We were shown to a booth so dark it was impossible to make out the printed word. I glanced at the menu then gave Ryan a take-it-away gesture.
The waiter wore a white shirt and black pants. His teeth were yellowed, his face lined from years of cigarettes.
Ryan said something in Arabic. I understood the word “Coke.” The waiter asked a question. Ryan gave a thumbs-up. The waiter scribbled on a pad and left.
“What did you order?” I asked.
“Pizza.”
“Vocabulary à la Friedman?”
“I can also ask the location of the toilet.”
“What kind?”
“American Standard?”
“Of pizza.”
“I’m not sure.”
I told Ryan about my visit to the Rockefeller.
“Getz thought the shroud was first century, made of both linen and wool, and probably imported.”
“Meaning costly.”
“Yes. And the hair was clean, trimmed, and vermin free.”
Ryan got it right away. “Good threads. Good grooming. The guy in the shroud was upper crust and had a perforated heel bone. Jake thinks it’s J.C.”
I recounted Jake’s explanation of the history of the Kidron and Hinnom. Hell Valley. Then I ticked points off on my fingers.
“High-status individual found in a Kidron tomb Jake’s certain was the Jesus family tomb. The tomb held ossuaries inscribed with names out of scripture. Jake believes the tomb is the source of the James ossuary, the possible burial box of Jesus’ brother.”
I dropped my hand. “Jake’s convinced the man in the shroud is Jesus of Nazareth.”
“What do you think?”
“Come on, Ryan. What are the chances? Think of the implications.”
We both did that for a moment. Ryan spoke first.
“How does Max tie in with this Kidron tomb?”
“I don’t think he does. And that’s another point. What’s the probability that two skeletons with claims to being Jesus Christ show up at the same, exact point in time?”
“That’s not quite true. Max was unearthed in the sixties. It’s just recently that he’s resurfaced.”
“Ferris is killed. Kaplan shows me the photo. I locate Max, then rule him out. Three weeks later I find the guy in the shroud and he’s Jesus Christ? It’s preposterous.”
“Jake was so hot to have Max he paid your way to Israel. Who does he think Max was?”
“Someone of importance who shouldn’t have been at Masada.”
I recounted my trip to Hebrew University, and told Ryan about the missing pages from the Masada transcripts.
“Curious,” he said.
I also described my meeting with Tovya Blotnik, and mentioned Jake’s qualms about the man.
“Curious,” he said.
I debated telling Ryan about the sedan. What if the whole thing was the product of my imagination?
What if it wasn’t?
Better to be wrong than to take a rock in the head. Or worse.
I described the incident.
Ryan listened. Was he smiling? Too dark to tell.
“Probably nothing,” I said.
Ryan reached across the table and put a hand over mine. “You’re okay?”
“More or less,” I said.
Ryan rubbed his thumb back and forth across my skin. “You know I’d prefer that you didn’t set out on your own.”
“I know,” I said.
The waiter dropped two coasters on the table and parked a can of high-test Coke on each. Apparently Ryan’s Hebrew lessons hadn’t included the word “diet.”
“No beer?” I asked.
“Not an option.”
“How do you know?”
“No beer signs.”
“Always detecting,” I said, smiling.
“Crime never sleeps.”
“I think I’ll go to the Jerusalem Post tomorrow, browse through the archives, see what Yadin was saying about the Masada cave skeletons back in the sixties,” I said.
“Why not use the university library?”
“Jake says the Post keeps old articles on file by topic. Should be a hell of a lot quicker than plowing through reels of microfiche.”
“The Post will be closed on Saturday,” Ryan said.
Of course it would. I changed the subject.
“How was your interview?” I asked.
“Kaplan’s insisting he was hired to hit Ferris.”
“By whom?”
“Kaplan claims he never knew her name,” Ryan said.
“Her?”
I think Ryan nodded.
“What did this mystery woman say to him?”
“She needed a shooter.”
“Why’d she want Kaplan to kill Ferris?”
“She wanted him dead.”
Eye roll. Wasted in the dark.
“When did she solicit his help?”
“He thinks it was the second week of January.”
“Around the time Ferris was asking Kaplan to sell the skeleton.”
“Yep.”
“Ferris was shot in mid-February.”
“Yep.”
The waiter issued napkins, plates, and utensils, then placed a pizza between us. It was covered with olives, tomatoes, and little green things I took to be capers.
“How’d the woman make contact?” I asked when the waiter had gone.
“Called the pet shop.”
Ryan served slices of pizza.
“Let me understand this. A strange woman rang up, inquired about guinea pigs, then said, ‘Oh, by the way, I want you to take someone out?’”
“That’s his story.”
“Now that’s curious.”
“That’s his story.”
“This woman give a name?”
“Nope.”
“Could Kaplan tell you anything about her?”
“Said she sounded like a cokehead.”
The pizza was excellent. I took a moment to wade through the flavors. Tomato, onion, green pepper, olives, feta, and a spice I couldn’t identify.
“What did she offer?”
“Three grand.”
“What did Kaplan say?”
“Ten grand.”
“He got ten thousand dollars?”
“The woman counteroffered with three grand up front, three after the hit.”
“What did Kaplan do?”
“He claims he took the payout, then blew her off.”
“He scammed her?”
“What’s she gonna do? Call the cops?”
“She’s still got three grand to have him capped.”
“Good point.” Ryan served up seconds.
“Did Kaplan and this woman ever meet face-to-face?”
“No. The money was left under a trash can in Jarry Park.”
“How very James Bond.”
“He insists that’s how it worked.”
We ate and watched the crowd around us. A woman sat opposite, her face a pale egg in the darkness. It was all I could see. Her hijab hid her hair and was pinned beneath her chin. Her shirt was dark, the sleeves long, the cuffs buttoned tight at the wrists.
Our eyes met. The woman didn’t look away. I did.
“I thought Kaplan was strictly white-collar,” I said.
“Maybe he got bored and decided on a career change.”
“Kaplan could be making the whole thing up to throw you off.”
“I’ve been thrown off by lesser luminaries,” Ryan said, doling out the last two slices of pizza.
Again, we ate in silence. When I’d finished, I leaned back against the wall.
“Could the mystery woman be Miriam Kessler?”
“I posed that very question to Kaplan. The gentleman answered in the negative, saying the good widow was above reproach.”
Ryan bunched his napkin and tossed it onto his plate.
“Got any ideas?” I asked.
“Madonna. Katie Couric. Old Mother Hubbard. Lots of women call sm
all-time crooks with no history of homicidal behavior and offer them money to commit murder.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.
31
“ALLAHUU-UUU-AKBAAAAR—”
Recorded prayer exploded outside my window.
I opened one eye.
Dawn was seeping around the things in my room. One of them was Ryan.
“You awake?”
“Hamdulillah.” Ryan’s voice was thick and fuzzy.
“Um hmm,” I said.
“Praise the Lord.” Mumbled translation.
“Whose?” I asked.
“Too deep for five A.M.”
It was a deep question. One I’d considered long after Ryan fell asleep.
“I’m convinced it’s Max.”
“The muezzin?”
I hit Ryan with a pillow. He rolled over.
“Someone wanted Max so badly they were willing to kill for him.”
“Ferris?”
“For one.”
“I’m listening.” Ryan’s eyes were blue and sleepy.
“Jake’s right. This goes beyond the Hevrat Kadisha.”
“I thought the HK boys wanted everyone.”
I shook my head. “This isn’t about the generic Jewish dead, Ryan. It’s about Max.”
“So who is he?”
“Who was he.” My voice was taut with self-recrimination.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I lost him.”
“What could you have done?”
“Delivered him directly to the IAA. Not hauled him with me to the Kidron. Or, at least taken steps to keep him secure.”
“Shouldn’t have left the Uzi behind in the Bradley.”
I clocked Ryan again. He confiscated the pillow, scooted up, and propped it behind his head. I nestled beside him.
“Facts, ma’am,” Ryan said.
It was a game we played when stumped. I started the time line.
“In the first century C.E., people died and were buried in a cave at Masada, probably during the seven-year occupation of the summit by Jewish zealots. In 1963, Yigael Yadin and his team excavated that cave but failed to report on bones found there. Nicu Haas, the physical anthropologist detailed with analyzing those bones, stated verbally to Yadin and his staff that the remains represented twenty-four to twenty-six commingled individuals. Haas made no mention of one isolated, articulated, and complete skeleton, later described to Jake Drum by a volunteer excavator who’d helped clear the cave.”
Ryan picked up the thread.
“That isolated, articulated, and complete skeleton, hereinafter to be referred to as Max, ended up at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. Sender, unknown.”
“In 1973, Yossi Lerner stole Max from the museum and gave him to Avram Ferris,” I said.
“Ferris spirited Max to Canada, later entrusted him to Father Sylvain Morissonneau at l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges,” Ryan said.
“On February twenty-sixth, Morissonneau gave Max to Brennan. Days later Morissonneau turned up dead.”
“You’re jumping ahead,” Ryan said.
“True.” I thought about dates. “On February fifteenth, Avram Ferris was found shot to death in Montreal.”
“On February sixteenth, a man named Kessler handed Brennan a photo of a skeleton that turned out to be Max.” Ryan.
“Hirsch Kessler turned out to be Hershel Kaplan, a small-time hustler and dealer in illegal antiquities.”
“Kaplan fled Canada and was arrested in Israel.” Ryan. “Said flight took place just days before Father Morissonneau’s death on March second.”
“On March ninth, Ryan and Brennan arrived in Israel. The next day Drum took Brennan on a tomb crawl, and Max was stolen by the Hevrat Kadisha. Presumably. Also that same day, Brennan’s room was ransacked,” I added.
“The next day, March eleventh, under skilled interrogation”—Ryan grinned his humblest of grins—“Kaplan admitted that Ferris had asked him to sell Max. Kaplan claimed he floated word of the skeleton’s availability in early to mid January.”
“That same day, Brennan was followed by men who appeared to be Muslim. Oh, and we forgot about Jamal Hasan Abu-Jarur and Muhammed Hazman Shalaideh.” Ryan.
“The men parked outside l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges,” I said.
“‘Tourists.’” Ryan hooked quote marks around the word.
“Chronologically, that occurred about two weeks after Ferris’s murder.”
“Noted,” Ryan agreed. “Under even more skilled interrogation, on that same day Kaplan admitted that a woman hired him to kill Ferris, but denied knowing the woman, and denied being the shooter.”
“That deal was struck in early January, weeks before Ferris was shot.” I thought for a moment. “Anything else?”
“Those are the facts, ma’am. Unless you want to get into the shroud bones. But they are seemingly unrelated to Max or Ferris.”
“True.” I moved the game to phase two. “Main players?”
Ryan began. “Yossi Lerner, Orthodox Jew and liberator of Masada Max.”
“Avram Ferris, murder victim and onetime possessor of Max,” I added.
“Hershel Kaplan, aka Hirsch Kessler, murder suspect and would-be seller of Max.” Ryan.
“Miriam Ferris, grieving widow with ties to Hershel Kaplan,” I said.
“And recipient of four million in insurance money.”
“Yes.”
“Sylvain Morissonneau, possible murder victim and onetime possessor of Max.”
“Kaplan’s mystery woman.”
“Good one,” Ryan said.
“Minor characters?”
Ryan considered.
“Mr. Litvak, Israeli associate and accuser of Kaplan.”
“How does Litvak fit in?” I asked.
“Another party with an interest in Max,” Ryan said.
“All right, then Tovya Blotnik,” I said.
“The IAA director?”
“Same reasoning,” I said.
“Jake Drum,” Ryan said.
“No way,” I said.
Ryan shrugged.
“Peripherals?” I asked.
“Dora Ferris, victim’s mother.”
“Courtney Purviance, victim’s employee.”
“We’re getting goofy.”
“True,” I agreed. “But one thing is clear. Somehow it all comes back to Max.”
“Hypotheses?” Ryan opened phase three.
I started.
“Proposition one. A group of ultra-Orthodox Jews has discovered Max’s identity and fear his presence at Masada will taint the image of Judaism’s sacred site.”
“But we know Max is not J.C. So who is he?”
“A Nazarene. Suppose this ultra-Orthodox group has learned that those living in the cave weren’t with the main group of Jewish zealots. They were, in fact, Jewish followers of Jesus, maybe even members of his own extended family.”
“Yadin knew this? The IAA?”
“That would explain Yadin’s reluctance to discuss the cave remains, and the government’s refusal to do further testing.”
“Tell me again. Why are Jesus followers on Masada a bad thing?”
“The Israelis have made Masada a symbol of Jewish freedom and resistance against external forces. It turns out there were Christians living up there, Jewish or not? They think they’ve reinterred the bones of the last defenders of Masada, but they’ve got early Christians buried under their monument? It would be enormously disturbing, especially for Israeli Jews.”
“Proposition one suggests some fringe group of black hats is willing to do what it takes to keep all this quiet?”
“I’m just throwing it out there.”
I remembered Donovan Joyce’s strange theory, and Lerner’s reaction to it.
“Remember that book I read called The Jesus Scroll?”
“The one about Jesus going geriatric?”
“Yes.” I held up two fingers. “Proposition two. A group of milita
nt, right-wing Christians has learned of Max’s existence and believes he is Jesus. They fear the skeleton could be used to invalidate scripture.”
“Yossi Lerner believed that,” Ryan said.
“Yes.” I said. “And perhaps Ferris. And at one time, Morissonneau.”
“But Max isn’t J.C.”
“We know Max can’t be Jesus. But Lerner was sure he was Jesus, and look how he reacted. Maybe others think so, too, and they’re playing hardball to make the bones disappear.”
“Proposition three.” Ryan gave my scenario a different spin. “A group of Islamic fundamentalists have learned of Max’s existence and believe he is Jesus. They want to use the bones to undermine Christian theology.”
“How?”
“Jesus at Masada would shatter the central concept of the resurrection. How better to kick the legs out from under Christianity?”
“And these Muslim fanatics will stop at nothing to get their hands on Max. That works.”
I pictured Sylvain Morissonneau in his office at l’Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges. I made a note to contact LaManche to find out if an exhumation and autopsy had been ordered.
“Proposition four.” I offered a hybrid of my proposition two and Ryan’s proposition three. “A group of Islamic fundamentalists have learned of Max’s existence and believe he is a Nazarene, perhaps even a member of the Jesus family. They fear both Christians and Jews might embrace this finding, reinterpreting Masada with zealots and early Nazarenes struggling against oppression, side by side. They fear the skeleton might be used to trigger a resurgence of religious ardor in the Judeo-Christian world.”
“And they’ve vowed to prevent that,” Ryan added. “That works.”
We took a moment to consider our hypotheses. Fanatic Christians, Jews, or Muslims believing the bones were those of Jesus or one of his family or followers? Each proposition was as frightening as the next.
Ryan broke the silence.
“So who is Kaplan’s mystery woman?” he asked. “And how does she link to Ferris? And how does she link to Max?”
“Excellent questions, Detective.”
“I expect phone records this afternoon.”
Ryan pulled me closer.
“Friedman wants to let Kaplan stew for a day.”
“Stewing can be productive,” I said.
Ryan kissed my cheek.
“I think we’re on the right track, Ryan.”