Cross Bones

by Kathy Reichs

“Yes. Researchers have been working for years to map the DNA molecule. Much of that mapping has focused on an area that codes for specific proteins we share as a species.”

  “Sounds like Atkins. No carbs, no fats.”

  “Do you want to hear this?”

  Jake held up both hands.

  I tried to think of a simpler way to put it.

  “Some researchers are working to map the area of DNA that makes us all alike, the genes that give us two ears, scarce body hair, a pelvis designed for walking. Medical researchers are working to identify genes that can mutate and cause illnesses, like cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s.”

  “So mappers look at genes that make us all the same. Medical researchers look at genes that make things go wrong.”

  “That’s not a bad way to look at it. Forensic scientists, on the other hand, look at the parts of the DNA molecule that make people genetically different. The junk, or filler, DNA they study contains polymorphisms, variations that distinguish one person from another. But these differences are not physically obvious.

  “All that said, there are those in forensic science who have crossed over from junk DNA and its variations to the genes that control physical characteristics, the differences we notice when looking at a person. These researchers are investigating what might be used to predict, from the genes, individual traits like skin or eye color.”

  Jake looked confused. And rightly so. I was so excited I was botching the explanation.

  “Say police collect a sample left by an unknown perpetrator. Blood or semen at a crime scene, maybe. Without a suspect in mind, they have no one to whom to compare that sample. It exists in a vacuum. But if that sample can be used to limit the population of potential suspects, that’s a very useful investigative tool.”

  Jake saw where I was going. “Predict sex, and you’ve cut your suspect pool by half.”

  “Exactly. Programs already exist that can predict biogeographical ancestry. When you phoned me in Montreal we discussed a case in which that was done.”

  “So the advantage is that you’re not limited to comparison of an unknown sample to a known, you can actually predict what a guy might look like.”

  “Or girl.”

  “Yowza. A guy like Max or the people in my tomb?”

  “Exactly. So far I’ve been talking about nuclear DNA. Are you familiar with mitochondrial DNA?”

  “Refresh me.”

  “Mitochondrial DNA isn’t located in the nucleus, it’s located out in the cell.”

  “What does it do?”

  “Think of it as an energy source.”

  “I could use a fill-up. What’s its role in a forensic context?”

  “The coding region of mitochondrial DNA is small, maybe eleven thousand base pairs, and shows little variation. But, like nuclear DNA, there’s a part of the genome that doesn’t seem to do much, but has lots of polymorphism sites.”

  “What’s the advantage over nuclear DNA?”

  “There are only two copies of nuclear DNA, but hundreds to thousands of copies of mitochondrial DNA in each of our cells. So the likelihood of recovering mitochondrial DNA from small or degraded samples is much greater.”

  “Small and degraded like my Kidron bone. Or two-thousand-year-old Max.”

  “Yes. The older the bone, the lower the likelihood of extracting a testable sample of nuclear DNA. Another advantage of mitochondrial DNA is that it’s inherited only through female lines, so the genes aren’t scrambled and recombined every time conception takes place. That means that if an individual isn’t available for direct comparison, any maternally related family member can provide a reference sample. Your mitochondrial DNA is identical to that of your mother, your sisters, your grandmother.”

  “But my daughters would have their mother’s mitochondrial DNA, not mine.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Let me put this into the perspective of our tomb, since that’s what interests me. With ancient and degraded bone, you’re more likely to get mitochondrial than nuclear DNA.”

  “Yes.”

  “Both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA can be used to compare unknowns to knowns. Like tying a suspect to a crime scene, or nailing Daddy in a paternity suit. Both can be used to show family relationships, though in different ways. But nuclear DNA can now be used to predict individual traits.”

  “To a very limited extent,” I said. “Sex, and some indicators of racial background.”

  “Okay. On to the tomb.”

  I picked up the lab report. “Not all your samples produced results. But the nuclear DNA tells us you’ve got four women and three men. Keep in mind that’s not gospel.”

  “Bad pun. Explain.”

  “Your standard CODIS set includes amelogenin markers for X and Y. Greatly oversimplifying, if you see both markers in a sample, it’s a boy. No Y marker, it’s a girl.

  “However, things are always more complicated with ancient bone. In degraded samples, alleles, or genes, that are actually present may fail to show a signature. But if you repeat the test again and again, and repeatedly get only X’s, it’s pretty safe to assume your sample is from a female.”

  “What else?” Jake glanced over his shoulder at the door. My eyes followed, as though controlled by his movement.

  “At least six of the tomb individuals are related,” I said.

  “Oh?” Jake drew closer, throwing a shadow onto the printout.

  “But that’s exactly what you’d expect in a family tomb. The surprising thing is th—”

  “Which six?” Jake’s levity had vanished.

  “I don’t know. Your individuals are reported only by sample numbers.”

  Jake cupped a hand on his mouth for a second or two. Then he snatched the printouts, shot to his feet, and crossed the room in three lanky strides.

  “Jake. That’s not the most significant thing.”

  I was addressing empty air.

  Forget the tomb bones. I wanted to talk about Max. That was important. Then I remembered the tooth report.

  No, I told myself. It was all important now.

  I found Jake in the back bedroom arranging prints on a worktable. Joining him, I could see they were the ossuary photos Ryan and I had viewed.

  As I watched, Jake wrote a name on the lower border of each print. Beside each name, he added the DNA lab’s reference number.

  Handing me the printouts, Jake called out the first sample number. I checked the nuclear DNA report.

  “Female,” I read.

  “Marya,” he said. Mary.

  Jake drew a female symbol on the Marya ossuary photo, then flipped through a set of stapled pages.

  “The physical anthropologist estimated this gal was old, sixty-five plus.” He jotted the figure, then read the next lab number.

  “Female,” I said.

  “Mariameme. The one called Mary.”

  Jake checked the physical anthropologist’s report. “Older adult.” He marked the photo, then read the third number.

  “Male,” I said.

  “Yehuda, son of Jeshua.”

  Jude, son of Jesus, I translated in my mind.

  “Twenty-five to forty years.” Jake read the next number.

  “Female,” I said.

  “Salome. Older adult.”

  One by one, we worked our way through the remains that had been associated with inscribed ossuaries. Mary. Mary. Joseph. Matthew. Jude. Salome. Jesus. In each case, the inscription fit the gender predicted by the nuclear DNA. Or vice versa.

  Two sets of remains from the tomb floor were determined to be those of a male and a female.

  Amplification of nuclear DNA was unsuccessful for Jesus and Matthew, and for the other samples recovered from the tomb floor. No results. No information on those individuals.

  Jake and I looked at each other. It was like waiting out a no-hitter. Neither of us put it into words. But even with the gaps, it all fit. The Jesus family.

  “So who’s related to who?” Jake asked.
>
  “Whom.” Nervous reflex. I switched from the nuclear- to the mitochondrial-DNA report.

  “Remember, these results show links, or lack of links, through female lines. Mother-daughter, mother-son, siblings sharing the same mother, cousins whose mothers had the same mother, and so on. Okay. Here goes. Mariameme and Salome are related.” I spoke aloud as I matched sample numbers to names. “So is Marya, the older Mary.”

  Jake made notations on the three prints.

  “Yose is part of the lineage. So is Jude.”

  More notations.

  “The male from the tomb floor is related.”

  “Meaning he shows the same mitochondrial-DNA sequencing as Mariameme, Salome, Marya, Yose, and Jude.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The female from the tomb floor is unique. That’s no big deal. She may have married into the family from outside. As a relative only by marriage, not blood, she, and her children, if she had any, would have had the mitochondrial DNA of her mother’s line.”

  “Nothing from Daddy.”

  “Mitochondrial DNA does not recombine. The whole shooting match comes from Mom.”

  I continued with the printout.

  “Matthew is also unique. But again, if his mother was from another family, he would have her mitochondrial DNA, not that of her husband.”

  “He could be a cousin.”

  “Yes. The offspring of a brother and his wife.”

  I looked up.

  “The Jesus material was too degraded for amplification. Sequencing wasn’t possible.”

  Jake began sketching a family tree, hand darting like a hummingbird.

  “Everything tallies. The older Mary is the mother.” Jake drew a circle, named it Mary, and sent spokes shooting downward from it. “Salome. Mary. Joseph. Jesus. According to scripture, those are four of Mary’s seven kids.”

  The inscription. Yehuda, son of Yeshua. Jude, son of Jesus.

  Donovan Joyce’s crazy theory. Jesus survived the crucifixion, married, and fathered a child. Were we back to that?

  My mind wouldn’t accept it.

  The hell with the no-hitter. I jumped into the commentary.

  “How does Jude fit in?” I asked.

  Jake raised both brows and dipped his chin. Need I say the obvious?

  “Jesus with siblings, living on, and becoming a daddy? You’re talking about the three fundamental doctrines of the Catholic Church—virgin birth, resurrection, and celibacy.”

  Jake raised both shoulders. He was so agitated the move came across more spasm than shrug.

  “No, Jake. What you’re inferring can’t be. This Jude has DNA that links him to the other women in your tomb, to the older Mary, Salome, and Mariameme. If Jesus had fathered a son, that child would have the mitochondrial DNA of its mother’s family, not its father’s family.”

  “Fine. Jude could be a nephew of Jesus. A grandson of Mary.” Jake added a circle at the end of one spoke, and sent another spoke shooting downward from it. “One of the sisters could have married another man named Jesus and had a son named Jude.”

  “Donovan Joyce claimed he’d seen a scroll written by someone named Jesus, son of James,” I offered, almost against my will.

  “That couldn’t have been James of the ossuary, Jesus’ brother. James’s wife would have been unrelated, and James’s son would have had his mother’s mitochondrial DNA, not his grandmother’s, right?”

  “Yes.”

  Thoughts were whipsawing in my head. “Jake, there’s someth—”

  Again he cut me off.

  “The female from the tomb floor is unrelated. She could be—” Jake stopped as the thought struck him. “Holy hell, Tempe. Donovan Joyce thought Jesus married Mary Magdalene. Others have suggested the same thing. That female could be Mary Magdalene.”

  Jake was barely taking time to breathe.

  “But it really isn’t important who she is. And Matthew’s unrelated, right? He could be one of the disciples who, for whatever reason, ended up buried in the tomb. Or a son of one of the brothers, another nephew.”

  “Lot of mights. Lot of maybes.” I resisted the pull of Jake’s exhilaration.

  Jake ignored that.

  “James is missing because his ossuary was stolen. And Simon died decades later. Hot damn, Tempe, it’s practically the whole family.”

  The same thought crossed our minds simultaneously. Jake voiced it.

  “So who’s the crucified man in the shroud?”

  “Maybe crucified,” I cautioned.

  “Okay. The Jesus from the ossuary could be another nephew. Damn! Why couldn’t that lab sequence him?”

  Abruptly, Jake strode to the ossuary cabinet. Disengaging the padlock, he peered in. Satisfied, he closed and resecured the door.

  Jesus alive and with offspring? Jesus dead and remaining shrouded in a tomb? Each scenario seemed worse than the next.

  “It’s all speculation,” I said.

  When Jake turned, his eyes bored into mine. “Not if I can prove the James ossuary came from that tomb.”

  I picked up the mitochondrial-DNA report. Marya, Mariameme, Salome, Yose, Yehuda, and the unknown male were members of a single matrilineage. Matthew had come from another lineage, and the unknown female from the tomb floor had come from yet another. The bones from the ossuary inscribed Yeshua, son of Yehosef were too degraded to yield DNA.

  Jesus, son of Joseph. But what Jesus? What Joseph?

  Had Jake really found the tomb of the Holy Family? If so, who was the shrouded man I’d found in the hidden loculus?

  “There’s something else, Jake.”

  “What?”

  I started to speak, but Jake’s phone stopped me.

  “Miracle of miracles. Could that be the Hevrat Kadisha, actually returning my call about Max?” he said, loping to the office.

  In Jake’s absence I reread the reports on Max and his tooth.

  The nuclear DNA told me Max was male. No biggie. I knew that from the bones. Same for the odd molar stuck in Max’s jaw. Male.

  The mitochondrial DNA told me Max was not a member of the matrilineage in the Kidron tomb. His sequencing was unique. If this really was the Jesus family, Max was an outsider. Or at least not a descendant of one of those females.

  The mitochondrial DNA also told me the odd molar in Max’s jaw belonged to someone other than Max. Okay. Bergeron said that. He was certain it came from a younger individual.

  It was the next statement that made no sense. I was on my third reread when Jake returned.

  “Assho—”

  “Hevrat Kadisha?”

  Tight nod.

  “What did they say?”

  “Baruch Dayan ha-emet.”

  I curled my fingers in a come-on gesture.

  “Blessed is the one true Judge.”

  “What else?”

  “We are the spawn of Satan. They are following the greatest mitzvah. Now the self-righteous little wankers plan to put the screws to my Talpiot site.”

  “You’ve unearthed skeletal remains at a first-century synagogue?”

  “Of course not. I told him that, but he didn’t believe me. Said he and his storm troopers would be landing today in full force.”

  “Did you ask if they took Max?”

  “The good rabbi refused to discuss it.”

  Jake hesitated. “But he also said something weird.”

  I waited.

  “He wanted all the harassing phone calls to stop.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve only contacted the Hevrat Kadisha twice.”

  “So who’s doing all the phoning?”

  “Apparently the rabbi doesn’t know.”

  A strange silence followed. I broke it.

  “You were right, Jake.” I held up the mitochondrial DNA reports on Max and his tooth. “This could be bigger than either of us imagined.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  I did.

  Now Jake looked like the doe in the headlights.

  35
/>   I’D REPEATED IT TWICE. JAKE WAS STILL NOT getting it.

  “The tooth and the skeleton show different mitochondrial-DNA sequencing. That means the tooth came from a different person than the skeleton. But we already knew that. The dentist affiliated with my Montreal lab already told us that. The tooth came from someone younger than Max.

  “And Max’s mitochondrial DNA is unique, different from both the tooth person and the members of the tomb matrilineage. If Max was a member of that family, his mother was an outsider.”

  “A female who married in.”

  “Possibly. But the real shocker is that the mitochondrial DNA in the molar is identical to the mitochondrial DNA in the Kidron tomb family.”

  “DNA ties the tooth, but not the skeleton, to the Mary lineage?”

  “Sequencing links the odd tooth from Max to the matrilineally linked individuals in your tomb.”

  “The tooth that was reinserted into Max’s jaw?”

  “Yes, Jake. It means the owner of the tooth was related to the people in your tomb. He was a member of that family, a maternal relative.”

  “But the tooth didn’t belong in that jaw. How did it get there?”

  “My guess is the transfer was a simple mistake. The tooth probably slipped from the jaw of one of the individuals in the commingled remains, and became erroneously incorporated with the bones of the articulated skeleton. Maybe during recovery. Maybe during transport. It couldn’t have happened at Haas’s lab. We now know Haas never saw Max.”

  “So at least one person in Cave 2001 was unquestionably related to the people in the Kidron tomb. What the hell was a member of that family doing up on Masada?”

  Jake walked to the window, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked down. I waited while he wandered through thoughts of his own.

  “Yadin’s reticence to discuss the cave burials. Haas’s failure to report on them.” Jake’s voice was hushed. “Of course. Those weren’t zealots. A group of Nazarenes was living in that cave.”

  Though Jake wasn’t really speaking to me, his hold on my attention was complete.

  “What the hell have we stumbled onto? Who was this Max? Why was that one skeleton not given to Haas? Who was hidden in the loculus in the Kidron tomb? Why weren’t those bones ever collected and placed in an ossuary?”

  It came out sounding like the middle of a thought.