The Impaler

Indeed, Edmund thought, perhaps because Rally had worn the Nergal message in his name—the Nergal Stone in the Gene Ralston that had been like a tattoo on his chest for all those years—perhaps Eugene “Rally” Ralston recognized deep down the terror that had returned with him from Iraq.

“I have returned,” Edmund said to himself as he pulled up to the farmhouse. He sensed Nergal speaking in him, too, and looked down at his chest, to the left pocket of his shirt and half expected to see a patch there. There wasn’t one, of course, but Edmund saw the potential for his own Nergal Stone underneath. Something more lasting. Something that could not be destroyed or torn away like Rally’s silver stitched name patch; something as durable as the carved Nergal Stone itself.

A tattoo. Yes. But of what?

The answer would come to him eventually, he thought. And once he was certain the business with Rally and the illegal absinthe was finally over, he would need to start readying the farmhouse. He knew what needed to be done, but he wasn’t exactly sure how. That would all be revealed eventually, too, he thought.

In Nergal’s messages.

But would Edmund Lambert be smart enough to decode all the messages? Would he be worthy enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nergal in the end?

Edmund took a deep breath and told himself not worry about all that; for when he looked down past his chest to his stomach; when he thought about the searching and looked for it deep inside his belly, a breeze whispered back at him through a window in his mind.

“Finally, Edmund. Finally.”

Yes, after all these years, the searching was over.

After all these years, the answer finally had come.

PART IV

EXITING

Chapter 54

Names, names, and more names—thousands of them scattered before him—but Andy Schaap held out hope.

The cemetery.

Yes, he thought as he bounced his ring on his desk. The cemetery was the beginning for the Impaler. The first star in his personal logo. The star off of which the rest of his constellation would be built.

But why the cemetery? Because the Impaler had a connection there that went beyond the name of Lyons. Schaap was sure of it. Someone important to him was buried there; someone who was connected to the identity on earth that needed to be remapped in the eyes of the lion in the sky. Planting Rodriguez and Guerrera outside the wall directly east of the Lyons plot was only part of the equation, as was the cemetery’s connection to the other murder sites that made up the Starlight Theater logo.

All theory, of course, and nothing really on which to base his assumptions other than a gut reading of the evidence so far. But Andy Schaap was sure he was on to something; and this little side investigation was going to be his baby. He’d gotten hold of the cemetery records soon after Markham left. That was good. That meant he could follow his leads alone; might even get a little credit for all the hard work he’d done.

Sure, he knew he was becoming a little jealous of Sam Markham. But didn’t Markham also keep things to himself when he was on a case? Isn’t that how he caught Jackson Briggs? Hell, he still never told anyone how he really did it.

Besides, there was nothing Markham could offer from Connecticut anyway. At least not until the medical records were obtained and the lists of servicemen and their units checked against them.

There were over two-thousand residents buried beneath the soil in Clayton’s Willow Brook Cemetery, and Schaap’s first order of business was to begin testing those records against a list of men who fit Underhill’s unit profile. And once those lists were complete, once he got all the names of servicemen living in the Raleigh area, his computer program would rank them in order of probability.

It was complicated stuff, Schaap thought; and without each list to test against the other, just using the cemetery records alone would be like shooting blind from the white pages. No, the cemetery records would only narrow down the unit lists. But even then, it would be slow going. Schaap had seen those names already—Davis, White, Brown, Anderson, Jones—common names that seemed to taunt him with the futility of his plan.

But fuck it. He would spend the whole night there if he had to, checking his lists against each other and developing a preliminary cross-section of candidates. Then, once he ran that list through a computer program that would rank them according to location—that is, remote areas in and around Raleigh that theoretically would provide the Impaler with good “working conditions”—Schaap would have a better idea where to begin. But he didn’t have much time before Markham returned Sunday afternoon; not much time to keep his little side investigation secret.

But Schaap would keep it secret. As long as humanly possible, he decided.

After all, isn’t that what Sam Markham would do?

Chapter 55

Edmund and Cindy arrived at the cast party at exactly 11:30 p.m. They could’ve gotten there sooner, but Cindy insisted on showering at the theater after the show. She even came right out and admitted to Edmund that she wanted to look nice for him. He was dressed in a button-down shirt and jeans that made his butt look beyond sexy, Cindy thought. All she said, however, was, “You look very handsome.” Edmund smiled and said he would wait for her in the green room. He ended up waiting almost half an hour. But Edmund said he didn’t mind. He was used to waiting.

The party was at Amy Pratt’s—a rundown, student-district rancher that had been passed down among the theatre majors for as long as anyone could remember. It was designated “the party house” every year because of its large, fenced yard and L-shaped deck out back.

The party house was already packed when Cindy and Edmund snaked their way into the kitchen amid a sea of second glances and whispers. Cindy had expected that; had even warned Edmund to be ready for a scandal on Monday. Edmund said that they’d have to come up with something really juicy to get the rumors going.

Cindy had laughed at that, and so did Edmund. Cindy had never seen Edmund smile and laugh so much, and it made her feel beyond ecstatic to know that he was already opening up to her; made the ass-chewing she got from her director about her being unfocused during the show all the more worth it.

Kiernan was right: her mind had been on Edmund Lambert all day.

“Holy shit,” said Amy Pratt when she saw Cindy and her date. “Edmund Lambert? Edmund Laaam-bert? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hello, Amy,” he said. “I hope I was invited.”

“Of course!” she said as she reached down into her bag of plastic cups. “I’m gonna give you and your date here a cup for free cuz I’m already wasted and you look fucking hot and you never come see me, how’s that?”

“Thank you,” Edmund said.

“Buuuut,” Amy said, snatching the cups back at the last second, “you’re gonna have to promise to ditch this ho and dance with me after Brown Bags, okay?”

Edmund smiled and nodded and Amy gave him the cups.

“How much longer until they start?” asked Cindy.

“Bradley-boy and the other seniors are still in my bedroom writing them out,” Amy said, rolling her eyes. “I peeked in and he told me to get out of there—my own fucking bedroom, can you believe it? Someone—and I’m not