“What do you mean?”
“Does the name Gabriel Banford mean anything to you, Cathy?”
“Gabriel Banford? Yes, of course, Gabe Banford. I remember Gabe. He was an undergraduate with us for a time—gosh, going back about seven or eight years now. I don’t really remember him other than his jet black hair and his clothes—a little bit more extreme than the usual Goths that sometimes litter the List Art Center. One of those lost soul types—bright from what I heard, but no direction. I had him briefly in class when he was a freshman but he ended up dropping out and transferring to the Rhode Island School of Design the following fall. His parents were not happy about it—that I do remember. Janet told me about it later—said they were trying to blame the department or something. I guess he had a lot of psychological issues, and later a drug problem from what I heard. I got all this secondhand, of course, from Janet. I hate to say this, but the only reason I remember him is because of what she told me happened to him afterward—after he dropped out of RISD and got involved with the wrong crowd.”
“So you know about how he died?”
“You’re going to have to forgive me, Sam, but all of this happened around the same time as my mother—was in a bit of a fog when Janet told me about it. But, if I remember correctly, it was a suicide, right? Drug overdose?”
“That was the official ruling, yes. But before we talk about that, let me back up a sec. You see, given the small number of male students in the initial suspect pool—a pool that Sullivan treated from the beginning as potentially comprised of direct and indirect suspects in terms of their relationship to you—it didn’t take her squad long to track down the whereabouts of your former students, most of whom are now living out of state. Serial killers, especially the types who hang on to their victims for an extended period of time, tend to almost always hunt their prey in a relatively small area in close proximity to their home. If we take into account the distances between the areas where Tommy Campbell and Michael Wenick were abducted, the chance of the killer’s home lying beyond each area in either direction goes down exponentially the farther you travel out of state into Massachusetts and Connecticut. Understand?”
“Yes. Because the murders of Campbell and Wenick occurred in Westerly and Cranston—cities on almost opposite sides of Rhode Island.”
“As did the murder of the goat.”
“Of course. You said the goat was stolen from a farm in Burrillville, which is even farther away from Watch Hill—sort of up in the northwest corner of the state.”
“Right. So we have three murders from which we can begin to plot a possible location where The Michelangelo Killer might live. If we include the anonymous notes that you received five and a half years ago, that actually gives us a fourth location to which we can tie the killer. If we plot The Michelangelo Killer’s home in the middle of these four points, this would most likely place his home south of Providence—closer to Providence and Brown University if we work from the premise that serial killers of this resident type, the type of which The Michelangelo Killer undoubtedly is, most often first become active in areas closest to their homes—i.e., the notes.”
“You mean it’s like they get braver as time goes on? Sort of like an animal that ventures out for food farther and farther from his cave?”
“That’s exactly what I mean, yes. The need for food, if I may use your analogy, begins to overshadow the risk of getting it. Serial killers have a comfort zone from which they like to work just like anybody else. It’s why, as so often is the case, the farther away they get from their comfort zone the easier it is for us to catch them—why so often it’s their later murders that lead us to them. They start to slip up, get sloppy because oftentimes their need for victims clouds their fear of the risk involved, and thus it’s that very risk that ends up being their undoing.”
“But what does all this have to do with Gabe Banford?”
“Even though you claimed that none of your former students fit our psychological and, more important, physical profile of The Michelangelo Killer, following up on your class rosters, Gabe Banford immediately caught Sullivan’s attention because, of all your male students for the time frame we’re looking at, Banford was the only one who was deceased. This automatically ruled him out as a potential suspect. However, a closer examination of his case file opened up the possibility of him being a victim—perhaps The Michelangelo Killer’s first.”
“But how do you conclude that? His death was nothing like Campbell’s and Wenick’s.”
“The case file on Banford paints quite a sad picture of the boy—bright, from a moderately wealthy family in New York City, but psychologically disturbed, in counseling since he was eleven and distant from his parents. The classic example of what we at The Bureau like to call a PEP-child.”
“PEP?”
“Pill for every problem—a kid of the Adderall-Ritalin generation. Throw in some Paxil and Zoloft, and you get a good idea of the stew bubbling in Banford’s head. To make a long story short, yes, before dropping out of RISD Banford became involved with a group of disenfranchised intelligentsia types who were not only regulars at a gay club in downtown Providence called Series X, but who also dabbled in recreational drugs—marijuana and coke mostly, but sometimes they’d snort heroin and pop hallucinogens, too. The police report in Banford’s case file includes a number of statements from his friends claiming that, prior to his death, Banford’s heroin snorting was slowly evolving into a habit of the Trainspotting variety. And in addition to a monthly stipend from his parents and a string of part-time jobs from which he was fired, Banford’s friends told police that they suspected he had begun to support his budding needle habit by other means as well—if you take my meaning.”
“Gabe Banford?” Cathy said in disbelief.
“Yes. Banford’s friends stated to the police that Gabe would often hook up with older men at Series X with the understanding that he would be paid for his services. There was also an ambiguously worded posting on the Men Seeking Men board on Craigslist that the police were able to trace back to Banford when they looked into his computer.”
“But why do you think he was connected to The Michelangelo Killer?”
“Although there were high traces of heroin discovered in his system on the night he died, the autopsy report stated that the cause of Gabriel Banford’s death was not from an overdose of heroin, but of epinephrine—more commonly known as adrenaline.”
“Adrenaline? I don’t understand.”
“Hear me out. Banford lived with two roommates on the East Side of Providence—both of whom were either complicit in, or at the very least, turned a blind eye to Banford’s burgeoning drug use. Banford would most often shoot up in his bedroom where—and I quote from the police report—his roommates said, ‘He’d just sit and chill to music and art DVDs.’ And so it was in Banford’s bedroom that one of his roommates found him the next day when he wouldn’t answer his cell phone. Police found a number of syringes and narcotics besides heroin—cocaine, some low grade acid, a little pot—but no prints on anything other than Banford’s and his roommates’, both of whom had alibis at the time of the boy’s death. And so, the police chalked up Banford’s overdose of epinephrine either to suicide or as simply a bit of drug experimentation gone bad. The autopsy report stated that the epinephrine itself was of an extremely high concentration per cubic centimeter, but could not be traced to any legitimate source. Probably was manufactured in a homemade lab—which is possible if you have the know-how.”
“But what does this have to do with the murder of Tommy Campbell?”
“The autopsy results for both Campbell and Wenick were finalized yesterday. And although his internal organs were removed, with the help of the state medical examiner the FBI labs were able to isolate in some of the tissue samples what appeared to be traces of highly concentrated compounds of both epinephrine and a diazepam-ketamine mix, the latter of which could have been used as a tranquilizer. Thus, the official ruling now stands t
hat Tommy Campbell’s death was a result of a myocardial infarction caused by an overdose of highly concentrated epinephrine.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yes. Strange, isn’t it?”
“But, Sam, couldn’t this be just a coincidence? I mean, if I follow you correctly, don’t you need more evidence to tie The Michelangelo Killer to Banford than just the epinephrine and the fact that he was gay? And why didn’t the police investigate the possibility that Banford’s death could have been a homicide to begin with?”
“They had nothing to go on other than what they found in the boy’s bedroom. No fingerprints, no sign of a struggle, nothing suspicious in his e-mails or on his computer—nothing to indicate that anything was out of the ordinary with regard to what they knew of Banford’s life at that point. Banford’s friends told police that he had often talked about killing himself, and all signs in his bedroom seemed to point to just that, or perhaps an accidental overdose—the way he was sitting up in bed under the blankets, the DVD player still on, the open book on his nightstand. But as far as someone else being involved, well, Banford’s roommates testified that when they arrived home later that evening—the evening on which, unbeknown to them, Banford was already dead in his bedroom—the door to the apartment was locked as usual and nothing seemed out of the ordinary.”
“So then perhaps it was a suicide—or an accidental overdose.”
“Perhaps,” said Sam Markham. “But there were two interesting details listed in the evidence inventory of the crime scene that, up until now, most likely would have gone unnoticed—or at the very least, deemed irrelevant. The first being the DVD that was found in Banford’s room at the time of his death, a DVD that he was most certainly watching when he OD’d—a DVD his roommates told police was stolen from the bookstore where Banford had worked briefly, and from which he had been fired the week earlier. It was a DVD that, along with the other stolen items from the bookstore, the police didn’t think unusual for him to have in his room—the room of a former art history and RISD student who, according to his friends, still thought of himself as part of the drug-enlightened intelligentsia.”
“What was the DVD?”
“A documentary entitled, Michelangelo: A Self-Portrait.”
“Dear God,” said Cathy—then suddenly it struck her. “Sam, you said there was another detail. Please don’t tell me you were talking about the open book on Banford’s nightstand.”
“Yes, Cathy. Just published that spring. The first edition of Slumbering in the Stone.”
Cathy’s head began to spin, but through her confusion there emerged an obvious flaw in the FBI agent’s reasoning.
“Wait a minute. What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense. If, in fact, you’re telling me that Banford somehow met The Michelangelo Killer either at Series X or on Craigslist, how on earth could this psychopath have connected Banford to me—to his having been in my class? I mean, the kid wasn’t even in the department for a whole semester, and had been out of Brown for over two years at the time of his death.”
“I am aware of that, yes.”
“And why would The Michelangelo Killer have stolen my book from the bookstore where Banford worked? Why would he have left it in Banford’s room?”
“I never said the killer stole the book.”
“So you’re saying that Banford stole the book, too?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Sam, please, I’m confused. Are you saying then that Gabe Banford might have stolen the book and the DVD for The Michelangelo Killer?”
“No, Cathy,” said Markham—his eyes off the road and on her for the first time during their drive. “What I’m saying is this: I think there is a strong possibility that The Michelangelo Killer connected Banford to you only after he met him. He might have spotted him at Series X or contacted him on the computer or perhaps even first saw him in the bookstore. Might have singled him out for any number of reasons—maybe because The Michelangelo Killer was sexually attracted to him, maybe because Banford represented to him everything about today’s cultural excesses that The Michelangelo Killer so despises. We might never know, as the club has been closed for three years now and Banford’s computer long ago destroyed. But if I’m right about this, I think The Michelangelo Killer was going to murder Gabriel Banford anyway. I think, for whatever reason, he had chosen this boy to fulfill some sick desire—perhaps even a sexual one at the beginning—but it was you and your book that gave him a greater understanding of the true nature of that desire—a desire rooted in his homosexuality. Maybe through your book he found a parallel between his relationship with Banford and that of Michelangelo and Cavalieri. And so it was you, Cathy, who thus focused him on his greater purpose.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This past week, in addition to scoping out the countryside surrounding the farm in Burrillville, I checked out the Campbells’ property down at Watch Hill, as well as the woods surrounding Blackamore Pond in Cranston. At first I thought there might be some connection to Campbell and Wenick having been abducted near a body of water, but then I realized that all three areas, including the farm in Burrillville, can be viewed unobstructed from at least one vantage point located a relatively long distance away: the Campbells’ porch from across the water on the banks of Foster Cove, the spot in the woods where Wenick was abducted from the opposite shore of Blackamore Pond, and the paddock in which the goats are kept from atop a nearby hill. This means that The Michelangelo Killer could have watched his victims undetected for any length of time. That means he could have studied them and planned his movements accordingly.
“Now, once we learned about Banford, I checked out the location of his old apartment on the East Side. And what do you think I found? Yes, the same thing—an unobstructed vantage point from a few blocks away that gave a clear view of what used to be Banford’s corner bedroom on the top floor of his three-story walkup. This means The Michelangelo Killer could have known when Banford was in his room or perhaps, more important, when he wasn’t in his room.”
“You mean the killer broke in while he was away? You mean he was waiting for him when Gabe Banford came home?”
“I have no idea, Cathy, but the coincidence of the epinephrine and the Michelangelo material is just too startling to ignore. And when you think about it, it actually makes more sense that The Michelangelo Killer would have found out about you and your book after he had already decided to kill Banford—I mean, given what we know about him so far, there is no question that he is very selective when it comes to choosing his victims in conjunction not only with your book, but also with what he sees as his greater purpose. And the way the Banford murder played out—the fact that he left the body there, the fact that it wasn’t posed in any particular way—indicates that his purpose at that time may have not been fully realized.
“So you see, when it comes right down to it, we’re most likely looking at one of two possible scenarios in terms of Banford being the link between you and The Michelangelo Killer. The first, that Banford knew his killer and that they had some kind of relationship and Banford told him about the book, or perhaps about how you used to be one of his professors. The other scenario is that The Michelangelo Killer might have been in Banford’s room sometime before he killed him, and ended up having some kind of an epiphany. That by seeing the DVD and your book only by chance, by coincidence, by being in the world of his victim, he suddenly understood why the hands of fate had brought him and his victim together. He got lucky in a sense just like we did when we stumbled onto Banford while exploring your class rosters for a suspect. That Banford should have been on one of your rosters and in possession of Slumbering in the Stone might have been a detail of which the killer was entirely unaware.
“Then there’s the night he died. With Banford high on heroin and whatever else, The Michelangelo Killer could have easily climbed up the fire escape and subdued the boy without a fight. Who knows, in his drugged-out state, Banford might h
ave even opened the damn window for him—might have actually welcomed him into his room thinking he was the Tooth Fairy or something. But my point is, just as I’m convinced that it was Banford who somehow turned The Michelangelo Killer on to you, I am also convinced that The Michelangelo Killer was not only in the boy’s room on the night he died, but also that it was he who injected Banford with the adrenaline while forcing him to watch the DVD on Michelangelo’s life.”
“But why would he make Banford watch the DVD?”
“To free him from his slumber, of course. The same reason The Michelangelo Killer uses epinephrine to murder his victims.”
Cathy stared at Markham blankly.
“When do we as human beings produce the most adrenaline?” he asked.
“When we’re excited—no, when we’re afraid, of course.”
“And what do most people fear more than anything else?”
“I guess that would be death.”
“Perhaps. But one could argue the opposite—that our fear of life is more terrifying than any other we as human beings ever experience, and thus produces the most adrenaline. It is a fear, however, that we have forgotten; a terror that is fleeting, yes, but perhaps so powerful, that the only way our minds can deal with it is to forget. And that is the fear of leaving the womb, a child’s fear at the moment he is born.”
“‘What I wish to learn from your beautiful face,’” Cathy said absently, “ cannot be understood in the minds of men.’”
Markham finished the quote.
“‘He who wishes to learn can only die.’”
“So that means that—when he kills them—he wants them to have the same revelation, the same understanding that he has. And through their fear they are reborn. The Sculptor’s hand has awakened them, freed them from their slumber in the womb—in the stone.”
“Yes. Tommy Campbell was alive when his penis was removed and alive when his flesh was stitched back together. That means The Michelangelo Killer wanted him to see what he had become and thus wanted him to understand the true nature of his rebirth.”
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