The Sculptor

At “2” the screen went blank—the room, black—and a second later, just as it had materialized for Tommy Campbell, The Sculptor saw what he had been waiting for: a statue, dirty white against black, so that it appeared to be floating just inches above his face. However, whereas it was Michelangelo’s Bacchus that had emerged from the darkness for Tommy Campbell, before The Sculptor now was HIS Bacchus, HIS creation. And as the marble white effigy of the Rebels wide receiver and his satyr companion began to rotate, unlike the mortician table’s former occupant, The Sculptor felt no fear, no confusion at all.

No, in the three months since he had taken the life of Tommy Campbell—especially in the last few weeks—The Sculptor had been in this position many, many times.

The Sculptor began to stroke his penis—hard, but slow at first, as he had learned to do in order to time things perfectly. And just as Michelangelo’s Bacchus had done for Tommy Campbell, the image before The Sculptor suddenly morphed into a close-up of the statue’s head: the grapes, the leaves, the curly hair surrounding the wide receiver’s drunken face—a gleaming white face with blank, porcelain eyes and a half-open mouth. The camera then panned down over Campbell’s chest, over his bloated belly, and finally to his groin—to the place where The Sculptor had carefully removed the young man’s penis.

And in a fortuitous stroke of timing—an almost divine coincidence that The Sculptor did not fail to notice—as the all-enveloping sound of Scarlatti’s Sonata in D Minor faded into his Sonata in E, the image on the screen above faded into something else as well. Now it was just the face of Tommy Campbell—strapped to the table—filmed with a second, stationary camera that The Sculptor had set off to the side of the mortician’s table.

“Pop, you there? Did I fall on the porch? They got me in traction or something?”

Once again there was the look of confusion on the star Rebel’s face as the video above him commenced, as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing there in the darkness. The Sculptor instinctively focused his attention on Campbell’s neck—had learned over the past month to watch his jugular vein, to time the strokes of his penis with the beating of the young man’s heart. He kept his rhythm steady, mimicking Campbell’s pulse while the wide receiver watched the image of Michelangelo’s Bacchus rotate and morph above him.

“That’s it,” The Sculptor heard himself say off camera. “Shake off your slumber, O son of Jupiter.”

The Sculptor literally skipped a breath when he saw Tommy Campbell attempt to turn his head—actually felt his stomach spasm with delight when he saw the young man’s heart begin to beat faster in his neck.

“Who are you? What am I doing here?”

The Sculptor’s breathing quickened as he watched Campbell begin to panic, watched him struggle against the straps. The Sculptor knew that the image above the muscle-bound footballer was moving again, panning down over Bacchus’s chest, over his belly, to his hairless groin—to the place where his penis should have been.

“What the hell is going on?”

The Sculptor increased the speed, the intensity of his stroke—did not pause at the point in the video when the image above Campbell changed, when the young man finally saw himself, the clusters of grapes and vine leaves surrounding his face.

“What the fuck is—”

And as Tommy Campbell began to tremble violently on the screen above him, the heavy pounding of The Sculptor’s hand finally joined him with his Bacchus’s heart.

“This can’t be happening. I must be dreaming!”

“No, my Bacchus. You are finally awake.”

And thus, as he had done so many times before, at the precise moment of his Bacchus’s release, The Sculptor once again released himself into the darkness of their divine communion.

Chapter 10

The two of them were alone again, and when Special Agent Sam Markham finally spoke to her, Cathy Hildebrant felt as if she had been interrupted while watching a primetime crime drama—one of those woodenly acted, corpse-ridden soaps with which she had become so infatuated, and which she was so embarrassed to admit to her colleagues she actually followed. Even upon hearing Markham’s voice, even upon recognizing the traffic light at which they were stopped—a traffic light that subliminally spoke to her of the silent twenty minutes she and the FBI agent had traveled from Watch Hill—Cathy still had only a vague, detached awareness that the movie she had been watching in her mind had been real and that she had been its star.

“You ever been there?” Markham asked.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“The University of Rhode Island. Sign back there said you make a left at the light. Your head seemed to follow it as we passed.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was looking at it.”

“College town means there’s probably a Starbucks nearby. Interested in a cup of coffee? Want me to check the GPS?”

“No, thank you.”

The light turned green and Markham drove on.

“Yes,” Cathy said after a moment.

“Change your mind?”

“No. I meant, yes I’ve been to the University of Rhode Island. Only once. As a guest speaker a few years back when my book came out.”

“You had a lot of speaking engagements? After your book was published, I mean?” The FBI Agent made no attempt at delicacy; no attempt to conceal that he was looking for yet another connection between Dr. Catherine Hildebrant and the killer in the movie of her mind. And all at once the weight, the reality of the last few hours came rushing back to her; all at once the tears overwhelmed her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Markham. Cathy swallowed hard, and turned again toward the window. A long, uncomfortable silence followed.

“Been almost fifteen years since I was there last,” Markham said finally. “At URI, I mean. Hardly remember it, really. Like you, I was there only once. With my wife, for homecoming during the fall. She was a graduate of their oceanography program. Had a real love for that school. Wasn’t too crazy about it myself—football stadium was kind of dinky, I thought. I guess it was supposed to be a pretty good one back then—their oceanography program, I mean. Not sure what the story is now, though. Lot can happen in fifteen years.”

Cathy suddenly realized that the FBI Agent had opted to take the longer route back to Providence—Route 1 instead of I-95—and more than the sincerity of his attempt at small talk, more than his disclosure of something personal, what settled Cathy’s tears was Sam Markham’s tone—a tone that for the first time that day was hesitant and awkward; a tone that for the first time that day made him seem human.

“That’s an interesting pairing,” said Cathy—surprised at the sound of her voice, at how eager she was to talk about anything but the day’s events. “How does an FBI agent end up marrying an oceanographer?”

“I wasn’t with the Bureau back then. Was actually a high school English teacher when I met my wife.”

“Aha. So that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“The sonnet.”

“The sonnet?”

“Yes. I thought your analysis of Michelangelo’s poetry seemed a little too erudite, a little too insightful even for an FBI profiler.” The special agent nodded his approval—playfully and with exaggerated admiration. “My first clue should have been during our initial drive to Watch Hill, when you asked me if the sonnet that I received had been numbered like a Shakespearean sonnet.”

“Nonetheless,” said Markham, smiling, “an admirable analysis of the evidence, Dr. Hildebrant.”

Cathy smiled back.