The Sculptor

by surprise.

Of course, there had been other women over the last few years, but the FBI agent never allowed himself to get too close, never allowed himself to betray the memory of his wife in his heart. But now, with this art history professor from Brown, Markham was aware that something had happened; that something else besides his grief was stirring deep down in the catacombs of his heart—a something, for all his self-awareness, Markham did not quite understand, but at the same time in the role of detached moviegoer knew all too well. And so it was that, as he gazed down at the picture of Cathy Hildebrant on the back cover of Slumbering in the Stone, Markham watched himself for the first time long in his heart not only for his wife, but for another woman as well; and so it was that the FBI agent had also watched himself swallow his tears of guilt upon the art history professor’s phone call—a detail, Markham thought, that only added to the cliche of the movie that had become his life.

By the time he hung up with Cathy, however, Markham’s mind was back on his work. The conversation—as much as it had settled him, as much as he had actually enjoyed speaking with the art history professor—confirmed for him the conclusion he had drawn from reading Slumbering in the Stone: that the murderer of Tommy Campbell and Michael Wenick was sending a message that was part of a much larger purpose—a purpose that involved the public. But rather than delving back into Cathy’s book, rather than contemplating the merits of Dr. Hildebrant’s theories as to just what that purpose was, after he closed his cell phone Markham found himself unable to take his eyes off the book’s cover—specifically, the close-up of David’s piercing but delicately carved eyes. Indeed, for almost ten minutes did Sam Markham become mesmerized by the visage that was Michelangelo’s David—so much so, that when his cell phone startled him from his trance, it took a moment for Markham to remember where he was.

“Yes?”

“You see the news?”

It was Bill Burrell.

“Not in the last couple of hours, no. I’ve been reading Dr. Hildebrant’s book.”

“Damn press,” grunted Burrell. “Already calling the son of a bitch ‘The Michelangelo Killer.’ And worse than all the pictures of that goddamn statue floating around is the word getting out about Hildebrant, about her involvement in the case. You think one of our guys could have rolled?”

“It’s possible. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the killer notified the press himself.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, it’s obvious that he wants attention, obvious that he’s sending a message, and that he wants the public to understand this message via the lens of Hildebrant’s book—almost like he intends Slumbering in the Stone to be some sort of owner’s manual for his creation. He went through a lot of trouble to execute this, Bill—to plan the murder of a celebrity like Campbell, to construct his Bacchus down to the minutest details, and to risk being discovered while installing the sculpture in Dodd’s garden. Consequently, I don’t think the killer would want to run the risk of the public misinterpreting his efforts.”

“All right, what have you got for me?”

“Half textbook, but the other half is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. Beginning with the boilerplate stuff, he’s of the highly organized, highly intelligent variety. Other than what we’ll learn as a result of the autopsies, the only evidence the killer has left behind so far are those footprints—but he anticipated the possibility of a tread match and took the time to cover them. However, unless he was intentionally wearing bigger shoes, judging from the size of those footprints I’d peg him to be between six-three and six-six—most likely a white male, probably in his mid-to-late thirties, and definitely a loner. Would need a lot of time to accomplish his work, as well as a space in which to do so—perhaps a cellar or a garage. He’d also need a truck or a van to transport his creations. I would say that’s where the stereotype ends, however.”

“Go on.”

“The fact that he carried his statue alone tells us that he’s a man of incredible strength—probably either holds a job doing some kind of menial labor, or is perhaps a bodybuilder. I would tend to lean toward the latter, for not only is the killer very bright and apparently well educated, but also his apparent identification with Michelangelo in terms of both the artist’s homosexuality and his genius as a sculptor might indicate a desire for the same aesthetic quality in his own physique as well.”

“So you’re saying now you do think this guy is gay?”

“I can’t say one hundred percent, Bill. But judging from my conversations with Dr. Hildebrant and my cursory reading of her book, my gut tells me yes.”

“That’s good enough for me. What about the motive?”

“Well, barring any connection between Campbell and Wenick of which we’re presently unaware, again we have a situation where our man does not fit neatly into the usual categories. Other than the fact that both his victims were male—perhaps, one could argue, only an incidental criterion that Michelangelo’s Bacchus demanded of him—on one level, the killer seems to have chosen Campbell and Wenick simply because they looked like the figures in the original.”

“What’s the other level?”

“The killer’s message. Why he went through all the trouble to kill specifically Tommy Campbell and Michael Wenick in the first place. Why he juxtaposed the wide receiver’s body with that of the boy’s, and then made the effort to exhibit his Bacchus in the garden of a wealthy banker down at Watch Hill—an obvious historical allusion to the exhibition of the original.”

“And the message you’re talking about is what?”

Markham gave Burrell a quick rundown of his conversation with Cathy, as well as their theories about the killer’s motives—that deeper message that The Michelangelo Killer had chiseled out of Cathy’s book: Only the sculptor’s hand can free the figures slumbering in the stone.

“So you think then that he’s a type of visionary killer?” asked Burrell. “You think he’s delusional? That he read into Hildebrant’s book a deeper message that told him to make statues out of people?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to call him entirely delusional, Bill. Too much self-control, too much patience. No, I’d peg him somewhere between the visionary and missionary type, for I think Slumbering in the Stone clarified an urge to kill that was already there to begin with. It gave him a sense of purpose— not only, as I explained to you, in terms of ‘waking us up,’ but also, in light of his attempt to mimic the historical context of the original’s exhibition, perhaps to usher in a new Renaissance of thought. Maybe he’s trying to shock our culture into its next stage of evolution by harkening back to what he sees as an intellectually superior point in history. Perhaps he’s reminding us of a standard of excellence that has been lost, or at the very least, in his eyes, clouded by the mediocrity of media worship and empty celebrity.”

“And you don’t think sexual gratification is a factor?” asked Burrell, frustrated. “Even though both the victims were male and the killer, as you say, is a homosexual?”

Markham could tell by the sound of Burrell’s voice that the SAC did not want to entertain his hypothesis. Either all this intellectual nonsense was going over Burrell’s head, or the scope of Markham’s theory on The Michelangelo Killer’s intentions was just too much for Bill Burrell to wrap his mind around.

“I hate to say this, Bill, but in a way I hope there is a sexual component to these murders—might actually make them easier to solve if we could follow a more visceral motive as opposed to an intellectual one. Yes, I think the killer does receive some kind of psychological gratification from his work, but the pattern of behavior thus far seems to indicate something else, something beyond his own, selfish interests—the totality of which we’ve never seen before. If, as I explained to you, the killer is in some sick way trying to imitate Michelangelo through his creations, then, although he may be sexually attracted to them, it would be inappropriate for him to consummate his relationship with them via the sexual act itself. Of course, I could be wrong. We won’t know for sure if there was any sexual assault until the autopsies are finished, let alone exactly how Campbell and Wenick were killed. And even then, given the state of the bodies, given the amount of chemicals and preservatives the killer must have used to achieve his goals, we might never know exactly what this guy did to his victims—if in fact Campbell and Wenick were his first victims.”

“You think he may have killed before?”

“Maybe not a human being, but I would be willing to bet the farm that the goat—the one from which he got