Cross Bones (32 page)

“Yadin wanted desperately for the palace skeletons to be a Jewish rebel family. He took a few liberties in interpreting those bones, then heralded the discovery to the press. So why the wariness concerning the cave skeletons?”

“Maybe Yadin was aware of pig bones from the get-go,” Jake said. “Maybe the pig bones made him uneasy about the identity of the cave people.

Maybe he suspected they might not be Jewish. Maybe he thought they were Roman soldiers. Or some outsider group living on Masada during the occupation, but separate from the main zealot group.”

“Maybe Yadin was aware of more than that,” I said, thinking of Max. “Maybe it was the other way around. Maybe Yadin, or one of his staff, figured out exactly who was buried in that cave.”

Jake guessed my thought. “The single articulated skeleton.”

“That skeleton was never sent to Haas with the rest of the bones.”

“It was spirited out of Israel and sent to Paris.”

“Where it was buried in the col ections at the Musée de l’Homme, and discovered by Yossi Lerner a decade later.”

“After happening upon the skeleton, Lerner happened upon Donovan Joyce’s book, and was so convinced of the skeleton’s explosive potential, he filched it.”

“And now that skeleton’s been filched again. Does Haas mention a complete skeletonanywhere in his memo?”

Jake shook his head.

“Do you think his reference to pig bones is significant?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did Haas mean by the ‘riddle of the pig tal ith’?”

“I don’t know.”

More questions without answers.

And stil the big one.

Who the hel was Max?

Ryan picked me up at eleven in Friedman’s Tempo. Again thanking me for the return of his rental car, Jake dragged off to bed.

Ryan and I headed back to the American Colony.

“His spirits have improved,” Ryan said. “But he’s stil kind of dopey.”

“It’s been less than forty-eight hours. Give him time.”

“Fact is, he was kind of dopey be—”

“Noted.”

I told Ryan about Haas’s memo, and its reference to a pig tal ith riddle. I also told him it was clear from Haas’s skeletal inventory he’d never seen Max.

I shared with Ryan my belief that the bodies had been buried, not dumped in the cave, and that the graves had later been disturbed by animals.

He asked what it al meant. Other than throwing doubt on traditional interpretations of Masada, I didn’t have an answer.

“Did you get your phone records?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ryan patted his breast pocket.

“Does a phone dump always take so long?”

“Gotta get warrants. Once warrants are issued, Bel Canada moves at the pace of sludge. I asked for incoming and outgoing back through November, and told them to hold the lists until they’d ID’d every cal .”

“Meaning?”

“Ferris’s home and office. Kaplan’s shop and flat.”

“What about mobiles?”

“Fortunately, we’re not dealing with the cel phone set.”

“That simplifies things.”

“Considerably.”

“And?”

“I just glanced at the fax. Since this place is in Sabbath lockdown, I thought we might divide and conquer this afternoon.”

“You want to go over it together?”

“What do you think?”

How bad could it be?

Ninety minutes later I knew.

In one month the average person places and receives enough cal s to fil two to four eight-by-ten sheets. With very smal print. We were looking at two businesses and two residences, for a period of four and a half months. You do the math.

How to proceed? After some debate we’d settled the issue scientifical y. Heads: by chronology. Tails: by subscriber.

The coin opted for the time-line approach.

We started with November. I took Ferris’s home and Les Imports Ashkenazim, Ryan took Kaplan’s flat, and le centre d’animaux Kaplan. In the first hour we learned the fol owing.

Hersh Kaplan wasn’t the most popular guy in town. The sole person to ring his flat in November was Mike Hinson, his parole officer. Ditto for dialing out.

At le centre d’animaux Kaplan most cal ers were pet, pet-food, or pet-product suppliers, or people from the neighborhood, presumably customers.

At the Ferris home, cal s went back and forth between Dora, the brothers, a butcher, a kosher grocer, a temple. No surprises.

Out in Mirabel, cal s were made to and received from suppliers, shops, and temples throughout eastern Canada. Several cal s were placed to Israel.

Courtney Purviance phoned the warehouse, or was phoned at home. Miriam checked in, but less frequently. Avram rarely cal ed his condo in Côte-des-Neiges.

Hour three revealed that December’s pattern deviated little from that of November. Late in the month, several cal s were made from the Ferris home to a local travel agency. The Renaissance Boca Raton Hotel was also contacted. The Renaissance was also dialed twice from the warehouse.

At three, I sat back, a low-level headache seething in my temples.

Beside me, Ryan lay down his marker and rubbed his eyes.

“Break for lunch?”

I nodded.

We trooped downstairs to the restaurant. In an hour we were back at my room desk. I again took Ferris’s records. Ryan resumed with Kaplan’s.

A half hour later I spotted something.

“That’s odd.”

Ryan looked up.

“On January fourth, Ferris cal ed l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges.”

“The monastery?”

I slid the sheet sideways. Ryan glanced at it.

“They talked for fourteen minutes.” He turned to me. “Did Morissonneau mention contact with Ferris?”

I shook my head. “Not a word.”

“Good eye, soldier.” Ryan highlighted the line with yel ow marker.

Ten minutes. Fifteen. A half hour.

“Bingo.” I indicated a cal . “On January seventh, Ferris cal ed Kaplan.”

Ryan switched from the pet shop record to Kaplan’s home phone.

“Twenty-two minutes. Ferris asking Kaplan to black-market Max?” “The cal was made three days after Ferris talked with Morissonneau.”

“Three days after Ferris talked to someone at the monastery.”

“True.” I hadn’t thought of that. “But the January fourth cal lasted almost a quarter of an hour. Ferris must have been talking with Morissonneau.”

Ryan raised his I-am-quoting-a-quote index finger. “Assumption is the mother of screw-up.”

“You made that up,” I said.

“Angelo Donghia.”

“And he is…?”

“It’s on the Internet. Simpson’s Quotations. Google it.”

I made a note to do just that.

“The Ferris autopsy was February sixteenth,” Ryan said. “When he gave you the photo, did Kaplan say how long he’d had it?”

“No.”

Back to the records. Several lines down I spotted a vaguely familiar number preceded by an Israeli country code. I got up and checked my agenda.

“On January eighth Ferris cal ed someone at the IAA.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. It’s the main switchboard number.”

Ryan sat back. “Any idea why he’d do that?”

“Maybe he was offering to give the Masada skeleton back.”

“Or sel it back.”

“Maybe he was looking for documentation.”

“Why would he want that?”

“To reassure himself of the skeleton’s authenticity.”

“Or to goose its value.”

“Authentication would do that.”

“When you first made contact, did Blotnik mention knowing about the bones?”

I shook my head.

Ryan made a note.

Another half hour passed.

The fax was fuzzy, the numbers and letters barely legible. My neck ached. My eyes burned. Edgy, I got up and paced the room. I told myself it was time to quit. But I rarely listen to my own advice. Returning to the desk, I plowed on, hearing each breath in cadence to the pounding in my head.

I saw it first.

“Ferris phoned Kaplan again on the tenth.”

“Someone at Ferris’s warehouse phoned Kaplan again on the tenth.”

Maybe it was the headache. Maybe it was the tedium. Ryan’s pickiness no longer amused me.

“Am I being a liability here?” It came out sharper than I’d intended.

Ryan’s eyes came up, blue and surprised. For a long moment they looked directly into mine.

“Sorry. Can I get you anything?”

Ryan shook his head.

I went to the minibar and popped a Diet Coke.

“Kaplan received another cal from Ferris on the nineteenth,” Ryan said to my back.

Dropping into my chair, I found the outgoing cal on Ferris’s warehouse record.

“Twenty-four minutes. Planning the big score, I guess.”

The vessels in my head were now hammering with heavy thumping strokes. Ryan saw me press my fingers to my temples. He laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Knock off if you’ve had enough.”

“I’m fine.”

Ryan’s eyes roamed my face. He brushed bangs from my forehead.

“Not as heart-pumping as surveil ance?”

“Not as heart-pumping as mitosis.”

“But meaningful detecting.”

“Real y?” I was ful -out cranky now. “In five hours we’ve learned what? Kaplan cal ed Ferris. Ferris cal ed Kaplan. Big deal. We knew that. Kaplan told us.”

“We didn’t know Ferris cal ed Morissonneau.”

I smiled. “We didn’t know Ferris cal ed themonastery. ”

Ryan raised a palm. “We be good.”

I slapped a lifeless high-five.

And upended my Coke with an elbow. The Real Thing made a real mess, soaking the desktop and rol ing cheerful y onto the floor.

We shot to our feet. While I ran for towels, Ryan plucked up and shook the phone records. I mopped, he blotted, then we lay the sheets flat on my bathroom floor to dry.

“Sorry,” I said lamely.

“Drying time,” Ryan said. “Let’s eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Gotta eat.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Nutrition is the key to good health.”

“Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which to die.”

“You stole that.”

I probably had. George Carlin?

“Gotta eat,” Ryan repeated.

I gave up arguing.

We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, the mood in our little alcove stiff and unnatural. My fault. I felt jammed, my nerves tight.

We talked around things, his daughter, my daughter. No murder. No skeletons. Though Ryan tried his best, long silences played across the table.

Upstairs, Ryan kissed me outside my door. I didn’t ask him in. He didn’t press.

It took a long time to fal asleep that night. It wasn’t the headache. Or the muezzin. Or the cats brawling in the street below.

I’m not a joiner. I don’t sign on with the Junior League, the garden club, or the Sweet Potato Queens. I’m an alcoholic who’s never hitched up with AA.

Nothing against al iance. I’m simply a self-help sort of gal.

I read. I absorb. Bit by bit, I crack the mystery of me.

Like why, at that moment, I wanted a bel yful of Merlot.

AA dubs us once and future alcoholics. Others, naively, cal us recovered. They’re wrong. Capping the bottle doesn’t end the alcoholic dance. Nothing does. It’s in the double helix.

One day you’re queen of the prom. The next you lack reasons to get out of bed. One night you slumber the sleep of the newborn. The next you’re awake, anxious and tossing, and uncertain why.

That night was one of those nights. Hour after hour, I lay staring at the minaret out my darkened window, wondering for whom the spire reached. The god of the Koran? The Bible? The Torah? The bottle?

Why had I been so short with Ryan? Sure, we’d spent hours and learned almost nothing. Sure, I’d rather have been solving the mystery of Max. But why take it out on Ryan?

Why did I want a drink so badly?

And why had I been such a klutz with the Coke? Ryan would have a field day with that one.

I drifted off after midnight, and dreamed disjointed dreams. Phones. Calendars. Disembodied numbers, names, and dates. Ryan on a Harley. Jake chasing jackals from a cave.

At two, I got up for water, then sat wearily on the side of the bed. What did the dreams mean? Were they simply a replay, brought on by headache and the afternoon’s tedium? Was my subconscious attempting to send up a message?

Eventual y, I slept.

More than once I awoke, bedding twisted hard in my fists.

33

ICAN’T SAYIWAS UP WITH THE MUEZZIN . BUT IT WAS CLOSE.

The sun was rising. The birds were singing. The headache was gone.

The demons were gone.

After clearing papers from my bathroom floor, I showered, then went the extra mile with blush and mascara. At seven, I cal ed Ryan.

“Sorry about yesterday.”

“Maybe we can get you into a bal et class.”

“I don’t mean the Coke spil . I mean me.”

“You are a gentle flower, a winsome sprite, a creature of loveliness and—”

“Why do you put up with me?”

“Am I not the most gal ant and wonderful being in your world?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“And sexy.”

“I can be a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah. But you’remy pain in the ass.”

“I’l make up for it.”

“Tap pants?”

You have to admire the guy. He never gives up.

Friedman cal ed during breakfast. Kaplan wanted to talk about Ferris. Friedman offered to pick Ryan up and leave me the Tempo. I accepted.

Back upstairs, I rang Jake, but got no answer. I assumed he was stil asleep.

Wait? No way. I’d been waiting two days.

TheJerusalem Post is headquartered off Yirmeyahu Street, a main artery that begins at the Tel Aviv highway then loops toward the religious neighborhoods of North Jerusalem and joins up with Rabbi Meir Bar Ilan Street, famous for its ful -contact Sabbath rock throwers. Jewish motorist or not, these guys didn’t want you driving on their holy day. Ironical y, in my stumblings on Friday, I’d passed within a block of thePost ’s doors.

I parked and walked to the building, checking my back for cruisers and jihadists. From Friedman’s sketch map, I knew I was in the Romema neighborhood on the far western edge of West Jerusalem. Thequartier was definitely not a tourist destination. Actual y, that’s being generous. Thequartier was ugly as hel , al garages and fenced lots stacked with tires and rusting auto parts.