Cross Bones (19 page)

“The Turks, the Brits, the Jordanians, and the Israelis,” I guessed.

“Bingo. But you’re not here for a history lesson. Why’s this toad Kaplan such a hot property in Canada?”

Ryan fil ed Friedman in on the Ferris investigation.

“Big leap from bad paper to homicide,” Friedman said.

“Jumbo,” Ryan agreed. “But the widow’s got a history with Kaplan.”

“Which she failed to mention,” Friedman said.

“She did,” Ryan said.

“And Kaplan fled the country.”

“He did.”

“Widow stands to col ect four mil ion,” Friedman said.

“She does.”

“Four mil ion’s a lot of motivation.”

“Nothing gets by you,” Ryan said.

“You’d like to chat with Mr. Kaplan?”

“At his earliest convenience.”

“First thing in the morning?”

“Nah, let him brush his teeth.”

Friedman turned to me. “My fault, I’m sure, but I didn’t get your connection to the case.”

I explained how I’d obtained the photo from Kaplan and the skeleton from Morissonneau, and mentioned my cal to the IAA.

“Who’d you talk to?”

“Tovya Blotnik and Ruth Anne Bloom.”

“Bloom’s the bone lady?”

I hid a smile. I’d been given the same tag.

“Yes.”

“They mention that bone box?” Friedman asked.

“The James ossuary?”

Friedman nodded.

“Blotnik mentioned it. Why?”

Friedman ignored my question. “This Drum suggest you keep a low profile once you got here?”

“Jake advised me not to contact anyone in Israel before meeting with him.”

Friedman drained his beer. When he spoke again his voice sounded flat, as though he was sealing his real thoughts from it.

“Your friend’s advice is solid.”

Solid. But, as things turned out, futile.

19

FIVE-TWENTY A.M.OUTSIDE MY WINDOW THE TREETOPS WEREblack, the mosque’s minaret just a hard shadow across the street. I’d been jarred awake by its loudspeaker sounding the cal tofajr, morning prayer.

God is great, the muezzin coaxed in Arabic. Prayer is better than sleep.

I wasn’t so sure. I felt sluggish and disconnected, like a patient clawing out of anesthesia.

The mechanical wailing ended. Birdsong fil ed the void. A barking dog. The thunk of a car door.

I lay in bed, gripped by a shapeless sense that tragedy loomed not far off. What? When?

I watched my room ooze from silver to pink as I listened to traffic sounds merge and strengthen. I prodded my unconscious. Why the uneasiness?

Jet lag? Fear for my safety? Guilt over Morissonneau?

Whoa. There was a burrow I hadn’t poked. I’d visited the monastery, four days later Morissonneau was a body on a path. Had my actions triggered the priest’s death? Should I have known I was placing him in danger?

HadI placed Morissonneau in danger?

What the hel was this skeleton?

In part, my anxiety grew from the fact that others seemed to know what I did not.

Blotnik. Friedman. Even Jake appeared to be holding back.

Especial y Jake? Did my friend have an agenda he wasn’t sharing? I didn’t real y believe that.

And holding back on what?

The James ossuary for one thing. Everyone was skittering around the subject. I vowed to crack that mystery today.

I felt better. I was taking action. Or at least planning to take action.

At six I rose, showered, and descended to the restaurant, hoping Ryan had also awakened early. I also hoped he’d reconciled to the fact that I was in 304

and he was down the hal in 307.

We’d discussed sleeping arrangements before leaving Montreal. I’d insisted on separate rooms, arguing that we were traveling to Israel on official business. Ryan had objected, saying no one would know. I’d suggested it would be fun to sneak back and forth. Ryan had disagreed. I’d prevailed.

Ryan was seated at a table, scowling at something on his plate.

“Why would anyone serve olives for breakfast?” Ryan’s tone suggested he was more jet-lagged than I.

“You don’t like olives?”

“After fiveP.M. ” Ryan sidelined the offending fruit and dug into a mound of eggs the size of Mount Rushmore. “In gin.”

Deducing that congenial conversation would not be forthcoming, I focused on my hummus and cheese.

“You and Friedman are off to see Kaplan?” I asked when Rushmore had been reduced to a hummock.

Ryan nodded then checked his watch.

“Masada Max is going to Blotnik?” he asked.

“Yes. But I promised Jake I’d meet with him before contacting anyone else. He’l be here any minute, then we’l head over to the IAA.”

Knocking back his coffee, Ryan stood and aimed a finger at me. “Be careful out there, soldier.”

I snapped two fingers to my forehead. “Roger that.”

Ryan returned salute and strode from the room.

Jake arrived at seven wearing jeans, a sleeveless camouflage jacket, and a blue Hawaiian shirt open over a white T. Quite a fashion statement on a shave-headed, six-foot-sixer with hedgerow brows.

“You brought boots?” Jake asked, dropping into the chair Ryan had vacated.

“To meet with Blotnik?”

“I want you to see something.”

“I’m here to deliver a skeleton, Jake.”

“First I need for you to see this.”

“First I need for you to tel me what the hel ’s going on.”

Jake nodded.

“Today.” It came out louder than I intended. Or not.

“I’l explain on the way.”

“Starting with this ossuary?”

Two men passed speaking Arabic. Jake watched until they disappeared through the low stone arch leading from the restaurant.

“Can you lock the bones in your room safe?” Jake’s voice was barely above a whisper.

I shook my head. “Too smal .”

“Bring them.”

“This better be good,” I said, tossing my napkin onto my plate.

Jake pointed at my feet.

“Boots.”

Driving across the city, Jake told me the strange story of the James ossuary.

“No one disputes the authenticity of the box. It’s the inscription that’s in question. The IAA declared it a fake. Others say the ‘brother of Jesus’ part is legit, but claim the words ‘James, son of Joseph’ were added later. Others believe the opposite, that the Jesus phrase was added later. Stil others think the Jesus phrase was forged.”

“Why?”

“To goose the ossuary’s value on the antiquities market.”

“Didn’t an IAA committee dissect every aspect of the thing?”

“Yeah. Right. First of al , there were two subcommittees. One looked at writing and content. The other looked at materials. The writing and content subcommittee contained one expert on ancient Hebrew writing, but other equal y qualified epigraphers dispute her conclusions.”

“An epigrapher is a specialist in analyzing and dating script?”

“Correct. Get this. One genius on the committee pointed to variations in handwriting and in thickness and depth of the lettering as proof of forgery. I won’t bore you with detail, but variation is exactly what you’d expect on a nonmechanical y incised inscription. Uniform lettering would be a dead giveaway of a fake. And the mixing of formal and cursive script is a wel -known phenomenon in ancient engraving.

“Another issue was misspel ing. Joseph was spel edYWSP, and James was spel edY’OB. One committee member said Joseph should have beenYHWSP, and that theY’OB spel ing of James had never been found on any Second Temple period ossuary.”

“The Second Temple period is the time of Jesus.”

Jake nodded. “I did my own survey. The James ossuary’s spel ing appeared in more than ten percent of the Joseph inscriptions I located. I found five occurrences of the name James. Three, a majority, had the same spel ing as that on the James ossuary.”

“Was the committee unaware of the existence of these other inscriptions?”

“You tel me.”

Jake’s eyes kept shifting to the traffic around us.

“Incidental y, the committee included not a single New Testament scholar or historian of early Christianity.”

“What about the oxygen isotope analysis?” I asked.

Jake’s eyes cut to me. “You’ve done some homework.”

“Just some Web surfing.”

“The oxygen isotope analysis was ordered by the materials subcommittee. It showed no patina deep down in the letters, but picked up a grayish chalk-and-water paste that shouldn’t have been there. The committee concluded that the paste had been applied intentional y to imitate weathering. But it’s not that simple.”

Jake readjusted the rear and side-view mirrors.

“Turns out the patina on the ‘Jesus’ part of the inscription is identical to the overal patina on the box. In ancient Aramaic, Jesus would have been the last word inscribed. So if that word’s legit, and even some members of the IAA now agree that it is, then I think the whole inscription must be legit. Think about it. Why would an ossuary be inscribed with just the words ‘brother of someone’? It doesn’t make sense.”

“How do you explain the paste?”

“Scrubbing could have removed the patina down in the letters. And it could have altered the chemical composition of the patina by creating carbonate particles. The ossuary’s owner said the thing had been cleaned repeatedly over the years.”

“Who’s the owner?”

“An Israeli antiquities col ector named Oded Golan. Golan says he was told at the time of his purchase that the ossuary came from a tomb in Silwan.”

Jake jabbed a thumb at my window. “We’re on the outskirts of Silwan now.”

Again, Jake scanned the cars ahead and behind. His nervousness was making me edgy.

“Problem is the ossuary’s not recorded as an archaeological y excavated artifact from Silwan or from anywhere else in Israel.”

“You think it was looted.”

“Gee. You think?” Jake’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Golan claims he’s had the ossuary more than thirty years, making it legal, since antiquities acquired before 1978 are fair game.”

“You don’t believe him?”

“Golan’s reported to have floated a price tag of two mil ion U.S. for the thing.” Jake snorted. “What do you think?”

I thought it was a lot of money.

Jake pointed through the windshield at a hil rising steeply off the shoulder of the road.

“The Mount of Olives. We’ve come around the east side, and now we’re skirting the southern edge.”

Jake turned left onto a smal street lined with sand-colored low-rises, many decorated with crudely drawn planes or cars, indicating an occupant had made haj to Mecca. Boys chased bal s. Dogs worked patterns around the boys. Women shook rugs, lugged groceries, swept stoops. Men conversed on rusted lawn chairs.

My mind flashed an image of the Palestinians parked outside l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges. I told Jake about them, and paraphrased some of the things Morissonneau had said.

Jake opened his mouth, reconsidered, closed it.

“What?” I asked.

“Not possible.”

“What’s not possible?”

“Nothing.”

“What is it you’re not tel ing me?”

Al I got was a head shake.

The predawn premonition of tragedy rol ed over in my brainpan.

Jake made another turn and pul ed into a clearing behind the vil age. Ahead and to the left, stone stairs descended to what appeared to be a school.

Boys stood, sat, or pushed and shoved on the steps.

“Is Morissonneau’s death related to—” To what? I had no idea what we were doing. “To those men?” A sweep of my hand took in the hockey bag, the vil age, and the val ey below. “To this?”

“Forget Muslims. Muslims don’t give a rat’s ass about Masada or Jesus. Islam views Jesus not as a divinity, but as a holy man.”

“A prophet like Abraham or Moses?”

“A messiah, even. According to Muslims, Jesus didn’t die on the cross, he was taken alive to heaven, from where he wil return.”

That sounded familiar.

“What about Al ah’s Holy Warriors? The radical fringe?”

“What about them?”

“Wouldn’t the jihadists love to lay their hands on the bones of Jesus?”

“Why?”

“To ransack Christianity.”

A blackbird swooped to earth as we parked. We both watched it hop through garbage, wings half-spread, as though uncertain whether to stay or go.

Jake remained silent.

“I have a bad feeling about Morissonneau’s death,” I said.

“Don’t look to Muslims.”

“Who would you look to?”

“Seriously?” Jake turned to me.

I nodded.

“The Vatican.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “You sound like a character inThe Da Vinci Code. ”

Jake didn’t say anything.

Outside my window, the bird pecked roadkil . I thought of Poe. The thought was not uplifting.

“I’m listening,” I said, settling back.

“You’re a product of Catholic schooling?”

“I am.”

“Nuns teach the New Testament?”

“They were hal of fame on guilt, but bush league on scripture.”

“The good sisters teach you Jesus had siblings?”

“No.”

“Of course not. That’s why the James ossuary’s got the pope’s panties in a twist.”

The metaphor was jarring.

“The RC Church has a hard-on for virgin birth.”

I didn’t even want to think about that one.

“And it’s stupid. The New Testament is ful of references to Jesus’ siblings. Matthew 13:55: ‘Is not his mother cal ed Mary and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?’ Mark 6:3 repeats the same thing. In Galatians 1:19, Paul refers to his meeting with ‘James the Lord’s brother.’ Matthew 13:56 and Mark 6:3 both indicate that Jesus had sisters.”

“Don’t some biblical scholars interpret these as references to half-siblings, maybe born to a previous wife of Joseph before his marriage to Mary?”

“Both Matthew 1:25 and Luke 2:7 state that Jesus was Mary’s first-born son, though that does not rule out prior children of Joseph. But it’s not just the Bible that refers to Jesus’ siblings. The historian Josephus talks of ‘the brother of Jesus—who was cal ed Christ—whose name was James.’”

Jake was on a rol .

“In Jesus’ time, virginity after marriage would have been unthinkable, a violation of Jewish law. It just wasn’t done.”