Gregory Funaro - The Sculptor

Cathy was shaken; she just stood there in the front hall-arms folded, heart racing.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said, looking at the floor. “I really am involved in this, aren’t I?”

“I’m sorry, but yes.” Markham reached into his jacket pocket. “Here’s my card. Call me on my cell anytime if you need anything-if you get spooked, if you think of something down the road that might help us with our investigation, or even if you just need to talk. We’ve had some agents watching your place since this morning. That’s who called me a few minutes ago-said the news van had arrived only seconds before we did. Bad timing for you and me, but that’s just the way things are. Now listen, Cathy, these agents are going to keep an eye on you for a while-for your safety, and in case Tommy Campbell’s killer tries to approach you. You most likely will never see them, so please try to forget they’re around, okay?”

“Forget? You mean, you’re saying you think Tommy Campbell’s killer will come after me now? And you want me to forget?”

“No. Actually, Cathy, I don’t think he’ll come after you at all. In fact, judging from my experience, I would say that the circumstances suggest just the opposite. Campbell ’s killer went out of his way to draw attention to you. The last thing he’d want now is to see something happen to you. No, he’ll most likely stay away from you for a while now that he’s finished his work and now that other people are aware of his connection with you. All this is just a precaution, Cathy, in case he tries to make contact with you, to leave you another note-that is, if the notes you received five years ago are related to Campbell ’s murder to begin with.”

“They are, Sam. You know they are.”

“I can’t be sure-might be just a strange coincidence. However, since it’s all we have to go on right now, we’ll see how far that road leads us. Now listen carefully, Cathy. Even though the press somehow got wind of what happened to Campbell and that boy, and even though they know you’ve been brought into the investigation, I’m not sure if they know yet about the inscription at the base of the statue. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep that detail quiet for a while. That said, even after the press conference this afternoon, I suggest you don’t say anything to anyone about the case-more for your own sake than for the integrity of the investigation. Say you’ve been advised not to discuss the case with the press. That’ll usually send them packing after a while. Trust me, Cathy, the last thing you want right now is for the press to know the extent to which you’re involved in this. In fact, if my gut is right, I think that’s just what the killer wants to happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious that whoever murdered Tommy Campbell and that boy had been planning this crime for a long time-perhaps even years. Although I’m sure there must be a deeper reason as to exactly why the killer chose Campbell for his Bacchus , one cannot deny the superficial resemblance between the football player and Michelangelo’s original. That means, in addition to my earlier theory about the connection with Tommaso Cavalieri, the killer could possibly have selected Campbell simply for the reason that he looked like Bacchus . He wanted to use him, like Dodd’s topiary garden, specifically for aesthetic purposes, and was willing to go to great lengths to do so-would not settle for a more, I hate to say it, convenient victim. So, you see? Even though we’re not sure yet of his motives, we can nonetheless conclude that we’re dealing with a very patient and methodical individual-obsessively so on both accounts. These types of killers are the hardest to catch because they plan so well-pay so much attention to detail and don’t leave many clues behind. And until the autopsy results come back, until we get an idea of exactly how this person murdered and preserved his victims-how he actually created that sick sculpture of his-the only window into his motives right now is you. You and your book.”

“So you’re saying you think this maniac is using me?”

“Perhaps. I’ll have a better idea once I read your book. But judging from the great lengths to which the killer went to put his sculpture on display in Dodd’s garden-a display that the killer obviously intended as some kind of historical allusion publicly dedicated to you-well, it’s clear to me, Cathy, that whoever did this horrible crime thought you of all people would understand his motives. And therefore it would also fall to you to help us-the FBI, the press, the public-understand his motives as well. So you see, Cathy, it appears the killer wants you to be his mouthpiece.”

Cathy was silent, dumbfounded-her mind swept up in a tornado of questions that numbed her into disbelief.

“I’ll be in touch very soon, Cathy. And remember to call me if you need anything, okay?”

Cathy nodded absently; heard herself say “thank you” in a voice far away.

A blink forward in time to her cell phone ringing in the kitchen, upon which she realized she’d been zoning in the hall.

However, only when Cathy heard Janet Polk say “Hildy?” on the other end did she realize Sam Markham had left.

Laurie Wenick stood before the open refrigerator and began to tremble. It had been seven months since her son’s disappearance, seven months since he failed to come home for dinner one afternoon-a cool, otherwise lovely September afternoon when his friends said they left him playing in the woods around Blackamore Pond. And so it happened that, when Laurie stared down at the cold jar of Smucker’s in her hand, when she realized that for the first time in seven months she had unconsciously gone to the refrigerator to prepare her son’s lunch for the next day-peanut butter and jelly on homemade bread that her son said made all the other fourth graders at Eden Park Elementary School jealous-more than grief, more than the profound loneliness to which she had grown accustomed, the single mother of one was overwhelmed with a sweeping sense of panic-a premonition that something very, very bad had happened.

She had gone to bed at 8:00 A.M. like she usually did on Sundays; had worked the night shift at Rhode Island Hospital as she had done now for months-for it was the nighttime, the darkness of her Cranston duplex that had become too much for Laurie Wenick to bear. And on those rare occasions when she took the night off, the pretty young nurse would spend her evenings next door at her father’s-alone, watching TV until the sun came up, at which point she would return to her apartment and sleep through the day. She was like “a vampire” her father said-a rare and ineffectual stab at humor in what for both of them had become a dark and humorless world.

Indeed, despite her anguish, Laurie had understood from the beginning that her son’s disappearance had devastated her father almost as much as it had her; and over the last seven months the two of them had often traded shoulders for each other in their moments of greatest weakness. At first their sorrow had been colored with the hope that Michael Wenick would be found, for this was Rhode Island , and children simply did not go missing in Rhode Island, did not disappear into thin air without a trace . Oh yes, Laurie had read the statistics, had spoken with the state police countless times about her son; and as far as she could tell there was only one missing child case still unsolved in the Ocean State-and that one went all the way back to the mid-1980s.

However, as the days then weeks plodded on, as divers scoured Blackamore Pond a second and then a third time, as the volunteer searches ended and the pictures appeared on the news less frequently, the statistics that claimed young Michael Wenick would return to Laurie and her father safe and sound were soon overshadowed by the grim reality of the contrary. And when the months began to pile up, when Christmas came and went without a single clue to her son’s whereabouts, Laurie and her father fell deeper and deeper into a state of numb detachment. It was as if the two of them existed in a zone somewhere between life and death-a pair of zombies, Laurie thought, who had the unique ability to watch themselves as they mechanically went through the motions of living.