The Sculptor sm-1

by Gregory Funaro

  Besides, Christian knew he would never ever have to work for money.

  No, Christian’s work would be of a different kind—would serve a different purpose. That purpose had only become clear to him in the last few years, when he fully began to understand why his mother had beaten him and cheated on his father and, consequently, caused him to become the vegetable upstairs. Yes, his own life, his own personal tragedy was only a symptom of a much larger disease. And now that he had become The Sculptor, now that he understood his purpose, the man who once called himself Christian also understood that the disease could be cured; that he could use his insight to help others; and that he was put on this planet to save mankind from its own spiritual destruction. And so, just as he himself had awakened from a lifetime of slumber, The Sculptor would see to it that others would awaken as well.

  The Sculptor stepped off the back porch and headed down the flagstone path to the carriage house. He began to giggle, for even though The Sculptor hated the Internet, he could not help feeling excited about what was waiting for him.

  Yes, The Sculptor had the utmost faith that his plan would succeed.

  And Dr. Catherine Hildebrant would be the one to help him.

  Chapter 4

  “Are you feeling better now?” asked Special Agent Markham.

  “Yes, thank you,” Cathy lied, shaken. She had been staring out the window at nothing in particular as row upon row of nameless buildings whizzed past her. Then all at once Cathy realized that, despite the morning’s events, she had been unconsciously searching for the big blue bug on the roof of the New England Pest Control building. Cathy hated that big blue bug—a monstrous, tacky sculpture that appeared to have been built by a four year-old—but always found herself staring up at it, actually looking for it when she headed into Providence from points southward.

  “And thank you for the coffee,” she added after a moment.

  “Don’t mention it.” The FBI agent had fixed it just the way she liked it—grande, nonfat milk, two Sweet’N Lows—and had not even blinked at double parking his black Chevy Trailblazer right outside of Starbucks, right where the GPS navigation system said it would be in the middle of congested Thayer Street. A job with “perks,” Cathy thought, then quickly felt ashamed of her private joke at a time like this.

  “Do you mind if we ask you a couple of questions, Dr. Hildebrant?” It was the FBI agent in the backseat, a woman by the name of Sullivan—blond, early thirties, with chiseled features that Cathy envied. She was with the Field Office in Boston, Markham told her—had been waiting in the Trailblazer while he was meeting with Cathy.

  “Go right ahead,” Cathy said.

  Agent Sullivan produced a small, digital recording device from her jacket pocket and held it to her mouth.

  “This is Special Agent Rachel Sullivan en route with Markham and Dr. Catherine Hildebrant. The date is Sunday, April 26. The time is 12:20 P.M.”

  Sullivan placed the recorder between Markham and Cathy—its red light making Cathy self-conscious.

  “Dr. Hildebrant,” Sullivan began, “you’re the author of the book on Michelangelo titled Slumbering in the Stone, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that your only published work?”

  “No, but the only one dedicated solely to Michelangelo’s sculptures—and the only one to cross over from the academic market to reach a more popular audience.”

  “It’s sold a lot of copies then?”

  “Not a New York Times bestseller by any means, no. But, as far as these things go in academia, yes, you could say it’s sold a lot.”

  “And what else have you published?”

  “I coauthored an introduction to art history textbook with a former colleague of mine from Harvard, as well as publishing the obligatory articles now and then in various academic journals.”

  “I see,” said Sullivan.

  Cathy did not like her tone. She had none of Markham’s charm, none of his informal directness. No, Special Agent Rachel Sullivan spoke like an attorney on one of those bad spin-offs of a spin-off courtroom drama with which Cathy had become so engrossed as of late—another bit of “mindless entertainment” she once thought she’d never be caught dead watching in a million years.

  “But Slumbering in the Stone is by far your most important work,” Sullivan continued. “The one that really put you on the map, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Relatively speaking, yes.”

  “And you require Slumbering in the Stone for your classes?”

  “Only one—a graduate seminar. Yes.” Cathy suddenly felt defensive—like Sullivan was setting her up for something. She looked around the cabin uncomfortably, her eyes falling on the speedometer. Markham was doing eighty, but held the wheel as if he were coasting through a school zone.

  “And when was this book published?”

  “About six years ago.”

  “Was this before or after your tenure?”

  “Just before.”

  “And you have been requiring your book for your class for how long now?”

  “It’ll be five years next fall.”

  “I’d like you to take a moment,” Agent Sullivan said with a calculated change of tone. “Take a moment and ask yourself if you’ve ever had a student during that time—or at any time, for that matter—that struck you as particularly odd. One that said or did or perhaps even wrote something out of the ordinary—something that went beyond a creative extreme into the realm of—well, something else. Perhaps a drawing or an essay or even an e-mail that you found particularly disturbing.”

  Cathy’s brain began to spin with a kaleidoscope of faces—nameless, dark, and blurry—and the art history professor felt a wave of panic upon realizing she could not recollect even what her current students looked like.

  “I can’t think of anyone,” she said finally, her voice tight. “I’m sorry.”

  “What about a colleague? Someone in the department? Anybody ever mention to you that they had a student by whom they felt threatened?”

  “Not that I can recall.”

  “Have you ever felt threatened by one of your colleagues in your time at Brown or at Harvard? Anyone with whom you didn’t get along? Perhaps someone who was fired? Someone who may have had a grudge against you?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Any of your students ever make a play for you?” asked Agent Markham. Despite the gist of his question, Cathy found his sudden presence in the conversation a welcome relief from the prosecuting attorney behind her. “Any of them ever go beyond what could be termed as innocent flirting? Something that was perhaps a little more aggressive?”

  Cathy had always been a bit shy, but never a bit stupid; and even though before her husband she had dated only a handful of men, had only one semi-serious relationship while at Harvard, she was not ignorant to the “vibe” she got from some of her male students. However, in her twelve years at Brown, only two of them ever got up enough nerve to ask her out for a cup of coffee—and both times Steven Rogers’s dutiful wife politely declined.

  But then there were the notes.

  “Yes,” Cathy began. “About five and a half years ago. At the beginning of the fall semester—just after my mother died—I started receiving some anonymous notes.”

  Cathy saw Markham catch his partner’s eye in the rearview mirror.

  “Love notes?” Sullivan asked.

  “Not really. They were little quotes at first, one-liners that I took to be, well, gestures of encouragement and support in the wake of my mother’s death. Then later on I received the sonnet.”

  “A sonnet?” asked Markham. “You mean like a love sonnet? A Shakespearean sonnet?”

  “Not a Shakespearean sonnet, no, but one written by Michelangelo.” Markham looked confused. “In addition to being a painter and a sculptor, Michelangelo was an accomplished, albeit second-rate poet. He wrote hundreds of poems on subject matter across the board. However, the most famous of his poems are the sonnets
he wrote to a young man with whom he was in love—a young man by the name of Tommaso Cavalieri. The sonnet that I received was originally written for Cavalieri around 1535 I think, during the first couple years of their friendship when Michelangelo was about sixty years old and Cavalieri in his early twenties.”

  “So how many notes would you say you received?” asked Sullivan.

  “Four—one sonnet and the three little quotes, which were also written by Michelangelo. I got one every other week or so for about a month and a half—at different times, in an envelope under my office door when I was out. Then they just stopped appearing. And I haven’t received another note since.”

  “You said the notes were anonymous. Did you ever find out who sent them?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “The handwriting was feminine. And as Michelangelo’s sonnets to Cavalieri were of a homosexual nature, I assumed that my admirer was a female.”

  “A homosexual nature?” asked Markham.

  “Yes. It has been well established for some time now that Michelangelo was a homosexual. The only argument thrown around academic circles nowadays is whether or not he was exclusively a homosexual.”

  “I see,” said Markham. “And, if I may ask—the content of the sonnet you received, did it deal with unrequited love?”

  “Sort of. There’s every indication that Cavalieri actually returned Michelangelo’s affection, but the evidence also supports that the two never consummated the relationship. The sonnet therefore dealt with more of an unattainable spiritual love than any sort of carnal desire—the kind of love that could not be pursued or even named in Michelangelo’s time. And even though the two remained the closest of friends, the relationship with Cavalieri caused Michelangelo great anguish until the artist’s death.”

  “Do you still have these notes?” asked Markham.

  “I kept them for a while,” Cathy said, embarrassed. “But when I showed them to my husband, he asked that I get rid of them. I did. That was foolish of me, I know. I shouldn’t have listened to him.”

  If only you didn’t listen to him the night he proposed…

  “Do you remember the title of the poem this person sent you? Was it numbered or something like Shakespeare’s sonnets?”

  “Scholars have numbered some of them, I think, but not with the kind of agreed upon consistency as Shakespeare’s sonnets. I could be wrong, as it is not really my area of expertise. But I can tell you for sure that there was no number or title on the poem I received. I remember that. If you’d like, I can give you the gist of it and the quotes—”

  “But you’d recognize both the poem and the quotes if you saw them?”

  “Yes.”

  Agent Markham switched off the recorder.

  “Sullivan, call your tech-guy down at the crime scene. Make sure he has a laptop online and ready for us so Dr. Hildebrant can conduct a search on the Internet. And see if you can get someone to dig up a hardcopy of Michelangelo’s poetry, too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m also going to need class rosters for Dr. Hildebrant and all her colleagues in the History of Art and Architecture Department going back over the last ten years. Hell, get me a roster for every class with art or history in the title. It’s Sunday, but get someone on the go ahead today—so we can be there when the offices open tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Sullivan, and began dialing her cell phone.

  “Agent Markham,” Cathy said, the discussion about Michelangelo had grounded her, made her feel more like herself. “I realize that, because my name was on the base of that wicked thing, you think I might be somehow connected to this psychopath. But do you really think the person who sent me those notes could be the same person who murdered Tommy Campbell and that little boy? Couldn’t it have been just some nut job who read my book? I mean, do you really think that this person could have been one of my students?”

  “I don’t know,” said Markham. “But Tommaso is Italian for Thomas. And I’ll tell you that, at the very least, I think it’s a bizarre coincidence that you were given a poem originally intended for a young man named Tommy, and that you now have a statue of a young man named Tommy dedicated to you as well.”

  Cathy suddenly felt afraid; but more so she felt stupid—felt her cheeks go hot for not making the connection between the two names when she first mentioned Cavalieri.

  But mostly Cathy felt stupid because Special Agent Sam Markham had.

  Chapter 5

  The carriage house loft was covered in soundproof foam that ran up the walls to the peak of the low-pitched ceiling. The windows had long ago been blocked out, and even when all the fluorescent lights were on, the black of the foam bathed the room in an overwhelming and seemingly infinite darkness. During his renovations, The Sculptor had purposely exposed the building’s trusses to give the space a little more height. These, too, were painted black, and at the far end of the loft, where the original carriage hoist had hung, The Sculptor outfitted the beams with an automatic winch system. This allowed the old mortician’s table to be raised and lowered through a trap à la Frankenstein; and sometimes, when he was feeling a bit silly, The Sculptor would allow himself a ride between floors.

  On the other side of the room, where the door was located, in one corner lived The Sculptor’s technology: an L-shaped desk with two computers, three flat-screen monitors, and a printer; a flat-screen television with cable; digital and video cameras; and various other gadgets that The Sculptor needed from time to time to accomplish his work. In the other corner The Sculptor stored some of his medical equipment—equipment not at all like the type in his father’s bedroom, equipment for an entirely different purpose altogether.

  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.

&nb
sp; 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.