The Sculptor

“Well, since our conversation about Slumbering in the Stone, and since concluding that The Michelangelo Killer most likely used your book as a springboard for his murders, Rachel Sullivan and her squad have been following up on those class rosters. Now, even though you can’t recall any of your former students who fit the physical and psychological profile we’ve identified for the killer thus far, from the outset Sullivan and her team have been working from the premise that the killer may have been associated with you indirectly-that is, perhaps via one of your students. She thus focused her attention first on all the male students that were listed on your rosters for the three years leading up to the publication of your book and, shortly afterward, your receipt of the anonymous notes-the latter of which, and you’ll forgive me, you told us happened shortly after your mother passed away, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you told Sullivan that you did not start requiring your book for your classes until the year after it was published-the following fall, right? Almost a year after you received the quotes and the sonnet?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“That means that, even though the killer had to have read your book in a context outside of the classroom, back then he still had to be a local-a student or otherwise-and familiar enough with the campus to be able to drop off the anonymous notes undetected. Just to be safe, Sullivan took into account your class rosters for the following two years as well-which, in theory, would give us the most practical cross section of male students from which to begin drawing a link to potential suspects. As your classes during this time frame were comprised only of majors and graduate students, and as you were teaching only two classes per semester, the actual pool of potential suspects who might have had direct contact with you is quite small. The fact that the vast majority of these students, both undergraduate and graduate, have been female, only whittles this number down even further.”

“Sam, please don’t tell me that this psychopath actually sat in front of me in one of my classes.”

“No, no,” said Markham with a raise of his hand. “But most likely someone who knew him did.”

“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.”