The Sculptor

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.