The Sculptor (22 page)

“Good. Now tell me you got something more for me, Sam.”

“Something’s going down this weekend—soon, maybe in the next couple of hours if it already hasn’t.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The DVD. It was meant to confuse us, yes, but it’s also a challenge from the killer—a dare to try and stop him.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I am. But I need to get on the Internet—need to get on a computer right now here in the hospital.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain it to you on the way. But I’m telling you, Bill, I have a very bad feeling The Michelangelo Killer plans to unveil his next exhibit tonight. And if I can figure out where, we might be able to get there before he does.”

The Sculptor backed his big white van out of the carriage house, made a three-point turn, and drove slowly down the tree-lined dirt driveway. This was the only area of his family’s property that The Sculptor never maintained—thought it best to leave it grassy and overgrown in case any unwanted visitors happened to take a wrong turn off the paved driveway at the front of his house. About halfway down, he stopped the van and got out to move the large tree trunk that he usually left lying about for added protection. No need to replace it once he passed, however; for it was late, and he did not have to worry about any unwanted visitors at this hour.

In no time The Sculptor was back in his van and on his way. He emerged onto the darkened road through the break in the old stone wall that lined his family’s property. There were very few streetlights here, and no sidewalks; most of the homes in The Sculptor’s wealthy East Greenwich neighborhood were, like his own, set back off the road among the trees. Most of the lots were also enclosed by the fieldstone walls that weaved their way for miles through the surrounding woodlands. Indeed, as a boy, The Sculptor and his father had often followed them for hours—sometimes running into their neighbors and chatting with them along the way. But those days were gone, and The Sculptor and his father never spoke to their neighbors anymore.

The Sculptor reached the main road on which he would have to travel for some time. The overall distance was relatively short—and he would drive for the most part along the back roads just to be safe—but here, in the light, with the occasional car passing, he knew he was the most vulnerable, had the greatest chance of being spotted by the police. Such a risk could not be avoided, however; and thus The Sculptor was prepared with an adequate stockpile of loaded weapons under the passenger seat—his Sig Sauer .45 and the double barrel shotgun that had been in his family for years. He also had with him his tranquilizer guns—both the pistol and the sniper’s rifle he had used on Tommy Campbell—just in case he ran into some irresistible bargain material along the way.

Such a prospect, however—as well as his having to use the guns—The Sculptor knew was slim, for when it came right down to it, The Sculptor was not really worried that the police might
ever
pull him over—even in the daylight. Indeed, the police might actually want to
avoid
him, for one of the first things The Sculptor had done when he was experimenting with the women was to purchase some additional colors of Starfire auto paint that would enable him to duplicate exactly the Channel 9 Eye-Team logo on the side of his van.

Sam Markham sat at the doctor’s desk—the harsh, speedy pulse of the fluorescent lights battering his tired eyes as he typed the words
“topiary garden”
and
“Rhode Island”
into the
Google
search engine.

“But Sam,” said Bill Burrell, leaning over his shoulder, “what makes you so sure The Michelangelo Killer discovered the location for his
Bacchus
on the Internet?”

“Something the Reverend Bonetti said about their stolen
Pietà
—that they used to have a picture of it on their Web site. Just bear with me—I’m sort of working backward here.”

Markham clicked on a couple of links; then, unsatisfied, he typed the words
“Earl Dodd”
and
garden Watch Hill
without quotes—but still came up empty. Markham thought for a moment, then flipped through his copy of
Slumbering in the Stone
to the page on the history of Michelangelo’s
Bacchus
.

“ The
Bacchus
was originally commissioned by Cardinal Raffaele Riario,’” Markham read aloud. “‘Who rejected it upon its completion on the grounds that the statue was distasteful. We know that by 1506, the
Bacchus
had found its way into a collection of ancient Roman sculptures belonging Jacopo Galli, Michelangelo’s banker. There the
Bacchus
lived for some seventy years, weathering the elements at Cancelleria in Galli’s Roman garden, until it was bought by the Medici family and transferred to Florence in 1576.’”

Markham typed the words
Roman garden
and
Rhode Island
into the search engine.

“Bingo,” he said, and clicked on the sixth result from the top. The link brought him to a Web site titled,
Homes of the Elite
. A couple more clicks and Special Agent Sam Markham found exactly what he was looking for: a single photograph of Earl Dodd’s topiary garden—no name, no address, just a caption that simply read,
“A lovely Roman garden in Rhode Island—overlooking the sea!”

“Jesus Christ,” said Burrell. “He must have driven around for weeks just trying to find the fucking place.”

“And must have thought it nothing short of divine providence when he learned that the owner of his Roman garden was in finance like Jacopo Galli—wouldn’t have settled for anyplace else, I suspect. It’s why he went through so much trouble to display the statue there.”

Markham flipped to Cathy’s chapter on the
Rome Pietà
. He skimmed, then read aloud, “‘In such a fashion, with the body of Christ illuminated by the natural light falling from above, the
Pietà
in its original installation must have seemed to the visitors at the Chapel of St. Petronilla as physically accessible yet at the same time untouchable; material yet undoubtedly supernatural—like the Savior himself, corporal yet divine.’“

“You’re searching like he would,” said Burrell. “You’re using Hildebrant’s words to find your destination like you think he did.”

“The light,” whispered Markham, typing. “It has to do with the light.”

Natural light falling above chapel Rhode Island.

Nothing.

Light above chapel Rhode Island.

Nothing.

Chapel Rhode Island.

Nothing—too many.

Markham backtracked through Cathy’s section on the
Rome Pietà
—his finger tracing along the text like a lie detector needle.

“But you see,”
Cathy said in Markham’s mind.
“One has to ultimately remember that the
Pietà
was originally intended to be a funerary monument, not just a devotional image.”

Markham typed,
Rhode Island funerary monument private memorial public.

Nothing.

Funerary
, Markham thought frantically.
Odd word.

Impulsively, he changed his search criteria to,
Rhode Island cemetery monument memorial public faith
.

Markham clicked on the first of his search results. What he saw next made his breath stop in his throat.

The first photograph was an exterior shot of a small, circular structure that appeared to be built from marble, and that reminded Markham of the columned temples of Ancient Rome. The columns themselves were situated around an interior wall, through which there appeared to be only a single entrance. Beneath the photograph was the caption:

Beneath this text was another photograph—this one of the temple’s interior.

Markham did not bother to read the accompanying caption.

No. The single shaft of sunlight streaming down from the oculus in the temple’s ceiling told him everything he needed to know.

As Sam Markham and Bill Burrell scrambled to gather their agents, as Rachel Sullivan frantically alerted both the local and state police to get their asses over to the remote Echo Point Cemetery in Exeter, Rhode Island, The Sculptor was already installing his
Pietà
under cover of darkness. The rain had stopped earlier that evening, but the skies remained cloudy—the air humid enough to break The Sculptor’s face into sweat beneath his night vision goggles. The distance he needed to carry his
Pietà
was much shorter than the distance he’d carried his
Bacchus
a few weeks earlier—a straight shot of only about twenty-five feet from the back of his van. But his
Pietà
was much heavier than his
Bacchus
—was much more awkward and difficult for the muscular Sculptor to maneuver due to the delicacy of the painted starched robes. However, once he managed to carefully load the statue onto a dolly that he constructed over a year ago specifically for this purpose, The Sculptor ultimately had no trouble dragging his
Pietà
down the flagstone path and up the steps into the Temple of Divine Spirit.

The Sculptor methodically unloaded his
Pietà
into place directly beneath the temple’s oculus—that opening in the ceiling which The Sculptor knew would mimic perfectly the original visual dynamic in the catacomb which the Christians had renamed the Chapel of St. Petronilla. The “veil effect” he had created in the Virgin’s forehead with a strand of tightly tied fishing line was breathtaking, but The Sculptor paused only briefly to admire his work—dared to stand only for a minute in the cavernous temple with his night vision goggles and ogle over the aesthetic divinity created by the downcast, cloud-filtered moonlight.

Yes, the nameless material he had harvested from the streets of South Providence, the whore’s head that he had chosen to be his Virgin’s, had turned out perfectly—her youthful visage sad but serene, full of loving and longing but at the same time at peace with the knowledge that her Son will soon triumph over death. And the RounDaWay17 material had turned out brilliantly, too; it was perfectly proportioned to the Virgin’s body, and, as seen through the night vision goggles, reflected as planned the supernatural luminescence of the falling moonlight—
just as Dr. Hildy described in her book
.

Oh yes, The Sculptor could stand there gazing upon his
Pietà
all night, but The Sculptor knew that that would be foolish, or at the very least would be a waste of time.

As The Sculptor had hoped, in addition to their regular duties, the local and state police—
at the FBI’s request
—had been spread out on stakeouts of churches all over Rhode Island—none of which happened to be near Echo Point Cemetery. And so The Sculptor took his time gathering his things back into the van entirely unaware that an FBI agent named Sam Markham had discovered the location for his latest exhibition. Back in the driver’s seat, The Sculptor relaxed for a moment before turning the key in the ignition—was just about to shift into drive when the reflection of flashing blue lights on the headstones caught him completely by surprise.

Bad luck
, he said to himself.
Someone must have called the police
.

His heart all at once beating fast, The Sculptor removed his night vision goggles—knew the approaching headlights would temporarily blind him if he didn’t—and reached under the passenger’s seat. The Sculptor’s fingers immediately closed around his Sig Sauer .45, and when he again looked out the windshield, he could see the two police cars winding their way among the headstones from the opposite side of the cemetery.

Only two
, The Sculptor thought. But he knew instinctively that more would follow—knew instinctively that he had only
one chance
.

Yes,
The Sculptor said to himself.
Only one chance to take them by surprise then get out of here.

The Sculptor climbed out the passenger door and quickly made his way around to the back of the temple, darting behind the headstones as he backtracked his way toward the road. The Channel 9 Eye-Team logo would be the bait—would hopefully lure the policemen out of their cars and thus buy him enough time to sneak up behind them and put a bullet in their heads. The Sculptor hid himself behind a nearby tree and removed a black ski mask from his back pocket, pulling it tightly over his bald head, his sweaty face.

Then he waited.

And soon, just as he expected, the two Exeter police cars—
locals, thankfully
—pulled up in front of the temple. The Sculptor could see from the flashes of light off the van, off the white marble of the temple and surrounding headstones, that each car held only one officer.

That was fortunate
.

“You guys can’t be here,” he heard one of them shout upon emerging from his car. And as the two officers approached the van—their guns not even drawn—The Sculptor was upon them before they even had a chance to turn around.

As was the case when he went shopping for his material with the tranquilizer guns, The Sculptor did not pause when he shot them. However, instead of aiming for their necks, he pointed the red dot from his laser sight just underneath their police hats—one silenced bullet in each of their heads, then two more once they hit the ground just to be safe.

The Sculptor hopped back into his van and drove quickly away from the scene. He did not mourn the fact that he had just wasted good material or whether or not the police dash-cams had recorded the whole event. His face was covered, of course, and he could always repaint the van. He would have it safely hidden away again in the carriage house before the police had time to review the video. And so The Sculptor opted to take his chances on the highway rather than risk being cornered by the police on the back country roads. He had just kicked the van up to sixty-five when he saw the state police cars and the black FBI vehicles speeding past him down Route 95—in the opposite direction,
toward
the Echo Point Cemetery exit.

The Sculptor smiled. He had no way of knowing, however, that Sam Markham and Bill Burrell saw him, too—had no idea that they both cursed aloud when they spotted the Channel 9 Eye-Team van whizzing past, both of them furious at the local cop who had rolled this time.

“Fucking vultures,” the SAC grunted.

Oh yes, if The Sculptor had heard that little comment, he most certainly would have giggled.

Indeed, many of the local and state authorities would see The Sculptor’s Eye-Team van that night, but just as The Sculptor had hoped when he first painted the logo on its sides, their only wish had been to avoid it.