She nodded.

“The man we are looking for is tall, Father Bonetti,” said Markham. “About six-three to six-six. And very big, very strong-would have been able to lift the statue off its base and carry it from the church himself with no problem. Most likely a bodybuilder or someone who’s into power lifting. Anybody you know fit that bill, Father?”

“Most of the men in our congregation are working class, Agent Markham-skilled laborers or others who work with their hands. They are mostly Italians, but we have a growing Hispanic population as well. Yes, a lot of these men are powerfully built, but only a few that tall. And I know of none who have twenty-five thousand dollars to blow on a statue.”

“You ever see anyone strange hanging around the church? Not a regular parishioner, but someone just dropping by once or twice to poke around?”

“Not that I remember, no.”

“No unusual confessions that I should know about?”

The priest smiled thinly.

“Even if there were, Agent Markham, I’m not at liberty to tell you.”

“Is there anything else you might be able to tell us, Father Bonetti?” asked the FBI agent. “Anybody you might know that would have knowledge of the statue and also the means to pay you twenty-five thousand dollars for it?”

“We used to have quite an extensive picture gallery on our Web site,” said Father Bonetti. “Since the theft, however, most of the pictures have been taken down. They were mainly shots of the church interior. One of them, of course, contained our Gambardelli Pietà. Perhaps your man simply recognized it and targeted us that way.”

Cathy and Markham traded glances.

“Thank you, Father,” said Markham. “You’ve been a great help.”

“I’ll walk you out,” said the priest. And once they had exited the church, once Cathy and Markham reached the bottom of the front steps, the Reverend Robert Bonetti called after them.

“I was down there, too, you know.”

Markham and Cathy turned to face him.

“Down at Watch Hill. At the Campbells ’ house on Foster Cove. Last time was over thirty years ago, before they owned the place. Used to belong to the family of a friend of mine-famous movie director, he was. Grew up with him. Even spent some time with him down at Watch Hill when we were kids. Lovely town, but a lot of evil lurking underneath. Never seen anything good come from that place. You best keep that in mind.”

Cathy and Markham exchanged an uneasy silence.

It was starting to rain.

“Everything is connected,” said the priest finally. “Remember that, you two. Everything is connected.”

And with that the Reverend Robert Bonetti disappeared back into the darkness of St. Bartholomew’s.

Chapter 26

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” asked Cathy once she and Markham were on their way.

“I’m thinking a lot of things.”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars for a statue that he planned on destroying. It wasn’t just the marble, Sam. The Michelangelo Killer wanted a flawless replica of the Rome Pietà itself-a Gambardelli Pietà specifically-and was willing to pay above market value for it when he could have just stolen it. Why?”

“Because money is no object for him. The only reason The Michelangelo Killer didn’t buy one directly from Gambardelli himself is so the statue couldn’t be traced back to him. And besides, to have simply stolen the statue would have been rude-self-centered and crass-just one of the many aspects of our culture that I suspect The Michelangelo Killer is trying to change.”

“But it’s the Rome Pietà, Sam. If we stick to the premise that The Michelangelo Killer used Carrara marble dust for his Bacchus because he had originally planned on using it for something else, that he should have stolen the Rome Pietà would indicate it was the re-creation of that statue-not Michelangelo’s David-that had originally been the killer’s goal.”

“And the Carrara marble from which that statue was carved, the specificity of that form, would help him-in an undoubtedly spiritual, even magical way-achieve the same kind of likeness, the same kind of proportional fidelity for his Pietà that we saw in his Bacchus. Hence, there would also be a connection between his material-the human bodies that would comprise his work-and the material that comprised Michelangelo’s work both in form and substance.”

“But, since he used the dust from the Pietà for his Bacchus, that means then that his plan did in fact change.”

“Yes. Perhaps he figured out another, even more intimate way for his victims to connect with the statue that they were about to become. Perhaps he scrapped his initial idea of the magic being in the marble itself. Perhaps he gained a deeper understanding of the opening quote to your book-that the magic lies only in the sculptor’s hand.”

“But, Sam, then that means-”

“Yes, Cathy,” said Markham, swerving onto the highway. “I was wrong about the profile for this killer. I had an inkling of this when I was back at Quantico, when I was going over the information on the Plastination industry, but couldn’t put my finger on it. There’s little if any self-gratification for The Michelangelo Killer in the actual act of murdering victims. Murder is only incidental for him-a means to an end in acquiring material for his sculptures. However, as we saw with Gabriel Banford, and as was surely the case with Tommy Campbell and his severed penis, it is crucial that The Michelangelo Killer’s victims, his material, become aware of their fate themselves-to awaken from their slumber, if you will, in order to truly become one of his creations. And I suspect that any self-gratification on the killer’s part would come from that. Yes, there may be a sexual component to this, but I suspect it arises out of a more intellectually and spiritually complex connection with his creations than simple, base-level sexual gratification-a connection that the killer would see as akin to Michelangelo’s connection with his creations. I’ve suspected from the beginning that The Michelangelo Killer is not seeking only some kind of self-gratification-sexual, spiritual, or otherwise-and always thought of him more in the context of a mission killer, that is, a killer with a specific goal. However, I see now that I made a crucial mistake with regard to his victims.”

“It’s why Sullivan and her team have been unable to establish a pattern,” Cathy said. “Why they’ve been unable to find any murders or disappearances of young men in Rhode Island that fit the profile of Banford or Campbell or Wenick. We’ve been looking in the wrong place, Sam. We’ve been looking only at men.”

“Yes, Cathy. Humans are The Michelangelo Killer’s material-both men and women. The killer has both a reverence for his material and the understanding that some of it has to be wasted. And just as I am sure he considers the male of the species as aesthetically superior, I am also sure now that, if he had to waste material in the experimentation with and development of his Plastination technique, he would focus solely on females. I suspect that if we start looking into the disappearance of female prostitutes in the last six years, we might come up with something.”

“So he had planned in the beginning on using a female for his Pietà?”

“It looks that way, yes.”

“And then for some reason he abandoned that project and began focusing on Michelangelo’s Bacchus? Perhaps because he saw the similarity between Bacchus and Tommy Campbell? Perhaps because he also found a better way of getting his message across to the public?”

“Perhaps.”

“But the breasts…” Cathy said absently.

“What’s that?”

“I’m not sure, Sam. Something’s been bothering me for almost two weeks now-something, like you, I can’t quite sort out.”