Cross Bones (36 page)

Ryan got it right away. “Ferris was in Florida. It couldn’t have been him. So who’s cal ing Kaplan?”

“Purviance?” I suggested.

“She ran the business when Ferris was gone. But why would Purviance cal Kaplan? He’s not a customer or a supplier. And Ferris’s dealings with Kaplan weren’t exactly kosher. Purviance wouldn’t have been tuned into those transactions.” Pause. “Could Purviance have been responding to a message?”

“I thought of that. The warehouse records show no incoming cal s from Kaplan’s home or shop.”

“So someone phoned Kaplan’s home from Ferris’s warehouse while Ferris was in Florida. But Kaplan hadn’t phoned the warehouse, either from his home or his shop, making it unlikely that Purviance was cal ing Kaplan in response to a message he’d left for Ferris. So who the hel made the cal ? And why?”

“Someone else with access? A family member?”

“Again, why?”

“Astute questions, Detective.”

“Sonovabitch.”

“Sonovabitch. Any word from Birch?”

I heard rustling, imagined Ryan seeking a more comfortable position.

“Purviance is stil missing.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?”

“If the lady overheard or saw something, the perp might have clipped her to keep her from talking.”

“Jesus.”

“But bal istics caught a break on the Jericho nine-mil that kil ed Ferris. Piece was reported stolen by a seventy-four-year-old plumber named Ozols. Car break-in in Saint-Léonard.”

“When?”

“January twenty-second, less than three weeks before Ferris was shot. Birch is thinking street thugs. Score a gun, hit a warehouse, things go south, Ferris gets popped.”

Something stirred in my unconscious.

“According to Purviance, nothing of value was taken,” I said, distracted by the heads-up from my hindbrain.

“Mopes may have panicked and split.”

“The gun theft could also suggest pre-planning. Someone wanted a hit and needed a firearm. Also, Ferris took two bul ets to the back of the head. That suggests a professional job, not a panic shooting.”

“Miriam was in Florida.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “She was.”

I heard a voice in the background.

“Kaplan’s on the move,” Ryan said, then disconnected.

No longer sleepy, I went back to the cal records. This time, I began with the dump on Kaplan’s home phone. The January and February lists were short.

Almost immediately, I got another shocker.

February first. Nine seventy-two. The international exchange for Israel. Zero-two. The area code for Jerusalem and Hebron. I knew the number.

The Rockefel er. And not the main switchboard this time.

Kaplan had dialed the office of Tovya Blotnik. The cal had lasted twenty-three minutes.

Blotnik had been in the loop for at least ten days when Ferris died.

Had I seen Blotnik’s number elsewhere? Was that the whisper I’d felt from my id?

I went back and checked Ferris’s warehouse record for February.

Bingo. Ferris had cal ed the switchboard of the Rockefel er on January eighth. One month later he’d cal ed Blotnik’s direct line.

Was that the signal my hindbrain had been sending? Somehow, the itch didn’t feel scratched.

Then what?

Think.

It was like a mirage. The more I focused, the faster the al usion dissolved.

The hel with it.

I started to dial Ryan, stopped. He and Friedman were busy tailing Kaplan. A ringing phone could blow their cover. Or the phone would be off.

I tried Jake.

Stil no answer.

Frustrated, I slammed the receiver.

Eleven-ten. Where the hel was he?

I tried returning to the records. My mind wouldn’t focus.

I got up and paced the room, eyes wandering the desk, the window, the images woven into the rug. What story did those images tel ?

What story would Max tel if he could speak?

Blotnik and Kaplan talked. Why? Had Kaplan cal ed the IAA to squirrel out whatever he could on the skeleton? No, that would be for Ferris. Kaplan was only the middleman. Was Blotnik a potential buyer?

Was Jake unwel ? Could he be lying unconscious on his bedroom floor?

Was he angry? Had he resented my comments about Blotnik more than he’d let on?

Was Jake correct in his assessment of Blotnik?

A terrible thought.

Was Blotnik more than ambitious? Was he dangerous?

I tried Jake again. Got the answering machine again.

“Bloody hel !”

Throwing on jeans and a Windbreaker, I grabbed Friedman’s keys and hurried down the stairs.

Not a single window in Jake’s flat was lit. The fog had thickened, al but obliterating the surrounding homes.

Terrific.

Leaving the car, I hurried across the street, wondering how I would gain entrance to Jake’s property. Above the wal I could see treetops, their branches fuzzy claws against the night sky.

I needn’t have worried. The gate was unlatched and slightly ajar.

Lucky break? Bad sign?

I pushed through.

In the yard, a single bulb threw a sickly yel ow cone onto the goat pen. As I passed, I heard movement. Glancing sideways, I saw murky horned cutouts.

“Baaa,” I whispered.

No response.

Animal odors joined the damp city smel s. Feces. Sweat. Rotting lettuce and apple cores.

Jake’s stairway was a thin black tunnel. Shadows linked to shadows, forming a rosary of shapes. The climb took an eternity. I kept looking backward.

At the door, I knocked softly.

“Jake?”

Why was I whispering?

“Jake,” I cal ed out, banging with the heel of my palm.

Three tries, no answer.

I turned the knob. The door swung in.

A tickle of fear.

First the gate, now the door. Would Jake have left the place unsecured?

Never, if he’d gone out. But did he lock up when at home? I couldn’t recal .

I hesitated.

If Jake was home, why didn’t he answer? Why hadn’t he phoned me?

Images began free-fal ing in my head. Jake lying on the floor. Jake unconscious in bed.

Something touched my leg.

I jumped, and a hand flew to my mouth. Heart thudding, I looked down.

One of the toms stared up, eyes shiny globes in the dimness.

Before I could react, the door swung inward. Hinges creaked softly, and the cat was gone.

I peered through the gap. Across the room, I could see objects tossed beside the computer. Even in the dark, I knew what they were. Jake’s sunglasses.

Jake’s wal et. Jake’s passport.

And what they meant.

I pushed through the door. “Jake?”

I groped for a light switch, found none.

“Jake, are you here?”

Feeling my way through the darkness, I rounded the corner into the front room. I was searching the wal , when something crashed to my left.

As adrenaline fired through me, my fingers found the switch. Trembling, I flipped it, and the room fil ed with light.

The cat was on the kitchen counter, legs flexed, muscles tensed for flight. A vase lay shattered on the tile, rusty water oozing outward like blood from a corpse.

The cat dropped and sniffed the puddle.

“Jake!”

The cat’s head jerked up, then it froze, one paw raised and curled. Eyeing me, it gave one tentativemrrrp.

“Where the hel ’s Jake?” I asked.

The cat clammed up like a cheat at a tax audit.

“Jake!”

Alarmed, the cat shot past me and exited the way it had entered.

Jake wasn’t in his bedroom. Nor was he in the workroom.

My mind logged details as I flew through the flat.

Mug in the sink. Aspirin on the counter. Photos and reports cleared from the table. Otherwise, the place looked as it had when I left.

Had Jake taken the bones to Ruth Anne Bloom?

Hurrying to the back porch, I fumbled for a wal switch. When I found one and flipped it, nothing happened.

Frustrated, I returned to the kitchen and dug through drawers until I located a flashlight. Clicking it on, I returned to the porch.

The cabinet was at the far end. Where its doors met, I could see a black strip shooting from top to bottom. My heart clenched in my chest.

Gripping the flash over one shoulder, I crept forward. I smel ed glue, and dust, and the mud of mil ennia. Outside my beam, shadows overlapped and forged odd shapes.

Six feet from the cabinet, I froze.

The padlock was gone, and one door hung askew. Bones or no bones, Jake would have secured the lock.

And the front gate.

I whipped around.

Blackness.

I could hear my own breath rising and fal ing in my mouth.

In two strides I closed the gap and il uminated the cabinet’s interior. Shelf by shelf, I checked, dust twirling and revolving in the hard, white shaft.

The reconstructed ossuaries were there.

The fragments were there.

The shroud bones were gone.

37

HADJAKE TAKEN THE BONES TOBLOOM?

Not a chance. He’d never have left the cabinet open, and he wouldn’t have gone out with his passport and wal et stil here, and the door unlocked.

Had the bones been stolen?

Over Jake’s dead body.

Oh God. Had Jake been abducted? Worse?

Fear gives rise to a powerful rush of emotions. A stream of names tore through my head. The Hevrat Kadisha. Hershel Kaplan. Hossam al-Ahmed.

Tovya Blotnik!

A soft crunching sound penetrated my dread.

Footsteps on gravel?

Kil ing the light, I held my breath and listened.

Sleeve brushing jacket. Branch scraping stucco. Goat bleat drifting up from the yard.

Only benign sounds, nothing hostile.

Dropping to my knees, I searched for the padlock. It was nowhere to be seen.

I returned to the kitchen and replaced the flashlight. Closing the drawer, I noticed Jake’s answering machine on the counter above. The flasher was blinking in clusters of ten.

I tal ied my own cal s to Jake. Eight, the first around five, the last just before leaving the hotel.

One of the other messages might hold a clue to his whereabouts.

Invade Jake’s privacy?

Damn right. This looked to be a bad situation.

I hit “replay.”

The first cal er was, indeed, me.

The second message was left by a man speaking Hebrew. I caught the words Hevrat Kadisha, andisha, woman. Nothing else. Fortunately, the guy was brief. Hitting “replay,” again and again, I transcribed phonetical y.

The next cal er was Ruth Anne Bloom. She left only her name and the fact that she was working late.

The last seven messages were again mine.

The machine clicked off.

What had I learned? Zilch.

Was Jake already gone when I first cal ed? Had he ignored or not heard my message? Was he monitoring? Had he left after listening to the male cal er?

To Ruth Anne Bloom? Had he left of his own wil ?

I looked at the gibberish in my hand.

I looked at my watch. It was now past midnight. Whom to cal ?

Ryan answered on the first ring.

I told him where I was and what I’d learned.

Ryan’s breathing revealed his annoyance at my having ventured out alone. I knew what was coming, and wasn’t in the mood for a Q and A.

“Jake could be in trouble,” I said.

“Hold on.”

The next voice was Friedman’s.

I explained what I wanted, and, one by one, pronounced the phonemes I’d written down. It took several tries, but Friedman’s Hebrew final y mimicked the message on the tape.

The cal er had been a member of the Hevrat Kadisha, phoning in answer to Jake’s query.

Okay. I’d guessed that. The next part of Friedman’s translation surprised me.

A number of the “harassing” cal s had been made by a woman.

“That’s it?”

“The cal er wished your friend’s hands to wither and fal off should he desecrate another grave.”

A woman had been cal ing the Hevrat Kadisha?

I heard rustling as Friedman passed the phone back to Ryan.

“You know what I want you to do.” Brusque.

“Yes,” I said.

“You’l go back to the American Colony?”

“Yes.” Eventual y.

Ryan didn’t buy it.

“But first?”

“Poke around here, see if I can scare up contact information for Jake’s crew. I might find a list of those working this Talpiot site.”

“And then?”

“Cal them.”

“And then?”

Adrenaline had my mind in overdrive. Ryan’s paternalism wasn’t gearing it down.

“Shoot out to Arafat’s old compound, flash some leg, maybe score a date for Saturday night.”

Ryan ignored that.

“If you go anywhere but the hotel, please cal me.”

“I wil .”

“I mean it.”

“I’l cal .”

Silence. I broke it.

“What’s Kaplan doing?”

“Working on Eagle Scout.”

“Meaning?”

“Early to bed.”

“You’re sitting on him?”

“Yes. Look, Tempe. It’s just possible Kaplan’s not our shooter. If that’s the case, someone else is.”

“Okay. I won’t go to Ramal ah.”

Ryan fol owed that with his standard.

“You can be a real pain in the ass, Brennan.”

I fol owed with mine.

“I work on it.”

When we’d disconnected, I hurried to Jake’s office. My eyes were drawn to the objects beside the computer. My anxiety skyrocketed.

Jake’s site was in the desert. He wouldn’t go there without sunglasses. He wouldn’t go anywhere without ID.

Car keys?

I began shuffling papers, poking through trays, opening and closing drawers.

No keys.

I checked the bedroom, the kitchen, the workroom.

No keys.

And no info on the crew. No list of names. No task rotation sheet. No ledger with check stubs. Zip.

Returning to the computer, I noticed a yel ow Post-it poking from below the keyboard. I snatched it up.

Jake’s scrawl. The name Esther Getz, and a phone number four digits off Blotnik’s at the Rockefel er.

Sudden thought. Could the Getzster be the woman phoning the Hevrat Kadisha?

I hadn’t a molecule of evidence to suggest that. Nothing. Unless you count gender. And what did cal s to the Hevrat Kadisha have to do with anything anyway?