The Shroud Codex (19 page)

Silently, Castle agreed.

“If this is the historical Jesus Christ we are looking at in the
Shroud, then the wounds on the Shroud document exactly where Jesus was beaten,” Morelli said. “I believe we are going to find one-for-one that Father Bartholomew has exactly the same wounds that we are seeing on this slide right here, not more and not fewer, but precisely these.”

“I’ve already ordered Dr. Lin at Beth Israel Hospital to take very detailed examinations of Father Bartholomew’s body wounds, not just photographic, but also CT scans, as well as a full-body MRI,” Castle commented, “as soon as Father Bartholomew is strong enough to undergo that.”

“We look forward to seeing the results of those tests,” Archbishop Duncan said.

“My guess, Archbishop Duncan, is that Father Morelli’s supposition is correct,” Castle added. “I too suspect Father Bartholomew suffered these exact wounds Sunday night. Where we differ is most likely in the interpretation. Even if the wounds Father Bartholomew suffered are identical in every detail to the scourge wounds we appear to see on the man in the Shroud, that still does not prove Father Bartholomew is manifesting miraculously the wounds Christ suffered in his passion and death. Father Bartholomew told me he has studied the Shroud for a long time. His years of study undoubtedly impressed on his subconscious all the details of the Shroud we are looking at today.”

Archbishop Duncan was skeptical. “Do you really believe the subconscious is that powerful?”

“Yes, Archbishop Duncan, I do,” Castle said without hesitation. “Your subconscious is what keeps your body going. You depend on your subconscious to keep your heart beating and your blood circulating. Your subconscious regulates your breathing. You have to consciously override your subconscious to hold your breath. I could go on. What do you think keeps you alive during the night? It isn’t your conscious mind.”

Anne was fixated on a more fundamental part of the discussion. “Does all this mean my brother was scourged exactly like Jesus was scourged at the pillar?” she asked, her voice giving away the horror she felt at the thought.

“Maybe yes and maybe no,” Castle answered. “Not to be flip, but I don’t want us jumping to conclusions. First off, we don’t know that your brother’s wounds are going to match what we are seeing here exactly, not at least until I compare the hospital photos of his wounds to the wounds we are seeing on the Shroud. But most important, I don’t want anybody jumping to the conclusion that Bartholomew is suffering a repeat of Christ’s passion, not even if the wounds are identical. I’m a psychiatrist and I’m interested in what’s going on in Father Bartholomew’s mind. For me, his body manifests his mental reality, possibly his religious beliefs. That’s as far as I’m prepared to go right now.”

“We all understand,” Archbishop Duncan said, making sure everyone in the room knew he was not disagreeing with Dr. Castle’s analysis by insisting on any different interpretation, at least not right now. “I understand your point about the subconscious. We don’t want to jump to any conclusions here.”

While they were talking, Middagh found and displayed another image from the Shroud, this time a detailed close-up of a group of scourge wounds on the upper back of the man in the Shroud. The close-up clearly showed the dumbbell nature of the wounds.

“The ancient Romans typically scourged a man before they crucified him, both to further punish him as a criminal and to weaken him so he would put up less resistance when they ultimately fixed him to the cross,” Middagh said. “The Romans could also control how long a man would survive the crucifixion by how severely they beat a condemned man. The more vicious the scourging, the shorter the time a crucified man would live on the

cross. Judging from the beating the man in the Shroud received, the Roman executioners wanted him to die pretty fast. Jesus went up to Jerusalem at the time of his death to celebrate Passover. Traditionally, the Last Supper is interpreted as a Passover meal. From the beating the man of the Shroud received, the Romans may have wanted Jesus to die fast, so he could be buried before sundown on the Sabbath.”

Castle listened to the historical explanation but his mind was focused on the wounds themselves. The dumbbell nature of the wounds from the Shroud seen in close-up looked exactly like the wounds he observed on Bartholomew.

Middagh picked up on this exact point. “As you can see here in the close-up of the scourge wounds on the upper back, each wound shows the dumbbell-shaped weights the Romans fixed into the ends of the leather straps of their whips. Typically, the Romans used a handheld whip, or flagrum, a short handle with two
or three leather thongs attached. Sometimes, instead of a dumbbell piece of metal, the Romans just fixed two small metal balls on the ends of the leather thongs, a configuration that caused the wounds to look like dumbbell wounds just the same.”

Anne could not believe what she was seeing. “How could Father Bartholomew be beaten like that and survive?” she asked Castle in disbelief.

“Right now, we are not sure how your brother was injured,” Castle answered, irritated that hospitals were notorious rumor mills. All Anne had to do was ask a few questions and the nurses and orderlies would probably have filled her in on all the gossip about her brother. Immediately, Castle’s mind flashed on the television reporter who accosted him leaving the hospital last night and on the crowd of silent believers who held vigil outside the hospital with their lit candles in the darkness. How much additional information did Fernando Ferrar have by now to broadcast on television?

Reluctantly, Castle realized this was going to be an impossible story to contain, even if he gave no press conferences. He suspected Anne was already concluding her brother was replicating the passion of Christ. He was certain that in no time at all the story that Father Bartholomew had been mysteriously scourged by unseen assailants would be circulating throughout New York City, possibly around the world, now with the added detail that the scourge wounds he manifested were exactly like the scourge wounds on the Shroud of Turin, wound for wound, blow for blow.

Just then Castle’s cell phone rang. It was the hospital. Bartholomew was coming out of sedation. The nurse on duty was calling him as instructed, so he could be there to examine the priest as soon as he was once again conscious.

“I’m sorry,” Castle told the group in his conference room. “But
we’re going to have to resume this at another time. The hospital just called and Father Bartholomew is coming around. I’ve got to get there immediately.”

“I want to come with you,” Anne said urgently.

Morelli chimed in: “I’d like to go as well.”

“No,” Castle said politely but firmly. “Neither one of you has any medical training as far as I know. I’m sure there will be an appropriate time for you to visit with him, but now I need to examine my patient alone.”

“I’d like some time to speak with you privately,” Anne said. “Can we arrange a time to get together?”

Thinking quickly, Castle realized he could use the drive time questioning Anne, to find out exactly how she fit into Father Bartholomew’s life and why nobody seemed to know anything about her, until now. Asking to meet with him privately, Anne must have seen the same need to explain her background in more detail, Castle guessed.

“Okay, you can ride with me in the car to the hospital,” Castle said. “That will give us a few minutes to get started.”

“Thank you,” Anne said appreciatively. “When we get to the hospital, I promise I will stay out of your way.”

“Father Morelli, you join Anne in the waiting room of the ICU at Beth Israel, if you want, this afternoon,” Castle instructed. “If everything goes well, you and Anne should be able to visit with Father Bartholomew for a few minutes later today, after I examine him.”

“I’ll do that,” Morelli said appreciatively.

Next, Castle turned to apologize to Archbishop Duncan for having to leave the meeting so abruptly. “You will excuse me, your Eminence, but I have to leave immediately,” he explained. Castle wanted to be sure he was properly respectful, especially with Fathers Morelli and Middagh, two representatives of the Vatican, in
the room. “I’m sure you will understand, but I want to be the first to talk with Father Bartholomew when he regains consciousness.”

“Certainly,” Archbishop Duncan said graciously, as Castle gathered up his papers to leave. “We are available to you on a twenty-four-hour basis. The pope has made it clear that right now nothing is more important to the Catholic Church than Father Bartholomew and the Shroud of Turin.”

Thursday noon

Return to Beth Israel Hospital

Day 15

Castle sat with Anne in the back of the limo headed downtown. He estimated the ride would take about twenty minutes, depending on traffic, and he instructed the driver to get to the hospital as fast as possible.

Riding with Anne, Castle felt conflicted. He had to admit he was physically attracted to Anne, yet he was uncomfortable not knowing who exactly she was and how she fit into the puzzle.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he began, “but I’m still not sure how your family history fits together. You said your father separated from your mother shortly after you were born.”

“That’s right,” Anne said. She folded her hands quietly in her lap, resolved to tell Dr. Castle the story. “My mother and Jonathan Bartholomew, the man who was Paul’s father, had been high school sweethearts. That was over forty years ago, when the Vietnam War was reaching its height under President Nixon. Jonathan got drafted in the 1970 lottery and was sent off to Vietnam. A few
months later, my mother heard he had been killed in combat. She mourned his loss. After that, she met my father. They got married and I was born.”

“So why did Paul tell me he had no siblings?” Castle asked.

“A few months after I was born, Paul’s father-to-be unexpectedly came walking out of the Vietnam bush. Everybody was shocked. Jonathan Bartholomew was treated as a hero. It turns out he had been captured by the Viet Cong and he escaped. But when he came back to the United States, my mother was already married to my father and she was pregnant with me.”

“Okay,” Castle said patiently, used to hearing complicated life stories from his patients. “What happened then?”

“My mother was always in love with Jonathan. When he came home, she began seeing him, even more in love with him than ever. She tried to hide the relationship from my father, Matthew Cassidy, but it didn’t work. When my father found out, he gave my mother a choice.”

“Is that when they got divorced?”

“Not immediately,” Anne said. “My mother said she would try to stay in the marriage. But when I was about one year old, my mother announced she wanted a divorce. My father took it very hard, but granted her the divorce, on the condition that she would agree to give him sole custody over me. My mother agreed. Once the court decree was final, my father moved to Canada with me as an infant. My father never saw my mother again. After that, my mother married Jonathan Bartholomew and Paul was born about a year later.”

“Did you ever reconcile with your mother?”

“No, I didn’t. My father told me my mother had died giving birth to me. When I found out the truth, I learned I had a brother I never knew about. But I didn’t attempt to contact Paul, out of respect for my father.”

“How did you find out the truth?”

“My father died a year ago, of cancer. When I was going through his papers to settle his estate, I found the divorce papers. That’s when I discovered who my mother really was. I did some research and found out the true story, including that Paul was my brother.”

“What happened to Paul’s father?” Castle asked.

“I’m not sure,” she answered, “but from the research I did, it seems Paul’s father was killed tragically in a work-related accident, about three months before Paul was born. As best I can find out, Paul never knew his father, just like he never knew anything about me.”

Anne’s information about Paul’s father fit what Bartholomew had told Castle, that he never knew his father because his father had been killed before he was born. Castle felt sure that when Bartholomew had insisted he was an only child, the priest’s mother had never told him anything about having a different husband and a daughter born prior to her marriage with his father. Father Bartholomew was certainly in for a surprise.

“What was your mother’s name?” Castle asked.

“Anne, just like me,” she answered. “As I explained, my father was Matthew Cassidy and Paul’s father was Jonathan Bartholomew.”

“Did you try to see your mother after you found out about her?”

“No,” Anne said quietly. “It was too late. She had died a few years earlier.”

“And you say you never met your brother until now?”

“No, we’ve never even spoken.”

Still, Castle wanted to make sure he understood how the pieces fit together. “But when I saw you in the hospital, you said you came from Montreal to be with your brother. What I guess
I didn’t fully appreciate was that you had never seen him before. What you are telling me now is that Paul still does not know you exist.”