The Sculptor

Indeed, the reproduction of Michelangelo’s marble sculpture was even more-oh God, how Cathy wished she could think of another word for it!-impressive than in Markham ’s Polaroids. The pose, the attention to detail-the lion skin, the cup, the grapes-were nearly flawless, and Cathy had to remind herself that she was looking at a pair of bleached dead bodies. Nonetheless, she automatically began to circle the sculpture as she knew Michelangelo had intended viewers of his Bacchus to do-an ingenious artistic ploy woven into the statue’s multiplicity of angles that subliminally transmitted the dizzy unsteadiness of the drunken god himself. Cathy’s eyes dropped to Bacchus’s half-human counterpart, the as-of-yet nameless little boy who had been mercilessly contorted into a satyr. Here, too, the creator of this travesty had captured the essence of Michelangelo’s original-that mischievous, goat-legged imp who smiles at the viewer while imitating the god’s pose and stealing his grapes.

Cathy continued around the statue, glancing quickly at the dreaded inscription to her at its base, until her eyes came to rest on Bacchus’s groin. Beneath the marble-white paint-if in fact it was paint-Cathy noticed the vague outline of what appeared to be stitches where Tommy Campbell’s penis had been removed. However, as her eyes traveled up his torso to his face, what disturbed Cathy the most was how accurately Tommy Campbell’s killer had captured even the subtlest nuances of the original. It was clear to Cathy that whoever had made this heinous thing had gone to great lengths not only to murder Campbell and that poor little boy, but also to transform them into the very essence of Michelangelo’s Bacchus.

“You see, Dr. Hildebrant,” began Burrell. “Our preliminary analysis indicates that the killer somehow preserved the bodies and mounted them on an internal metal frame. This means that whoever did this not only has a working knowledge of taxidermy, of embalming and such, but also knows something about welding. This sound like anybody you know? Maybe one of your students who was also involved in metalworking?”

“No,” said Cathy. “I don’t know anyone who could do this.”

“And you have no idea why someone would want to dedicate this statue to you specifically?”

“No. No idea.” In the awkward silence that followed, Cathy suddenly became aware that the entire FBI team-what had to be two-dozen of them-was staring at her. She felt her face go hot, felt her stomach leap into her chest, and then a flash of memory, a dream-the third grade, show and tell, and distant taunts of “Ching-chong! Ching-chong!” echoing in her head.

It was Sam Markham who stepped in to save her.

“Dr. Hildebrant, is there anything else you can tell us about the statue before the forensic team removes it? For instance, why Tommy Campbell should be missing his…well, why he’s missing his penis?”

Cathy had the vague suspicion that Markham already knew the answer to his question-that he was trying to get her to talk about Bacchus the same way she talked about Michelangelo in the car in order to calm her. And, for the briefest of moments, Cathy Hildebrant loved him for it.

“Well,” she began. “There’s some debate about this, but the original is also missing its penis. We know that at some point Bacchus’s right hand, the one holding the bowl of wine, was broken off to give the sculpture the appearance of antiquity-as for a time it lived among a collection of Roman artifacts belonging to a man named Jacopo Galli. The hand, however, was restored by about 1550 or so, but the penis, well, some scholars believe that it was never there to begin with, or that it was chiseled off by Michelangelo himself soon after the statue was completed.”

“Why?” asked Markham.

“Both the Roman and Greek mythological traditions-the Greeks called their version of the god Dionysus-held that Bacchus was not only the god of wine and excess, but also the god of theatre, and thus possessed all powers apropos to early Greek theatre’s original ritual and celebratory purposes. Although scholars still debate the true nature of these early rituals, given that sex was part of the excess over which Bacchus reigned supreme, some scholars conclude that there was a sexual component to these early theatrical rituals as well. Hence, in both Roman and Greek mythology we often see Bacchus represented with both male and female genitalia, and thus the ability to govern the excesses of both male and female sexual desire. It has long been believed that Michelangelo purposely sculpted his Bacchus’s body with a fleshy, almost androgynous quality-the swollen breasts, the bloated belly-and some scholars suggest that Bacchus was purposely completed without a penis to represent this. I tend to disagree with them, however.”

“You ever seen anything like this, Sam?” asked Burrell.