“What did you do then?”
“I clawed his eyes, kicked him in the groin, sprayed him in the face with a fire extinguisher, then used it like a bat to knock him down the stairs. I swear, I thought I’d find him dead, but he was gone. He must be pretty hard headed.”
“He’s hard headed.”
“What can I say, I have a stubborn streak.”
She got up and went to the coffee maker. “Jenny didn’t get much sleep either, poor girl. She’s got a test today. Hope she doesn’t flunk it. Hey, I’ve got decaf if you want it.”
He came to her in the kitchen. “Amari, I’m nervous enough as it is. I don’t need coffee.”
“You don’t think Rahal is behind this, do you? He’s the only one with a motive. This guy was Middle Eastern and so is Rahal.”
“I can’t imagine he’d go that far.”
“Jeremy says he’s dangerous—because he’s a Muslim.”
“If he is a Muslim, he doesn’t seem very devout.”
“Still, my dad thinks it’s the only lead we have. He’s the only one with a motive.”
“That we know of,” he reminded her.
“Yes, that we know of. Then again, it could just be a perv wanting to rape me. He got what was coming to him. Either way, my dad wants to talk to you.”
“To me?”
“Well, yeah, because you work with Rahal. And he’s with me about the Shroud. He thinks there may be something bigger behind this than Rahal’s hurt feelings. I told him about the pictures I took. He smells a cover-up, just like I do.”
“What pictures? What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t tell you because I don’t want you involved. I was afraid you would say something and then Rahal would know we’re still talking. But the president forced Rahal to show me the Shroud sample. And guess what?”
“You found something?”
Amari went to her bedroom and came back with the Polaroids. “Right there, two kinds of fibers, just like we thought. I was at the library looking for some pictures to confirm that those were cotton fibers. I was going to tell you once I had all the evidence. Until then, it was just conjecture.”
“Did you find any?”
“No, but my dad said I didn’t need to. His crime lab has pictures for reference. They work with fibers all the time. I felt like an idiot. I should have thought of that.”
“You’re not supposed know everything. You haven’t even graduated.”
“Well, I know now. So can you come over?”
“Tonight?”
“No, tomorrow night. My dad took some of my photos to the crime lab. When he gets their opinion, he wants to meet with you. He’s interested in what you know about the Shroud.”
“I can tell him the science behind it, but I’m not sure how that’s going to help.”
“You said you knew how the sampling process went. You said they handled it like idiots.”
“They did.”
“Maybe they only want us to think they’re idiots. Maybe this is a cover-up. Anyway, don’t be surprised if he goes that route with you. So around seven?”
“Your dad’s a cop. Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.” She shot him a playful look. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”
“I’m all for the easy way. Hey, I better get back to work. Rahal doesn’t know I left. I just wanted to make sure you were safe. I couldn’t concentrate on work anyway.” He hesitated, like he was thinking of something else to say. “Well, I’ll see you tonight.”
“No, it’s tomorrow night,” she reminded him.
“Let’s do dinner tonight then.”
“Sure.”
“Well, better go,” he said, standing there awkwardly like he’d forgotten something, like there was a natural inclination he didn’t know how to handle.
Kevin might be oblivious, but Amari knew what he needed—and what she needed too. She stepped over and wrapped her arms around him and gave him a firm hug. He was rigid at first, then sort of melted into it and held her back. She pulled back and looked at his face. “Feel better now?”
The tension in his face eased up. “I do feel better.”
Jenny was right. Kevin was a genius in a physics lab, but he was oblivious to the simplest of human needs. Amari would just have to teach him. “You know, Kevin, I worry a lot too. I may be hard headed, but I’m not made of stone. I’m just a girl. Or had you not noticed that?”
“Of course, I noticed.”
“Well, girls like to be hugged from time to time.”
“Even if we’re just friends?”
“It’s perfectly acceptable in our culture.”
“Okay, I’ll remember that. Hey, I better go before Rahal finds out I’m gone.”
He was out the door before she could say another word.
Chapter 25
Pete gave the Phillips-head screwdriver a final twist and inspected his work. He slid the half inch, galvanized steel dead bolt back and forth to make sure it tracked smoothly. He’d meant to install extra protection on Amari’s front door sooner, but the attack on his girl at the library sent it to the top of his to-do list.
“Dad, that guy doesn’t know where I live,” Amari said, her hands defiantly on her hips. “Assuming he hasn’t learned his lesson. It was random. College campuses are a magnet for perverts. It was just a coincidence this happened now.”
“Maybe it was, maybe not. Either way, I’ve been meaning to install this thing on your door. And I cut a broomstick to brace the sliding door in your bedroom. I’m going to put some security film over the glass so it’ll be hard to break.”
“It’s not necessary, Dad. You’re wasting your time.”
At times, Amari seemed wise beyond her years, but other times she showed her age. Kids always thought they were invincible. It was a father’s job to show them otherwise until they got enough scrapes to figure it out themselves. “Wait till you have your own daughter,” Pete said, “then you’ll understand. So what time is this guy supposed to show?”
The doorbell rang. “That’s him,” she said and slid open the newly installed dead bolt.
“Hold on, Amari. You see that peephole? Use it first. And if you don’t see someone you recognize, don’t open the door. They’re either trying to sell you something or they’re up to no good. Get your gun by your side and pretend you’re not home.”
The doorbell rang again.
Amari pouted for a second, then checked the peephole. “It’s Kevin. Satisfied?”
“Not till you promise to do that every time.”
“I promise. Can I open the door now?”
“Let him in. I’m eager to hear what he’s got to say.”
Amari snapped open the other dead bolt, removed the chain, and opened the door to let Dr. Brenner inside.
So this was the amazing Dr. Brenner, 1988’s answer to Albert Einstein. To hear Amari talk, Carl Sagan came to this guy for advice. But he was just a long-haired dork with a silly smirk on his face. He didn’t look like he’d be much help.
Amari went to the kitchen and came back with a can of Mountain Dew with a straw stuck inside. “Here you go, Kevin. Dad’s got some heavy questions for you. I think you’re going to need this.”
“Well, hey, stranger,” Jenny said as she walked into the room.
“Hey, Jenny,” Dr. Brenner said. “How’s school?”
“Pharmacology is a killer, but other than that, great.”
Pete knew where this was going. They’d be yammering all night if he didn’t butt in. “Hey, guys, I’ll let you two catch up later. I’ve just got a few questions for Dr. Brenner and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
They all went to the kitchen and sat around the table. Pete wasted no time with pleasantries because there was nothing pleasant about someone trying to harm his daughter. “Now, Dr. Brenner, Amari tells me you know a lot of background information that could help shed some light on this case.”
“I know some things,” D
r. Brenner said.
“Good. Now, I’m not interested in having a religious debate. I respect the opinion of scientists like yourself, but I’m going to be up front and tell you that I’m a Christian. I believe the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial shroud mentioned in the New Testament. I know this because of the evidence. There’s no plausible way to make this forgery now, let alone with the technology they had six hundred years ago. So once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
“Sherlock Holmes,” Dr. Brenner said.
Amari pointed at him. “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
Pete forced a wry smile and kept talking. “Like I said, we’ve established beyond any reasonable doubt that this was the burial shroud of Jesus Christ. That radiation that formed the image must have been from the energy shot out during the resurrection. It’s the only plausible answer. Now, what concerns me is why they got the carbon date wrong. Dr. Brenner, Amari tells me you’re familiar with the carbon dating process. Hey, Amari, run get me that poster with the pictures of the Shroud on it.”
Amari went to her bedroom and came back with the poster with the negative image of the Shroud on one side and the positive image on the other.
“Thank you,” Pete said and took the poster from her. “I was hoping you could shed some light on why they chose this corner of all places to take the carbon date sample.” He pointed to the lower left corner of the tan, positive image of the Shroud. “This is the same corner that Amari found the dyed cotton. I had my CSI guys check out the pictures she took. They agree. There’s two kinds of fibers in that corner. Linen and cotton. Now, as careful as these scientific types are, I can’t believe the notion of a repair hadn’t occurred to them. Amari knows her weaving, but she’s not the expert she thinks she is. These guys should have known better.”
“Hey,” she objected.
“It’s the truth, Amari, you’ve read a couple of books and your mother taught you some things, but that’s the end of it. You’re not paid to know everything, but these guys are. So either they’re real idiots, or they did this on purpose. And if Amari has caught them red-handed, then they’ve got motive to keep her quiet. Maybe that’s what the guy in the library was trying to do. That attack happened the day after she made her discovery in front of Dr. Rahal. That’s too much to be coincidence. Maybe Rahal paid someone to rough her up as a warning. Maybe he was trying to kill her to shut her up. But she shut him up before he could say anything.”
“Or maybe that guy was just a pervert and he has nothing to do with the Shroud,” Amari said.
Pete knew she didn’t want to believe the attack could be connected. It might make her think twice about going forward. And she had made it very clear—she was taking this to the Vatican.
Jenny broke into the conversation. “Can I say something? It might help explain why Dr. Rahal is being such a jerk.”
“Then I’d like to hear it,” Pete said.
“You have to understand that where Dr. Rahal comes from, the culture is entirely different. Women have fewer rights and they don’t dare speak to men the way Amari challenged him. Honor is very important in his culture, and Amari insulted his honor by defying him.”
“You think he would kill to protect his honor?” Pete asked.
“It happens all the time over there.”
“This isn’t over there. Surely a man in Dr. Rahal’s position would never try such a thing.”
“No, but he might hire someone to send her a message. It would be hard for him to just let her behavior go unpunished.”
“Because she insulted his honor?”
“Because she is a woman who insulted his honor. That makes all the difference.”
“That’s certainly something to consider. Thank you, Jenny.”
“Just doing my job,” she said and walked back down the hall.
“Or it was probably just a random pervert,” Amari said emphatically.
“I’m with Amari on this,” Dr. Brenner said. “Dr. Rahal’s a jerk, but he’s not stupid. He could go to jail over that.”
“I don’t know what to think, Dr. Brenner. I’m just getting the facts. Jenny gave me some and now it’s your turn.”
“My brain is yours to pick. Have at it.”
“Okay, forget the honor killing angle for now. Let’s say that Rahal, or maybe even someone else for all we know, wants to keep Amari quiet about her theory. So we need to go back to the beginning and work our way forward. Now, Dr. Brenner, Amari tells me you’re familiar with the process of collecting these samples. She says you implied there’s some duplicity.”
“You can call me Kevin.”
“And you can call me Pete. So tell me, Kevin, give me a little history about all this.”
Kevin sipped on his Mountain Dew and thought for a moment. “First off,” he finally said, “only three labs ended up dating the Shroud instead of the seven that were originally agreed on. My lab was one of those three.”
“How convenient,” Pete said. “A cover-up would be easier with only three labs.”
“The really strange part is how they pushed STURP out of the picture. That’s The Shroud of Turin Research Project.”
“I know who they are,” Pete said.
“Okay, so you know that nobody knew more about the Shroud than STURP. These guys were the ones that suggested the carbon date in the first place. And these were the only guys who had the expertise to sample the right spot. Yet somewhere along the line, STURP gets completely pushed out. And the ones who finally got the samples ended up breaking nearly every protocol the world’s greatest scientists had agreed on. In the end, they cut out a piece from the worst possible location.”
“And you’re implying that wasn’t an accident?”
“All they had to do was look at some of the ultraviolet photos taken by STURP and they could see that. That corner was an anomalous area. It fluoresced dark green while the other parts were yellow, orange, and pink. The STURP guys knew that and the STURP guys would have said to cut somewhere else.”
“So either they’re idiots, or they did this on purpose.”
“They’re not idiots,” Amari said. “These guys have Ph.Ds.”
“Then I say they saw those ultraviolet pictures and cut there intentionally.”
“Could be,” Kevin said.
“So, Kevin, you know Dr. Rahal better than any of us. Do you think he was in cahoots with these guys who sampled the Shroud?”
“He’s not supposed to be,” Kevin said, “but he sure is defensive about it.”
“Then I say he has motive,” Pete said. “A Muslim wouldn’t want proof of Christ’s divinity known to the world. That’s why he’s so defensive.”
“He doesn’t seem the religious type to me,” Kevin said. “I mean, I think he is a Muslim, but not very devout. Not enough to commit murder.”
“You know him that well?” Pete asked.
“No, he hates me. He only talks business—or fusses at me.”
“So is that all you’ve got? He’s a jerk?”
“No, there’s a little something else.”
“Then let’s hear it.”
“All right, it’s like this. When all the numbers from the three carbon date labs came in, it showed that the farther away from the body the sample was taken, the older the sample dated. And the closer the samples were to the body, the younger they dated. Amari thinks that’s because of the uneven way they did the patch. The higher up part had more cotton. But whatever the cause, this sent up red flags because the dates should have been random.”
“So you’re telling me that the date they got depended on how far away the cloth was from the body,” Pete said, just to clarify.
“Exactly,” Kevin said. “They fixed this by reporting the averages for my lab’s results and not the actual numbers.”
“Explain that,” Pete said.
“You see, they divided the original sample into four different pieces. Oxford got the left m
iddle piece, Zurich got the right middle, and we got the two outer edges. When we tested our two pieces, one end was way different from the other end and that’s how we saw the trend. So we only reported the average of the two numbers so nobody would notice.”
“That sounds like intentional deception,” Pete said. “Were you involved in that?”
Kevin held up his hands defensively. “No, sir. I only ran the test. I had no control over what was reported. I just knew what they did when I saw the published results.”
“So if they went that far to cover up the truth, then maybe they would go even further. Like put a hit on Amari to shut her up.”
“Dad, I really don’t think . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it.”
“You have to think about it,” Pete said.
“Trust me. I haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
“All right, guys, I think I’ve heard enough. Amari, remember what I told you. No dark alleys. I’ll get your license to carry by the end of the week.”
“Carry a gun? Do I have to?”
“If you’re going to be a cop, you need to get used to it.”
She gave a hard sigh. “I guess you’re right. If it makes you feel any better, it’s in my nightstand.”
“Good. Now I want you to come with me to the firing range and practice. You’ll need to do that before we get a license to carry. You’ll have to be signed off.”
“Fine, Dad. If it’ll make you feel better.”
“It would. And a patrol car should be outside most of the time at night. Starting tonight. At least until we get to the bottom of this. Meeting adjourned. I’ll get back with you when I find out more.”
“Hey, Dad. I promised Kevin all this would stay between us. He could get fired if they know he told us any of this. Don’t mention Kevin or anything only he would know.”
Pete looked over at Kevin. “Don’t worry about a thing. Your secret’s safe with me. All I needed to know was whether or not I should consider Dr. Rahal a suspect. I’ll talk to him next, and I promise, I won’t mention anything you just told me.”
“Thank you,” Kevin said. “I appreciate that.”
Kevin went back to catch up with Jenny and Amari walked Pete to his car.
Carbon-14: The Shroud of Turin (An Amari Johnston Novel) Page 15