He who wishes to learn can only die.”
A heavy silence fell over the tech van.
“May I see that?” asked Burrell finally. Markham handed him the book of poetry. “‘He who wishes to learn can only die,’” the SAC read out loud.
“Yes,” said Markham. “At the very least a strange coincidence—given the recent turn of events, that is.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” said Burrell. “ What I wish to learn from your beautiful face cannot be understood in the minds of men. He who wishes to learn can only die?’ Do you really think, Sam, that Dr. Hildebrant’s admirer told her that he was planning to kill someone? That he actually waited five and a half years to carry it out?”
“I don’t know, Bill.”
“And what does Michelangelo mean in his poem when he says what he wants to learn cannot be understood in the minds of men?”
“Michelangelo is saying that people not only misunderstand him,” said Cathy, “but also the kind of love he feels for Cavalieri. He is telling Cavalieri that, although their contemporaries could not comprehend of Michelangelo’s desire for him as anything other than lustful and sinful, in reality it goes far beyond that into the realm of the divine—a love that can only be fully understood when one dies, when one comes to know God.”
“I guess that’s what I don’t understand,” said Markham. “Why those last three lines are so troubling to me—that is, if this poem was meant only as a spiritual overture. Although the foundation of Michelangelo’s love for Cavalieri went much deeper than just the physical, from what you’ve told me, Dr. Hildebrant, there was a sexual, homoerotic component to it as well. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“So the line about the beautiful face,” interrupted Burrell. “Are you saying, Sam, that that line doesn’t make sense in conjunction with the rest of the poem unless Dr. Hildebrant’s admirer is a homosexual? Unless she’s a woman?”
“Perhaps. That is, if Dr. Hildebrant’s admirer did in fact understand the original context of the sonnet, the history behind it. And banking on my experience in such things, I think it’s safe to assume that he or she did.”
“But then that means Dr. Hildebrant’s admirer and Campbell’s killer could not have been the same person. Judging from the size of those footprints in the sand, Campbell’s killer was well over six feet tall. Any six-foot-five lesbians in your department, Dr. Hildebrant?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“And that sculpture weighed a ton—was almost impossible for one person to handle—and there’s every indication that it was brought to the location intact. You saw for yourself, Sam. It took three of my guys ten minutes to load that thing into the van. That means that the person who carried it all the way from the house next door and up the hill out back is one strong SOB—and we know it was one SOB from the single set of footprints in the sand, a set of footprints that went back and forth only once.”
“Yes.”
“So what’s your opinion now, Sam? You still think the person who sent Dr. Hildebrant those notes is the same person who killed Tommy Campbell? And that this person has to be a homosexual?”
“Perhaps a homosexual,” Cathy interrupted. “But not necessarily a woman.”
“What do you mean?” asked Markham.
“Agent Markham, you said that you thought Michelangelo’s line about coming near to me might not have been meant to be taken literally, right? That maybe my admirer was referring to my work, specifically to my book?”
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe then my admirer was referring not to my face, but to someone else’s.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Burrell, but Cathy saw that Special Agent Markham understood. His eyes at once dropped to the book in his lap, to the copy of Slumbering in the Stone which had been checked out for him at the Westerly Library.
On its cover was the face of Michelangelo’s most famous sculpture.
On its cover was his David.
Chapter 9
The Sculptor stepped out of the shower and toweled off in the middle of his studio. His skin smelled clean, industrially so—like hospital disinfectant, like a job well done. Yes, the only thing out of order now was the pile of dirty clothes in the slop sink. He would not don them again, would not even touch them until it was time to go back to the house. Then he would drop them in the washer and give his father his supper. The Sculptor would not put on a fresh set of clothes either, for The Sculptor loved being naked—looked forward to remaining that way well into the evening, when he would sit in the dim light of the parlor watching his Bacchus plans burn in the fireplace as he sipped his Brunello.
But first The Sculptor needed to check his technology, needed to see if his premiere exhibit had made the news yet. He had been patient, had resisted looking at his monitors until he was finished tidying up his workspace. And so the man once called Christian rode the mortician’s table up to the second floor—the gears of the winch system much quieter now that he had oiled them. He turned off the audio feed from his father’s bedroom—the A-side of Scarlatti now on its fourth time through—and sat naked at his desk, flicking on the sound of the flat-screen TV just as the Fox News Channel was turning over the broadcast to its local affiliate.
The Sculptor did not recognize the pretty young woman with the red hair and emerald green eyes—for The Sculptor never watched the local news, almost never watched TV at all—and thus did not consider it anything special when the Fox News anchor mentioned that WNRI’s Meghan O’Neill had been the first to break the story. And of course, like the rest of Channel 9’s loyal viewers, there was no way he could have known about the reporter’s anonymous source inside the Westerly Police Department. If he had, he might have decided to wait; might have decided to let O’Neill’s man tell her what she needed to know. But just as The Sculptor was in the dark with regard to that, so was Meghan O’Neill. Her five hundred dollars had landed her only half a story—a rookie, like herself, who was on the periphery of the investigation; one who got his information secondhand back at headquarters, and who was kept out of the loop about the specific details regarding Campbell’s remains.
And so The Sculptor felt somewhat disappointed to learn from the breaking news report that—unless they were doing a good job of hiding it—all the media seemed to know thus far was that the bodies of Tommy Campbell and an unidentified person had been discovered down at Watch Hill, and that both of them had been moved from the site to an “undisclosed location.” And from the way the pretty redhead and the Fox News anchor were trading theories as to Campbell’s connection with Dodd—a connection that The Sculptor knew went only as far as the millionaire’s lovely topiary garden—The Sculptor also knew that the media had not captured any footage of his exhibit—not even a picture! That was unfortunate; that was not part of his plan; for that meant it might be days, perhaps even a whole week before the details of his Bacchus were made public. And although The Sculptor was a very, very patient man, the idea that the media might miss something suddenly did not sit well with him.
However, it was not impatience that influenced his decision to telephone the pretty young reporter’s home station, but the sight of a familiar face behind her—more of a grainy shadow, really—in the front seat of what he knew to be an unmarked FBI vehicle. The glimpse of her lasted only a millisecond—would probably have gone unnoticed even by the art history professor’s ex-husband—but could not escape The Sculptor’s keen eye. No, as Meghan O’Neill directed her cameras across the street to Dodd’s front gate, just as it was opening three Chevy Trailblazers emerged from behind the high wall of hedges. And for the briefest of moments The Sculptor was sure he had spied the figure of Cathy Hildebrant through the windshield of the lead car.