The Sculptor (30 page)

“No!” Cathy screamed, pressing frantically; and then she began backing away between the wall and the van. Suddenly, the passenger door slammed open into the wall. The Sculptor’s massive frame was too big to get through, too big to follow her along this side of the van. But then again, it was clear to Cathy that The Sculptor had no intention of following her. No, in the dim light of The Sculptor’s studio, Cathy could see that The Sculptor had retrieved from the van a double barrel shotgun.

Yes, all The Sculptor really cared about now was his
aim
.

“Bad material,” he said perfunctorily.

Then The Sculptor fired.

The shot was sloppy, half-blind. It took out a chunk of Cathy’s right arm and spun her against the van, dropping her to the floor. But Cathy kept moving. Another shot, the crack of the pellets ricocheting off of the cement as Cathy rolled underneath the van. The Sculptor howled with frustration as Cathy emerged on the other side and rose to her feet—her arm bloody, her naked body scraped and soiled. Cathy began to shiver, began to weep, but did not cry out when she saw The Sculptor open the van’s sliding side door; she did not say a word when she saw him reloading his shotgun. She only backed away until she could back away no more, until her naked body crashed into The Sculptor’s drafting table.

The Sculptor did not speak either—only stood in the middle of his studio and raised his shotgun for a clear shot at Cathy’s head.

And then time seemed to slow down for Cathy Hildebrant—seemed to
all but stop
as a flowing black angel tumbled from the trap in the ceiling and landed directly on top of The Sculptor. The shotgun fired, wide and wild with a clang to Cathy’s left—a hiss and a pop and the instantaneous smell of sulfur. And then time resumed, rushed back to normal speed when Cathy recognized Sam Markham falling back against the van—the blood on his face, on his shirt as black as oil.

“Sam!” she cried, her legs coming to life. But they did not carry her to him. No, as Markham slumped weakly to the floor, in an instant Cathy found herself running toward
The Sculptor
.

Already dazed and off balance, The Sculptor received her like a domino. He gave no resistance as Cathy slammed into him, knocking him backward, knocking him directly into the stainless steel hospital tub.

The Sculptor hit the acetone with a splash, sending the chemical spraying all over the carriage house as he went under. Cathy was close behind; she fell on top of the coffinlike lid and slammed it closed—her fingers locking only one of its four latches just as The Sculptor pushed up like a vampire from the inside.

Then out of the corner of her eye Cathy saw the flames.

The Sculptor’s errant shot had set to sparking what Cathy recognized to be an arc welder, and now the spattered acetone had ignited. Cathy backed away toward the van—The Sculptor’s furious movements rocking the stainless steel tub as more acetone seeped out from underneath the partially locked lid. Whirling, the flames mating and multiplying all around her, Cathy spied the van’s keys in the ignition.

“Get up, Sam!” she shouted. “Get up into the van!”

Her strength not her own, Cathy Hildebrant lifted the semiconscious FBI agent through the van’s open side door—took the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition as The Sculptor suddenly burst up from the hospital tub in a spray of acetone. And just as she slammed the van into reverse, Cathy saw The Sculptor go up in flames. She saw him point to her and heard him scream like a fiery demon when the hospital tub exploded—its force sucking the wind from Cathy’s lungs as the van crashed backward through the garage door in a fireball. Cathy kept her foot on the gas; she slammed into a tree as she tried to back away from the sheet of flames that engulfed the acetone-soaked windshield—the sheet of flames that was eating its way around the
entire van
.

“Sam!” she cried, dragging him out the side door of the burning van. Cathy helped Markham to his feet and supported him on her bad ankle as they stumbled together down the overgrown dirt driveway.

They had only gotten about twenty yards when another explosion sent a wave of heat up their backs and knocked them to the ground. But Cathy did not turn around—did not care to see the carriage house go up in a plume of chemical fired flames. No, all that mattered now was Sam Markham.

“It’s over now, Sam,” she whispered, holding him in her blood-soaked arms. “It’s all over.”

One year later, Sunday morning,
somewhere in Connecticut

Cathy closed her cell phone and just sat on the back porch sipping her coffee and looking out over the river. It had all come so fast, was still all so new, but it still felt like home. However, the conversation with Rhonda, her new literary and publicity agent, had unsettled her, left her feeling numb and confused—so much so that when Sam Markham sat down beside her, Cathy hardly noticed he was there.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” she asked.

“I asked you if you wanted a refill.”

“No, thank you.”

“How’d it go?”

“Typical—the usual this and that percentage about the new book deal. But the big news is they want me to fly out to Hollywood to act as a consultant on the film—preproduction meetings and a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t quite catch.”

“Already?”

“Next week.”

“You mean when Janet and Dan are supposed to visit?”

“Yes.”

“Damn. They move fast out there.”

“I told Rhonda I couldn’t, and she said she’d see if they could rearrange things around my schedule.”

“That’s my little powerbroker,” said Sam Markham, wincing as he leaned in to kiss her. Cathy rubbed his shoulder.

“It’s bothering you this morning?”

“Nah,” he said, smiling. “Just a little sore from moving, I think.”

Cathy knew he was lying—knew that her Sam would never complain. She kissed him—the conversation with Rhonda about percentages, about the movie rights to her unfinished book evaporating all at once when she looked into her husband’s eyes, when she was reminded
once again
how lucky she was to still have him.

Indeed, The Sculptor’s Sig Sauer had done a number on Special Agent Sam Markham, top to bottom—shattered the bones of his left shoulder, collapsed his left lung, and took out a nice chunk of his right leg, too. The doctors said Markham’s shoulder would heal up fine—might feel some pain now and then when it rains—but he could expect to have a slight limp for the rest of his life. The bandages for the last phase of the reconstructive surgery on his right ear had come off a week earlier, and Cathy often began to tear up when she caught herself unconsciously stroking that side of his face.

Yes, it truly was a miracle that Sam Markham was alive; truly a miracle the way they ended up saving each other from The Sculptor. That they were married in a small ceremony the previous fall seemed only natural. That Cathy should take his name? Well, she knew her mother would approve. But that Dr. Catherine Hildebrant,
the
preeminent scholar on the works of Michelangelo, should resign her position at Brown University and move down to Connecticut to be with her husband? Now,
that
was giving in to
fate
.

And so it was at moments like these—when they were alone, when they sat together in silence on the back porch of their new home—that Cathy Markham felt at once both guilty and grateful for the man who had changed her life so drastically: The Michelangelo Killer.

When all was said and done, the official FBI report would credit Christian Bach (aka The Michelangelo Killer, aka The Sculptor) with no less than twenty-one murders, including Gabriel Banford and Damon Manzera. The body parts of eleven more women—eight identified as prostitutes from Providence and Fall River, Massachusetts, and three still listed as Jane Does—were discovered on Bach’s property: some were preserved as sculptures in Bach’s “art gallery,” while other discarded pieces were found buried in the woods directly behind the burned-out shell of the carriage house. And even though dogs had been brought in to search the rest of Bach’s property, even though they found no more victims beyond the immediate vicinity of what the press had dubbed, “The Michelangelo Killer’s Studio of Death,” Markham had a gut feeling that Christian Bach’s body count might be even higher.

Bach’s East Greenwich neighbors, his few remaining acquaintances, and the members of the wealthy circles in which his family once traveled were all shocked and outraged to discover that
one of their own
could have committed such unimaginable crimes. True, they knew the handsome and brilliant young Bach had become something of a recluse after the death of his mother. And true, he had broken off all ties with both sides of his family in order to care for his father. But such a move was not unusual in families where money was concerned, especially the kind of money in Bach’s family. Yes, one couldn’t be too careful nowadays with relatives looking for a handout or making claim to money that wasn’t theirs—an unpleasant fact of life made only clearer by the swarm of vultures that was now trying to get a piece of Christian Bach’s father. And besides, the young Mr. Bach had maintained his grounds with such care, had been so kind to the children at Halloween, had been so generous with his donations to his various philanthropic organizations that—well…

However, that it should have fallen to Cathy Markham to tell The Michelangelo Killer’s story was perhaps the most bizarre twist of all. Never mind that Bach’s body was never found—quite a common occurrence in such cases, the authorities assured, cases in which a massive explosion is followed by a long-burning, extremely hot chemical fire. After the smoke had cleared and the public resigned itself to the fact that there was absolutely
no way
Bach could have survived, and after the initial media blitz died down and she and Sam Markham were married, Cathy gave in to the pressure around her and began writing an account not only of her ordeal, but also of the man to whom she owed—oh, how she hated to admit it!—
her happiness
.

Yes, despite everything that had happened, for the first time in her life Cathy Markham felt truly happy—which had nothing to do with the six-figure, multi-book deal her agent had just brokered; had nothing to do with the rights to the movie for her yet unreleased follow-up to
Slumbering in the Stone
, or that she and her new husband would never have to work again. No, all Cathy Markham was thankful for was Sam. She tried never to think about the irony of how they came together, or what she would tell their children when they asked how she and Daddy met.

There’ll be time to sort it out later.

A cool breeze blew off the river, ruffling the pages of the high school reading list in her husband’s hand as he settled in beside her. She would never have thought to ask him, but was nonetheless thrilled when Sam told her on their honeymoon that he was leaving the FBI. She had actually cried when he surprised her later that spring with his new teaching job: English, at a private high school in Connecticut, starting in the fall.

Yes, Cathy knew all about Michelle, and she understood that this was just part of her husband’s way of
sorting it all out
. And Cathy loved him for it, for Cathy also understood that he was sorting it out
for her
.

Cathy’s cell phone rang—Beethoven,
Für Elise
. She looked at the number then muted it.

“Not going to answer it?”

“Private number.”

“Let me see.”

“Please, Sam, it’s Sunday.”

Markham snatched the phone and pretended he was about to open it. Cathy sighed—knew that he was baiting her—but did not bite. And just as she expected, her husband let the phone ring into voice mail. He cast it aside on the wicker sofa and snuggled closer to her. Yes, just like her, Sam Markham preferred simply to sit next to his spouse in the cool quiet oblivion of the river breeze.

Yes
, Cathy thought.
There’ll be time to sort it out later
.

Miles away, Special Agent in Charge Bill Burrell closed his cell phone. He did not care to leave a message on the pretty art history professor’s voice mail.

She’s been through so much
, Burrell thought.
I just hope I can get hold of them before the fucking vultures get here
.

Bulldog took a long, deep drag from his Marlboro as Special Agent Rachel Sullivan came up beside him.

“Any luck, Chief?”

“No answer on either of their cells. Get a car sent out ASAP—somewhere in Mystic I think they’re living. Address is in the database.”

“Right.”

As Special Agent Sullivan disappeared up the steps behind him, Burrell gazed out across the courtyard past the sea of blue FBI jackets to the marble white figure at the opposite end. The SAC did not need his team to tell him who it was—would have recognized the statue of the naked, muscular man with the curly hair even if he had never heard of The Michelangelo Killer.

Just what has this son of a bitch started?

Bulldog heeled his cigarette into the steps and opened his cell phone. It was going to be a long day. He would have to telephone the wife to say he wasn’t coming home tonight.

No. After twenty years with the Bureau it just never gets any fucking easier
.