The Sculptor sm-1

by Gregory Funaro

  With the last of the fire fading, with the plans for his Bacchus long ago in ashes, The Sculptor heaved a heavy sigh at the thought of having to rise. The grandfather clock in the corner chimed its warning for the half hour—11:30—but The Sculptor wished to stay on the divan forever; wished to bask in his moment of triumph just a little bit longer.

  Oh yes, it had been a lovely evening. After giving his father his supper and putting him to bed, while his lamb cooked and his risotto simmered on the stove, The Sculptor spent over an hour in the library—sat back naked in the big leather chair with his feet on the desk, sipping the last of some Amarone and nibbling from a hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Quite a few books passed through his fingers, mostly older volumes in Italian, the pages with The Sculptor’s favorite passages long ago dog-eared—Boccaccio, Dante, Machiavelli. He read them slowly, sometimes twice—savoring the language with a sip of wine or a bite of cheese—and then moved on to others amidst a serenade of classical music by Tomaso Albinoni. It was the old routine The Sculptor relished, but one he had neglected as of late due to his work in the carriage house; and the library was filled with stacks of books in some places as tall as The Sculptor himself.

  It was well after eight o’clock by the time The Sculptor finally sat down in the parlor with his lamb and his Brunello—the fire roaring, all but begging him for his Bacchus. And thus it was with no particular ceremony that The Sculptor threw the twisted log of plans into the flames—for his mind was already on his next sculpture. And there he sat alone for over three hours, eating his lamb and sipping his wine as the music from the library became a soundtrack for his thoughts—for what he imagined to be happening outside now that the world had received his Bacchus, and for what he imagined would happen in the future when the world received his next creation.

  Soon, The Sculptor thought. Very, very soon.

  His dinner done, his dishes washed, and the parlor clean, The Sculptor stepped out into the night—the cool April air popping his naked flesh into goose bumps as he made his way across the flagstone path toward the carriage house. He had not been back there since telephoning WNRI and communing with his Bacchus atop the mortician’s table. No, The Sculptor had wanted to prolong the anticipation of checking his technology until the very last minute, when he knew the totality of his exhibit would dominate the news. And as he climbed the stairs to the second floor, with every step The Sculptor’s heart beat faster and faster with excitement.

  He entered the carriage house and immediately went for the computers. While they were booting, he turned on the television—Fox News, some blond lady live in front of Dodd’s estate blahdy-blahdy-blahding about a possible motive for the murders, about a possible connection to Earl Dodd. Yes, he had expected something like that—only a matter of time before that theory is put to rest, he thought. But when the blahdy-blah was soon accompanied by a picture of Michelangelo’s Bacchus, The Sculptor’s heart leapt with joy into his throat.

  And so, instead of moving on to the Internet, The Sculptor waited—listened for the one word in the blahdy-blah that would confirm for him his triumph; the one word that would give him permission to proceed with his next project the following morning. And after about ten minutes, it fell from the blond lady’s lips like an angel from Heaven.

  Hildebrant.

  Yes, the blond lady was saying that a Brown University professor by the name of Catherine Hildebrant—“an expert on the works of Michelangelo”—had been brought in by the FBI as a consultant for the investigation. And although she could not be reached for comment, Hildebrant, the blond lady explained, had written one of the most widely read books on Michelangelo to come along since Irving Stone’s The Agony and the Ecstasy. The blond lady also explained that, even though Slumbering in the Stone had been met with some controversy in certain academic circles, it was a good primer for anyone interested in the artist and the relevancy of his work today.

  It’s almost too good to be true, The Sculptor thought.

  The Sculptor had known from the beginning that he would have to play the Hildebrant card carefully, for although he had wanted the media to know of her involvement in order to draw attention to her book, The Sculptor also knew that his plan might backfire if the public knew that Slumbering in the Stone had been the inspiration for his Bacchus. Yes, The Sculptor wanted to thank Dr. Hildy for all her help; yes, he wanted her to speak publicly about her book; but The Sculptor understood that if too much attention was paid to Slumbering in the Stone itself—that is, if the book became inextricably woven in the public consciousness with the murders as the Beatles’ White Album had over the years become with the demented intentions of Charles Manson—then the simplicity, the clarity of his message would be lost.

  In addition, such a bombardment of misguided media attention might cause the shy Dr. Hildy to retreat from the public eye entirely. And how much better would it be if she didn’t? How much better would it be if the pretty art history professor went on television to talk about Michelangelo and perhaps about her book, too? Thus, the reason for the sand over the inscription at the base of the statue—a detail The Sculptor hoped would be discovered by the forensic teams after the police arrived; a detail that The Sculptor hoped could be kept from the public for a while—or at least until the interest in Slumbering in the Stone and Michelangelo had solidified.

  Besides, The Sculptor thought, in the grand scheme of things, it was unimportant that the general public should catch on to—let alone understand completely—the deeper meaning, the deeper genius of his work in connection with Dr. Hildy’s book. No, of supreme importance was the public’s interest in the murders, for only through that interest could they be drawn closer to Michelangelo; only then could The Sculptor begin—without them even knowing it—to chisel away at the marble of confusion and misguided values that had become their prison.

  Yes, only The Sculptor’s hand could free them from their slumber in the stone.

  And so The Sculptor double-clicked on the desktop icon labeled Yahoo! The headlines, as he expected, were about the murders of Tommy Campbell and Michael Wenick. That was wonderful, but he would read them later—perhaps tomorrow morning after his 6:00 A.M. workout and before commencing the research for his next project. No, what The Sculptor was interested in at present lay in the bottom right hand corner of the Yahoo! homepage in the box titled, Today’s Top Searches.

  At Number 2 was Tommy Campbell.

  At Number 1 was Michelangelo.

  The Sculptor smiled.

  It had begun.

  EXHIBIT TWO The Rome Pietà

  Chapter 16

  In the week and a half following the discovery of Tommy Campbell and Michael Wenick, Sam Markham spoke with Cathy Hildebrant only twice: once on Thursday to ask her if she had any insight into the coroner’s preliminary findings; once the following Wednesday to tell her that the FBI was temporarily reassigning him to the Boston Field Office and to ask her to join him there the next morning.

  In their Thursday conversation, Markham told Cathy that the internal organs of both Campbell and Wenick had been removed by the killer—Wenick’s through the lower half of his severed torso, Campbell’s through a previously undetected incision running from the base of his testicles through his rectum—and the resulting cavities were found stuffed with a mixture of tightly packed sawdust and hay. Both the victims’ heads were shaved and their hair replaced with special “wigs” sculpted from an epoxy compound. The killer had also removed the victims’ brains from what was clearly a postmortem-drilled hole at the base of each of their skulls. Wenick, Markham said, most likely died from a broken neck, for even though both the bodies had been contorted and mounted on a zigzagged iron bar that ran up through the wooden tree stump, through Campbell’s buttock and into his torso, only the bones in Wenick’s neck showed signs of trauma that occurred prior to death.

  Markham went on to explain that Campbell’s penis appeared to have been removed while he was still alive, but because of the missing organs—
and because both the bodies had been drained and the veins and tissues embalmed with some kind of preservative that needed further analysis—the wide receiver’s cause of death was still to be determined. The final results of the autopsy, Markham stressed, would not be in until the following week, and everything—the white lacquered paint, as well as the epoxy sculptured wigs, the fake grapes, and other accoutrements that adorned the bodies—would require further analysis. Markham told Cathy that all pertinent forensic evidence—including the entire base of the statue—had already been flown to the FBI Laboratory at Quantico for testing. That was good, Markham said, for that meant the detail about the inscription to Cathy could be kept out of the public eye a bit longer.

  And that meant that Cathy could be kept out of the public eye a bit longer, too. Immediately following that fateful Sunday, Dr. Catherine Hildebrant was met with an onslaught of messages on her University voice mail asking for an interview—so many, in fact, that she had to instruct her students to contact her only via e-mail. And even though it had been the end of the semester and she could finish up most of her work at Janet’s, by Friday of that first week—when other art historians and so-called experts had already been making the interview circuits for days—the media seemed to have forgotten all about the pretty art history professor who had initially been brought in as a consultant on the case, and who subsequently refused all their requests for an interview.

  However, even though by Friday of that first week interest in Cathy had waned, interest in her book had not. Amazon and Barnes & Noble quickly sold out of their few remainder copies of Slumbering in the Stone, and both placed a large backorder with Cathy’s publisher—a small, academic press which in turn informed their star author to expect some hefty royalty checks in the months to come. Other books on Michelangelo began to sell out, too; and by that first Friday, The Agony and the Ecstasy had cracked the number 10 spot on Amazon’s bestseller list.

  While both professional and amateur sleuths alike waxed philosophical on the deeper meaning, the deeper cultural significance behind the murder/ sculpture of Tommy Campbell and Michael Wenick—some of whom actually referred to Slumbering in the Stone while postulating their theories of The Michelangelo Killer’s motives—none made the connection to Cathy’s book as a possible inspiration for the killings—a fact that Sam Markham in his second conversation with Cathy did not find surprising. Without the knowledge of the inscription at the base of the statue, he explained, without the knowledge of the quotes and a direct connection between the killer and herself, there would be no reason for the public to make a connection with her book more than any other the killer might have read, including literature not necessarily related to Michelangelo.

  Thus, following a number of carefully calculated comments by Special Agent Rachel Sullivan in her press conferences that week—comments that suggested Cathy had been consulted by the FBI simply because of her geographic proximity to the crime scene—by that first Friday the media seemed to have moved on from Dr. Catherine Hildebrant.

  Markham, however, had not. Had he known how many times Cathy had wanted to call him just to chat—and had he known how often she had Googled his name on her laptop while at the Polks’—the FBI agent might have better understood the turmoil that fate had awakened in both their hearts. During his first conversation with her that week, Markham had assured Cathy that it was better for her if he should keep his distance until the media attention died down. She needn’t worry, he said, for even though she was staying with the Polks, she was still under constant surveillance by the FBI. And so Markham felt a certain amount of relief that he had an excuse to stay away from Cathy Hildebrant. But even though the demands of the investigation actually warranted his distance from her, coupled with his relief was a mixture of guilt and shame—guilt because his nagging preoccupation with the pretty art history professor often took his mind off his work; shame because he felt dishonest for not admitting even to himself how often his thoughts of her made him smile.

  Markham spent the majority of that week and a half traveling between the Boston Field Office and the Resident Agency in Providence. Most of the time he was alone, but sometimes Rachel Sullivan accompanied him, as on the two occasions when they attempted to speak with Laurie Wenick. Both times they had to settle for her father; for Laurie—who had tried to stab herself in the neck with a butcher’s knife upon learning what had become of her son—was presently being held under a strict suicide watch at the Rhode Island Institute of Mental Health. Thus, it had fallen to John Wenick to perform the grim task, the grim technicality of identifying the upper half of his grandson—that is, once little Michael Wenick had been removed from the rocky cliff and separated from the goat’s legs. John Wenick could offer nothing to help Markham and Sullivan with their investigation other than a tearful oath that he would one day see “whoever did this to my grandson dead at my feet.”

  And so, while the remaining pieces of The Sculptor’s Bacchus were being processed and analyzed back at the FBI Laboratories at Quantico, and while Rachel Sullivan and her team began following up on the class rosters obtained from the Registrar’s Office at Brown, Special Agent Sam Markham immediately set about pursuing leads gathered from the plethora of physical evidence The Michelangelo Killer had left behind—the most promising of which so far being the hindquarters of the goat.

  The first element of the killer’s Bacchus to be examined at the FBI Laboratory, DNA testing quickly determined that the goat which The Michelangelo Killer had selected for the bottom half of his satyr was a medium-sized adult male of the Nubian variety: a short-haired, somewhat muscular goat distinguished by its floppy ears and what breeders called its distinctively “Roman” nose—a characteristic that Markham, given what he knew of The Michelangelo Killer so far, did not treat as a coincidence. Indeed, through his research, Markham also discovered that, as far as goats go, the Nubian was one of the most sociable, vocal, and outgoing of all the different breeds. Outgoing, Markham said to himself over and over. The same word John Wenick had used to describe his grandson. Another coincidence? Perhaps, but Markham could not help but think otherwise.

  The special agent began his investigation by surfing the Internet and telephoning the handful of farms in the New England area that either featured the Nubian breed, or had Nubians among their livestock—beginning with and working his way outward from the farms closest to the area where Michael Wenick was abducted. He got lucky on his second try: a farm called Hill Brothers Homestead in Burrillville—a rural, heavily wooded town located in the northwest corner of Rhode Island. Markham followed up with calls to the other farms as well, but only Louis Hill, owner of Hill Brothers Homestead, confirmed that one of his Nubians had indeed gone missing the previous fall.

  “Mr. Hill?” said Markham, emerging from his car.

  “One of ’em, yes,” said the old man in the beat-up Boston Red Sox hat. He stood on the porch of his small farmhouse with his hands in the pockets of his baggy overalls. “If you’re looking for my brother, he’s a ways down the road. You’ll have to shout, though, as he’ll have a hard time hearing ya from six feet under.”

  “I spoke with you on the phone, Mr. Hill,” said Markham, showing his ID. “Special Agent Sam Markham. Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  “I know, son. Just giving you a hard time. Louis Hill. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  “About time someone got up here about Gamble.”

  “Gamble?”

  “The buck I told you about on the phone. Reported it to the police back in November, but nobody done shit since. Didn’t think they’d get the FBI on it, though. You boys got a missing animals division or something?”

  “Mr. Hill, you said on the phone that Gamble was the only one of your goats to go missing last year?”

  “Yep. Hadn’t had a goat go missing in over a decade. And as far as I know, never had one stolen neither. Had big plans for that boy. Shoulda seen him—was a be-ute of a stud.”
/>   “And you said Gamble was stolen at night, in the dark sometime between eight o’clock and five the next morning?”

  “Had to have been, yeah. Grandson checked on the goats and locked the barn as he usually does before he goes to bed. All present and accounted for. Went to feed them the next morning, lock on the barn was busted open and the door to Gamble’s stall ripped off the hinges.”

  “May I see the barn?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Hill led Markham from the porch around to the back of the farmhouse. In addition to the large barn and a pair of smaller buildings at the rear of the property, Markham spied about two dozen Nubian goats in a nearby paddock—many of whom raised their heads and approached the fence as the men passed.

  Outgoing indeed, Markham thought.

  “Settle down, children,” said Hill. “Don’t go begging the government for no handouts now.”

  The large swinging doors were propped open, the inside of the barn empty, but the lingering smell of livestock—of hay and manure and sawdust—suddenly bombarded Markham with memories of a petting zoo to which his father had taken him as a little boy—a ramshackle affair at the local mall where a llama once nibbled at the collar of his shirt and made him cry. The barn itself was typical in its layout—a single corridor flanked by stalls for the animals. The horse stalls, of which there were four, came first; followed by six stalls on each side that Hill said were reserved for the goats. These—unlike the horse stalls, which had high wooden doors and barred windows—were enclosed by chain link gates and were separated from each other by 2 x 6s that Hill said could be removed to make the pens bigger.