The Impaler sm-2

by Gregory Funaro

  Cindy maximized her Facebook page and did a search there, too—came up empty, not a single Edmund Lambert on the entire site.

  “Nyet,” she said to herself in the Russian accent she was working on for her dialects class. “You don’t seem like the Fess-book type, Meester Lem-behrt.”

  She did a search for herself on Facebook—five hundred-plus hits.

  “More than five hundred of me to vuhn of you,” she said in her best La Femme Nikita voice. “Da. You cannot resist me, Meester Lem-behrt.”

  Cindy opened another Web page, and after a few clicks was in the Harriot Campus Directory—did a search for Edmund Lambert and found what she was looking for.

  “So, you’re a Wilson boy,” she said. “Makes sense. Bit of a commute—why you never come out to socialize. But now I have you right vehre I vahnt you.”

  She giggled and typed “Cindy Lambert” into the Face-book search field—again, over five hundred hits. “Five hundred to one,” she said. “Yeah, I’ll take those odds.”

  Cindy smiled and turned off her computer—was back in bed and fast asleep in five minutes without saying “Out, out, damn spot!” to herself even once.

  PART II

  APPROACHING

  Chapter 11

  It was Saturday night, and Hank Biehn was worried he smelled like booze. He could never smell it on himself. But then again, Hank Biehn hadn’t been able to smell anything since about 1980 or so. All that snorting coke really did a number on the old factory nerves or whatever you called them; fucked with your balance, too, he thought as he walked along the side of Route 301. The dark didn’t help any either—couldn’t focus on nothing except random lights up ahead or the road in front of you; had to keep your head down more than when walking during the day. That’s where the old factory nerves became a problem. Head down and fucked-up sense of balance. Not a good combination.

  He supposed he was a bit rusty, too. Used be a pro at walking—or “drifting” as his asshole boss at the diner used to call it. “I ain’t in the habit of hiring drifters,” he’d said, but Hank had talked him into it. Hank Biehn had always been able to talk a good game. That’d been over two years ago now; the longest stretch he’d stayed domestic since he was paroled back in ninety-eight. Fifteen years for armed rob- bery after he moved from coke to the needle. Boy, that smack was a high-maintenance bitch!

  But Hank Biehn had been clean since he got out, didn’t even crave the methadone anymore. Besides, he’d found a new love—would always be married to the bottle—but he’d learned to keep her in line. Odd jobs here and there, day-laboring when you could get it was all she required. Short-order cook was a good gig, too, if you played it right. And Hank Biehn certainly thought he’d been playing this last one right, that’s for sure. Stayed sober for the most part during the day and paid his rent on time.

  Until he got fired.

  And for what? Slapping that spic busboy in the mouth cuz he dropped them dishes on his foot? Naw, boss, I ain’t been drinking! Okay, okay, I admit I had little nip on my break—just a little one—but that fucking Chihuahua did it on purpose! Kind of talk? Whaddya mean you don’t go for that kind of talk? How’s a good, hardworking white man supposed to get by when them wetbacks is taking all our jobs?

  That had been the beginning of the end of his good run in Lucama, North Carolina. Same shit, different day. First you get canned; then you gotta weigh your options. And there hadn’t been any options in shit-bowl Lucama. Small-town politics, word of mouth, bad rep now and rent due soon. Been there done that. Better to say fuck it and get outta Dodge before the money runs out and the landlady sics the sheriff on you. If he left now he’d have enough money to get by—more than he usually did when he cut bait—plus he’d be able to stretch it somewhere different until something else came along. And something would come along.

  Something always did.

  Besides, what was he going to do now anyway? Go back to the kind of life he had before he went in? He was fifty-two years old and didn’t have them kind of reflexes no more. Being married to the bottle had seen to that; fucked with your muscles, too. But the bottle was a good girl—made you smarter, at least. Didn’t make you do stupid things like he did when he was riding the needle. Boy, that smack was a high-priced whore! Was her who made him shoot that convenience store clerk in Durham—popped him one right above the left eye and killed him instantly, he saw on the news the next day. Never thought he woulda been capable of a thing like that, but, boy oh boy, the things we do for love! Luckily, they never pinned that one on him—stuck it on some other chump and then picked him up a year later on the armed-robbery rap in Raleigh. Yeah, Hank Biehn was smart enough to know that you only get one freebie in life, and he’d already used up his.

  “Fuck it,” he said, spitting into the underbrush. “Not my fault the kid didn’t just give me the money.”

  And Hank Biehn walked on.

  His plan was to make it to downtown Smithfield by Sunday morning—would check into a cheap motel and spend the rest of the day in his room drinking beer. Beer didn’t stick in your pores the next day like the hard stuff, and so he’d be clean and ready to work come Monday morning. Spring was here, and they’d be hiring day laborers outside this little storefront near where Route 301 intersected with the center of town. Or at least he hoped they’d be hiring; he’d worked out of there before the gig in Lucama, and as far as he knew, nothing had changed in the last two years. Well, there’d be a different bunch of fucking Mexicans he’d have to work with, but as long as he kept his mouth shut and didn’t smell like booze he should be fine. If they weren’t hiring, well, something else would come along.

  Something always did.

  Back in the days when he was a professional walker, Hank Biehn learned very quickly that folks didn’t like giving him a ride. Well, once he got inside and could talk his game they came around. It was just the getting-inside part that was the problem. He’d never been a looker, that’s for sure. Kids used to call him “Weasel” back in the day, enough said. But that wasn’t it. No, things were different now than before he went in. People nowadays were too uptight; fucked-up world, people paranoid, no one wanting to give a guy a break. Sad really, but simple as that.

  And so Hank Biehn figured if he was going to have to walk, why not walk at night when it was cooler? Tomorrow was a Sunday to boot, and another thing Hank Biehn had learned since his parole was that Sundays were the worst days to try and hitch. Cops more likely to fuck with you on a Sunday, too. You’d think it’d be the opposite—people closer to God and whatnot—but for some reason that wasn’t the case. Hank Biehn had never figured out why.

  He shifted the duffel bag on his back and spit once more into the brush. He figured he had about four or five miles left on Route 301 before it crossed I-95, which meant at least another hour and a half of walking before he’d rest a spell with a nip by the highway. No use getting on the Interstate, though; would be around 2 a.m. at that point, and the chances of hitching a ride were slim anyway. Better if he stuck to 301 the whole way; probably another fifteen miles from there, which meant he’d make it into town for breakfast. Then he’d find a room, a case of beer (have to buy it after noon on a Sunday, fucking North Carolina!) and then a good night’s sleep. Sounds like a plan.

  Hank heard the car coming long before it reached him. It was quiet on 301. Only a handful of people were traveling at this hour, and all of them had passed by Hank Biehn without a second look. Fine with him. Wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of sticking out his thumb for any of them anyway. Paranoid motherfuckers.

  Maybe that’s why, when he sensed the car slowing down behind him, he looked up from the road and stumbled a bit. Fucking old factory nerves.

  “You need a ride, sir?” the driver asked. He’d rolled down the passenger side window, but Hank couldn’t make out his face in the dark. Chevy van, 1970s, not a lot of light coming from the dash. “Heading down the Interstate way if you’d like a lift.”

  “I sure would,�
� said Hank, approaching the door. “That’s real kind of you, mister.” He could see the man more clearly now—just a kid, mid-twenties and pretty built from the look of the arms on the steering wheel. Spoke with a heavy Southern drawl, too; all-American good ol’ boy from the looks of it.

  Hank pulled the door handle.

  “Passenger door doesn’t work,” he said. “You gotta swing around back.”

  “Gotchya.”

  Maybe the booze had dulled his instincts over the years; maybe he’d been domesticated too long and gone all Pollyanna and shit, but Hank Biehn didn’t give his good fortune a second thought as he skirted around to the rear of the van.

  “It’s unlocked,” the kid called, and Hank opened the door. “Just leave your stuff back there and come on up front. Need a hand?”

  “No, no, I got it,” Hank said, hoisting his duffel bag inside. He climbed up after it, and was surprised to find the back of the van completely empty—just the grooved metal bed and the shell of the outer walls.

  But what Hank Biehn didn’t notice was the strong smell of Pine-Sol and the subtle yet palpable scent of rotten meat underneath.

  Oh no, his old factory nerves were simply too shot to pick up on that.

  What a good kid, Hank said to himself. And here I am just thinking how the world’s gone to shit. Weasel, your luck is changing!

  “You gotta make sure you slam that door tight,” the kid said. “Latch doesn’t work like it used to. Dang old-school Chevys.”

  “I heard that,” Hank said. He was on all fours now, his back toward the driver as he pulled the door shut. It seemed to latch fine. But when he turned around again, he gasped when he discovered the driver was almost on top of him.

  “What the—?”

  “Your body is the doorway,” the kid said.

  Then he raised his gun and fired.

  Chapter 12

  Sam Markham stepped into his office on Monday morning feeling tired and helpless—like a dog that had been chasing its tail for days. He’d grown to despise this place—cramped, bare, with no windows and a single fluorescent light that fluttered sporadically above his head. He thought about the plaque in his bedroom back in Virginia, and was sorry he didn’t bring it with him to hang over this, the gates of his own private hell.

  Markham sat at his desk and turned on his computer—took a swig of coffee and replayed the last four days in his mind. It was all a blur to him, a soupy mishmash of dead ends and frustration. None of his leads had paid off—the interviews with the families, the Internet and library investigations, the connections between the victims, the ties to Islam and the lunar visuals. The forensic analysis turned out to be a wash, too—no leads on the materials, nothing new via Donovan. But worst of all, the FBI labs had come back with nothing on Jose Rodriguez. That’s right, no writing at all had been found on him anywhere. Markham hadn’t expected that.

  Rodriguez was supposed to be reburied sometime today, and Donovan’s funeral had been officially scheduled for Saturday. The same day as Elmer Stokes’s execution.

  His computer ready, Markham sighed and logged into Sentinel, the FBI’s latest version of its case-management database. The Sentinel system had been active for less than a year, and Markham had to admit that it was better than the old Trilogy System—or “Tragedy System,” as the SAs used to call it—but still he thought of it as an untrustworthy logistical pain in the ass.

  Markham signed into the Sentinel file for Vlad. An agent from the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) had finally entered the information about the killer’s shoes: Merrell Stormfront Gore-Tex XCRs. Even weight distribution. Slight wear. 2004 model.

  “You like to hike, Vlad?” Markham said out loud. “Or did you buy the Merrells because they’re quiet on pavement?”

  I have returned.

  Markham signed out of Sentinel and clicked on a desktop icon he’d labeled as STARS. A Web site called Your Sky opened immediately. A physics professor at NC State had turned him on to the site, which enabled visitors to plug in coordinates, dates, and times to see what the stars looked like on any given night going back to the year 0. It had taken Markham hours of scrolling and clicking to get the hang of it; but over the last couple of days he’d become nothing short of obsessed.

  “You messing with those star charts again, Captain Kirk?” Schaap said, leaning against the doorjamb. Markham nodded. “Anything new?”

  “Spinning my wheels,” Markham said. “Hundreds of individual stars that could’ve traveled across the Hispanics’ field of vision during the time frame in which they were displayed. Bunch of constellations, too; never heard of most of them.”

  “What about the signs of the zodiac?”

  “Looks like there are only four that would’ve passed over the eastern horizon: Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, and Leo. And that’s if the Hispanics were looking directly east.”

  “Any connection to the historical Vlad?”

  “None that I can see just yet. Most scholars agree that Vlad Tepes was born sometime in November or December of 1431, which would have made his astrological sign a Scorpio, Sagittarius, or a Capricorn.”

  “What about individual stars?”

  “No specific stars have historically been associated with the symbol of Islam, but our astronomy consultant at NC State is working on tying one to Vlad.”

  Schaap was quiet, looking at the floor.

  “I feel the same way,” Markham said after a moment.

  “What’s that?”

  “That I’m wasting my time. That I’m off on trying to find the star to go with the Islamic crescent; that maybe I’m off on the whole Vlad the Impaler angle, too.”

  “But if not Vlad, then who has returned?”

  “I don’t know,” Markham said, turning back to his computer. “But whoever he is, I guarantee you he’s laughing at us.”

  The day had been a waste, and later that evening, Markham found himself sitting atop the low fieldstone wall that surrounded the Willow Brook Cemetery. It was his sixth night in North Carolina, but only his third at the cemetery. He’d gotten lucky with the weather—nothing but clear skies since his arrival, which allowed him to divvy up his evenings between the two crime scenes. But as he looked toward the east, in his mind he told the stars he would not be coming back.

  They answered him as they usually did—in apathetic cricket-speak; all seeing, all knowing, and with a twinkle in their eyes that said, “Who cares?”

  But Markham was not bothered tonight by their indifference. His mind had already shifted to Vlad the Impaler.

  His return was just beginning. Rodriguez and Guerrera, Randall Donovan. There would be more to come. Markham was sure of it, was sure that Vlad would go looking for his next victim very soon if he already hadn’t. So far the pattern looked as if he was into men; so far the pattern looked to be a murder every other month.

  But somehow the latter didn’t feel right in Markham’s gut.

  2006 is your comeback season, he said to himself. So where’s your calendar boy for March, Vlad? Or for January, for that matter?

  Why does it have to be a boy? a voice said in his head. After all, you’ll remember Vlad was an equal-opportunity impaler.

  There were only a handful of missing person reports around the Raleigh area for the last few months. Could one or maybe two of them be Vlad’s? Schaap’s team at the Resident Agency would begin looking into all that, but without bodies to go on, and without actual murder sites, they wouldn’t be able to make a thorough investigation. And what was the point? Maybe none of them had to do with Vlad. Maybe Vlad only had time to get to three. Maybe there was something about the crescent moon for February and April that he was missing.

  Christ, he felt desperate.

  “Tell me what you know,” Markham whispered.

  But the stars only twinkled back with the eyes of Vlad himself.

  There was no mercy them. None at all.

  Chapter 13

  The General unchained the
drifter and let his naked body drop from the ceiling. He had been hanging upside down for almost a day and a half now—more than enough time for his veins to empty into the floor drain in the corner of the workroom.

  The General had gutted the drifter and sawed off his head immediately upon his return to the farmhouse—sealed everything up in a garbage bag and buried it behind the old horse barn along with the remains of the first drifter. But the General hadn’t had time to fully prepare the second drifter until now. His day-life at the university and the big push toward the opening of Macbeth was taking up a lot of his time. However, all that would change once Macbeth opened on Thursday. His role would then be complete and he’d be able to focus on the most important parts of the equation.

  Then again, Macbeth was part of the equation, too. A template of 9:3 or 3:1, depending on how you looked at it. Just part of the formula encoded in Elizabethan doublespeak and secret messages. Shakespeare understood the equation of 3:1 back then. Three Witches, three prophecies, three spirits—lots of threes to the one general Macbeth. But whereas Shakespeare wrote his equations on paper, the Prince wrote his in the stars

  3:1 or 9:3, depending on how you looked at it.

  It was right there in the stars.

  The workroom had an old slop sink and spigot, to which the General’s grandfather had once upon a time attached a rubber hose. The General turned on the water and hosed off the remaining blood from the drifter’s body. And when he was clean, he dragged him to the center of the room and patted him dry with a towel. Then the General picked up the drifter’s corpse and carried it into the Throne Room.