The Sculptor turned on the monitor that displayed the video feed from his father’s bedroom. There was his father as he left him, sitting by the window, staring out at the birds. The Sculptor turned on the sound feed as well, and the loft was at once filled with the sweet sound of Scarlatti.
The Sculptor booted up his two computers and hit the remote for the television-Fox News, no sound, just as he left it. There was nothing yet about his first showing-what he knew was going to be a spectacular entrance into the public eye-but that was all right. Nothing to dampen his mood. No, The Sculptor was confident that news of his creation would dominate all the media outlets very soon. He smiled at the thought of it, wishing that the details would trickle out slowly as they often did in cases like this. That would pique the public’s curiosity; that would whet the public’s appetite for more.
Above all else, however, The Sculptor was excited for Dr. Hildy to see his work-for Dr. Hildy was really the only person who could truly understand his Bacchus. And once the news got out about the inscription, once the public learned of the connection to Dr. Hildy, well, that certainly would make them want to know more about her. Perhaps all those big-shot journalists might even want to interview her-now wouldn’t that be something! At the very least, the public would want to read her book on Michelangelo. Then they would all begin to understand; then they would all begin to finally wake up.
With both of his computers logged onto the Internet-Drudge Report and CNN-The Sculptor removed from the desk drawer the only book he allowed in the carriage house: his copy of Slumbering in the Stone. He flipped through it-the cover tattered, the pages dog-eared, underlined, with notes in the margins-until he reached the back jacket flap. There was the picture of Dr. Catherine Hildebrant. She wore her hair shorter six years ago. Looked a little heavier, The Sculptor thought. Perhaps it was the black and white of the photo; perhaps her glasses-yes, the black frames she wears now look much better on her than those old wire-rims. Objectively, The Sculptor thought Catherine Hildebrant to be attractive material, but in the long run such superficialities in women did not matter to him. No, The Sculptor knew that, like the material he used for his sculptures, Dr. Catherine Hildebrant’s real beauty lay within, slumbering in the stone.
Smiling, feeling a little silly, The Sculptor returned his book to the desk drawer and rode the mortician’s table down to the first floor. The gears were a bit noisier than usual. “Need a little oil,” The Sculptor said to himself as he sent the table back upstairs. He would get to that next, after he finished tidying up his studio.
The first floor was drastically different from the loft above it. Here, too, the windows had been blocked out, but the walls were the original exposed brick. On one wall was a tool rack, while on another was a sheet of corkboard on which the plans for The Sculptor’s Bacchus still hung. A large white van, which could be driven in and out through one of the two overhanging doors, took up nearly half the space; while the other half was reserved solely for The Sculptor’s studio. There was a narrow stand-up shower and slop sink, as well as a small floor drain which his father told him had been used in the 1800s to catch the blood from deer carcasses. On this side, too, was all the necessary equipment for The Sculptor’s work, including a drafting table and chair, an arc-welder and power supply, a small anvil, a vat of “special paint” and a pump sprayer, ultraviolet lamps, rolls of plastic sheeting, and, at the rear of the carriage house, a large stainless steel hospital tub. The tub was the most complex piece of The Sculptor’s equipment, for he had outfitted it not only with an airtight cover, but with a refrigeration unit and a vacuum pump as well. In a small lean-to behind the carriage house were stored the barrels of chemicals The Sculptor brought up from the cellar when he was ready to prepare his material.
The Sculptor clicked on the video monitor that sat atop the drafting table-his father by the window, the Baroque guitar now filling the entire carriage house-and proceeded to pull down his plans from the corkboard. He twisted them into a tight log-the sinews of his powerful forearms rippling through his skin. He would light a fire in the parlor this evening; would bring up a bottle of Brunello di Montalcino from the cellar and watch the plans burn. Why not? I’ve behaved myself. I can have a little reward for all my hard work. Yes, surely the news about his first showing will have broken by that time. If not, he could always tip off the media himself-after, of course, he was sure Dr. Hildy had seen his work; after he was sure she got his “thank you” note.
Perhaps she’s on her way down there right now, he thought, smiling.
And as The Sculptor began to straighten up his studio, he concluded that it was too risky to check for himself, to follow Dr. Hildy around like he had in the past. No, surely the FBI would be expecting something like that; surely it was smarter to find out through the media like everybody else.
“Besides,” The Sculptor said out loud, “I won’t have time to spy on Dr. Hildy. For tomorrow is Monday. And Monday is the day I begin my next project.”
Chapter 6
Special Agent in Charge William “Bulldog” Burrell had mixed feelings about the hand that fate had dealt him. As the newly appointed SAC of the FBI’s Boston Field Office, the Tommy Campbell case had been his baby from the beginning-one that he had seen to personally. A twenty-two-year veteran of the FBI, Bill Burrell knew his way around an investigation. He had served in the Washington, Chicago, and Dallas Field Offices, as well as held a number other of high-profile SAC positions, including section chief of the Strategic Information and Operations Center at FBI Headquarters, before landing the gig in Boston. The six-foot-three former Marine with the buzz cut had been called “Bulldog” since his football days at the University of New Hampshire-not only because of his hulking frame, his heavy jowls, his menacing stare, and his hot temper, but also because of the way he always tore into his opponents: straight ahead for the red until he ripped his man to shreds.
However, in the three months since Tommy Campbell’s disappearance, Bulldog had not a shred of evidence to show for himself. He had long ago exhausted his leads, had long ago begun to feel desperate, and had since lost countless hours of sleep over what had been sizing up to be his first big failure since he took over the Boston Office the previous November-the first big failure of his career. What a mixed bag it was then that the kid’s body should have turned up on the very same weekend Supervisory Special Agent Sam Markham had arrived in preparation for a three-day seminar on the latest forensic and profiling procedures at Quantico; what a mixed bag that Markham had gotten to the crime scene before he had; and what a mixed bag that Markham should be the one to jump on their very first lead now that the disappearance of Tommy Campbell had been deemed a homicide.
Yes, now that they had two bodies and a serial killer on their hands; now that it was clear that they were dealing with something much, much bigger than just a murder or a suicide, Burrell, whether he liked it or not, would need Sam Markham. And although it had not yet been six hours since the horrific white sculpture had been discovered down at Watch Hill, already Special Agent in Charge William “Bulldog” Burrell was not happy about the way the investigation was moving ahead.
It was not that Bulldog had anything personal against Markham. On the contrary, Bulldog actually admired the legendary “profiler,” the man who had brought down Jackson Briggs, aka “The Sarasota Strangler”-that son of a bitch who killed all those old ladies in Florida. And then, of course, there was that nasty little business in Raleigh, North Carolina. Yeah, no one would ever forget what happened there.