill’s insignia profile, and who had undergone psychiatric counseling before, during, and after tours of duty beginning in April of 2003 through June of 2004.

Markham looked at the time and date stamp.

“Yesterday afternoon,” he muttered.

He found two more faxes: another from the Marines and one from the Army. Both were stamped from earlier that morning and had been tucked underneath the first fax.

Markham ruffled absently through the other lists of servicemen that Schaap had strewn across his desk—faxes and printouts and PDFs from all the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. There were some other lists, too, and Markham quickly deduced that Schaap’s computer program had begun priori- tizing the names according to various criteria. On one of the lists, Markham discovered, Schaap had narrowed down the names further by inputting birthdays that fell under the astrological sign of Leo.

Still, there were a lot of names—hundreds of them.

“Oh, it’s you,” said a voice, and Markham looked up, startled.

It was Big Joe the Sox Fan Connelly. He stood in the doorway.

“Sorry, Sam,” he said. “I thought you were Schaap. Another batch of those medical records just came in. Air Force is being a bit of a bitch, though.”

He handed Markham the fax.

“You know where Schaap is?” Markham asked.

“I haven’t seen him since before noon yesterday. Said we’d start checking the lists against each other when you got back.”

“You know if he checked out the taxidermy shop?”

“Taxidermy shop?”

“Schaap sent me an article this morning about the theft of a lion head over in Durham. Happened in November of last year. He didn’t tell you about it?”

“I haven’t seen him today. Something you want my team to look into?”

“No, no, I plan on heading out there tomorrow.”

“Tech will have the Google Earth setup ready for us tomorrow morning,” Big Joe said. “Schaap’s already begun narrowing down his lists by probability of location. Wants to divvy up some addresses and have our boots on the ground by noon.”

Markham nodded.

“I’m gonna jet now if you don’t need anything. Kid’s got a soccer game.”

Markham gave him a thumbs-up, and Joe left. He sat there for a moment staring at the yellow Post-it on Schaap’s screen. He returned the note to its proper place, then went into his office and turned on his computer—signed into Sentinel and saw that Schaap had not updated anything since Friday.

Markham sat back in his chair and closed his eyes—hundreds of names, unreadable, but scrolling upward, white on black like credits at the end of a movie.

“What are you up to, Andy Schaap?” he whispered.