The Inquisitor's Key bf-7

by Jefferson Bass

  “Interesting,” Descartes mused, “that Monsieur Beauvoir knew more about this American group than you did.”

  “You think that’s who he faxed in Charlotte about the bones?”

  “Peut-être. Maybe so. It’s a good place to start.”

  “What about the London and Rome faxes? Who was he faxing there?”

  He shrugged. “Other people he wanted to know about the age of the bones. But which people, and why? Sais pas—don’t know.” He selected a crimson strawberry from the plate and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slowly, as if testing the strawberry, and an appreciative smile dawned across his face. “Ah, délicieuse,” he breathed. “The food and wine in Provence are so wonderful. If I weren’t living on a policeman’s salary, I would love it here.” He cast a swift, wistful look around the garden and at the lovely buildings. Then, to my astonishment, he took a croissant from the platter, wrapped it in a napkin, and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Seeing the expression on my face, he raised his eyebrows. Was he inviting me to tease him? Daring me to challenge him? I did neither, and after a pause he continued. “Perhaps, Docteur, you can help us find out who he was faxing. If you are willing.”

  “Me? Help how? Does it require me to do anything illegal, immoral, or dangerous?”

  “Illegal, no. Immoral, also no.” He smiled. “Sorry if that disappoints you.”

  “You didn’t say it’s not dangerous, Inspector. I’m guessing that means it is?”

  He held out a hand and waggled it. “Perhaps.”

  “Does ‘perhaps’ mean ‘definitely’?”

  “You can say no, of course.”

  “You think someone killed Stefan for the bones?”

  “Unless someone killed him for screwing your assistant.”

  I hadn’t expected that. I felt the blood rush to my face, and I realized that I might have just stepped into a trap. Did Descartes still consider me a suspect? If so, had my reaction just raised his suspicions, made me look guilty? I was too angry to care. “Look, Inspector, I know what you think — Miranda’s personal life is fair game. Fine; you do your job. But if you want me to help you dig up dirt on Miranda, the answer’s no; you’re on your own.”

  He seemed surprised by my reaction. “No, pas du tout—not at all. I was being ironic. I forgot you were sensitive about that.” Was he being sincere? There was no way to tell. “Of course the murder is about the bones. Immediately after he gets this report”—with his right index finger he pointed to the paper in my hands—“he faxes it to three people.” He held up the finger. “A few hours after that, he’s dead.” He held up his other index finger, then brought the two fingers together. “They are connected. How?” He tapped his temple. “I think he tries to sell the bones. I think he has three potential buyers — three fishes on the line. And one of the fishes kills him.”

  “So, cherchez le squelette,” I reminded him. “Find the skeleton, you’ll find the killer.”

  “Maybe.” He drained his cup and studied the sludge in the bottom. “Yes, maybe he takes the bones to a rendezvous at the chapel, and the buyer kills him and takes the bones.” I nodded; that was my guess about what had happened. “But I think not.” I looked at him in surprise. “Kill him, yes; shoot him—bang! — and take the bones, sure, it makes sense. But crucify him? Why? Why kill him in a way that’s risky to get caught? A way that’s slow and painful? Maybe to try to get information from him. Torture him into talking. You see?” I nodded; there was logic to that. He held up the finger yet again. “Also, why search his apartment, if you already have what you want?”

  “Maybe to make sure there’s no evidence at the apartment, no paper trail for the police to follow?”

  “Non,” he scoffed. “Whoever searched that apartment wasn’t looking for a piece of paper. He was looking for the bones. Of this I feel certain.”

  “So what do you do now, Inspector?”

  “I ask you to contact the three fishes.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “To offer the bones for sale.”

  “But I don’t have the bones,” I pointed out.

  “A minor complication,” he said, smiling. “You pretend to have them.” Suddenly the “dangerous” part of his request was becoming clear.

  “Why don’t you pretend to have them, Inspector?”

  He laughed. “Ah, oui. I will send this fax to the three fishes: ‘Bonjour, monsieur, if you still want the bones of Jesus, bring ten thousand euros to my office at the police station tomorrow morning.’ Like that?”

  “No, not like that. Go undercover. Cops do it all the time.”

  “I would make a terrible undercover officer,” he said. “I cannot act. My acting smells like shit. Besides, perhaps the killer has seen me already, at the chapel yesterday.”

  “If so, he’s seen me, too — I got there before you did, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Ah, oui, but you were there as a witness, not an investigator. In fact, it’s good if he saw you there. You would be the logical person to have the bones, since Beauvoir no longer does. You, or perhaps Mademoiselle Lovelady.”

  “No!” I practically shouted. “Not Miranda. I can’t let you put Miranda at risk.” He raised his sunglasses and squinted at me. “I’m responsible for her.”

  “Pourquoi? She is an adult, yes? Twenty-five years? Thirty years?”

  “Of course she’s an adult. But she’s my assistant. That makes me responsible.”

  “But didn’t she come to Avignon to work for Beauvoir?”

  He had me there. “Okay, technically, you’re right. But most of the time, I’m her boss. Keep Miranda out of it. Please.”

  He shrugged. “I can try. But as I said yesterday, you are both involved. Perhaps you and I are not the only ones who have an interest in her.”

  My cell phone rang; the call was from Miranda. She was talking even before I finished saying hello. “Slow down,” I said. “I can’t understand you. Are you crying? What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve been robbed,” she sobbed.

  “What? Just now? On the street? Are you hurt?”

  “No, I’m not hurt. It must have happened last night. My room — somebody broke into my room while I was sleeping there with you.” She drew a few shuddering breaths. “When I got up this morning, I went for a long walk. Then I ate breakfast. I just got back to the hotel five minutes ago. My room had been trashed. They took my computer. My passport. My money. I’m scared, Dr. B.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later — spurred on by my fear for Miranda and my hope that if I did what Descartes asked, I could deflect danger from her to me — I signed my name to the message I would fax to each of Stefan’s three fish. The wording Descartes and I had finally settled on was meant to be both tantalizing and threatening: I am Stefan’s partner. I know about your dealings with him. Now you must deal with me. Contact me within 24 hours, or I will go to the police. Brockton.

  Descartes reread the note and grunted his approval. “Okay,” he said, “if they don’t already have the bones, this will make them think that you have them. If they do have the bones, they will think you are blackmailing them. It might work. What do you think, Docteur?”

  “I think it might get me killed,” I said. “If they think I’m blackmailing them, what’s to stop them from just shooting me—bang! — or crucifying me?”

  “We’ll be watching you,” he said. “Besides, I don’t think they have the bones. If they did, why break into mademoiselle’s room?”

  “And what do I do when they call our bluff and want me to deliver the bones — the bones I don’t actually have?”

  “Simple. You set the hameçon—the fishhook — and I reel in the line. You meet them, and we arrest them.”

  “Before or after they shoot me?”

  He laughed. “Trust me, Docteur.”

  We took the note inside to Lumani’s office, a tiny alcove just off the dining room — nothing more than a desk built into a recess in the wall. After Jean had made
sure the machine would not transmit the inn’s name or phone number, we sent the note to the three fax numbers.

  Now, we waited for the fish to strike. To strike me.

  * * *

  “Lately I feel like a time traveler,” I said to Miranda. “Or like there are two of me. One me is here now, in the present, trying to help Descartes find Stefan’s killer. The other me is somewhere back in the thirteen hundreds, trying to figure out how that box of bones ended up in the wall of the palace. And how in bloody hell the Shroud of Turin and this painter Simone Martini are connected to it.”

  We were back at the library again, once more on the trail of Martini and the Shroud. I nodded toward the immense reading room that had once been a vast banquet hall. Computers and steel shelves and halogen lights surrounded by frescoed walls and leaded windows and a coffered ceiling. “I feel as schizophrenic as this library.” From somewhere below, an annoyed sshh floated up at me.

  Miranda surveyed the space, the lavish architectural metaphor I’d just staked out for myself, then turned to me with a slight smile. “You could do worse,” she whispered. “Pretty damn fancy, as psychoses go.” I squelched a laugh and motioned her out into the stairwell so we could talk without disturbing everyone else. “We might as well hang out in the Middle Ages,” she resumed with scarcely a pause. “Descartes himself said as much. He’s busy bird-dogging those fax numbers, and you’re waiting for the fish to bite. Meanwhile, why not keep plugging away on the bones and the Shroud?” Miranda had bounced back remarkably from her scare. It helped that the hotel had moved her to a new room, and that Descartes had agreed to post a guard outside her door at night. It also helped, I figured, to have something to occupy her mind.

  “Sure,” I said. “Maybe we can figure out the connection.”

  “Maybe we can even figure out where Stefan hid the bones,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be swell, if we could find them.”

  “I’m not so sure, Miranda. Maybe those bones aren’t meant to be found. Maybe they’re like the Hope Diamond — bad luck for anybody who tries to possess them.”

  “Oh, that’s bullshit,” she said.

  “Stefan might disagree with you,” I pointed out.

  “I don’t mean bullshit about the bones; I mean bullshit about the Hope Diamond. All that stuff about the curse — it’s bogus. All those lurid tales of murder and madness and suicide? Hype conjured up to boost the diamond’s mystique and jack up the market value.”

  “Remind me never to ask you about Santa Claus,” I retorted. “But seriously, none of it’s true? Nobody who owned it met a bad end?”

  “Well, okay, there’s King Louis the Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette; I guess the guillotine wasn’t the greatest way to go.” She winced. “But it does beats crucifixion.”

  “No kidding. So here’s the thing I don’t get. I thought I had the medieval mystery all figured out: This fourteenth-century monk, Meister Eckhart, pisses off people high in the theocracy. He’s attracting a big following, the people love him, and the ruling priestly class feels threatened, so he’s put to death. Sound familiar? Remind you of anybody else? Anybody from, oh, say, the first century?”

  “There might be a parallel or three,” she conceded.

  “And somehow this painter, Simone Martini, sees Eckhart’s body,” I pressed on. “And he sees the parallels to Christ, so he creates this image, this pseudo burial shroud. Maybe he’s moved by what he sees, or maybe he’s just greedy, just cashing in on the trade in relics. Either way, the theory works. It fits the facts — or it did until the damn C-14 test said the bones are two thousand years old.”

  She studied my face. “Let me get this straight. You’re disappointed about that?”

  “Confused,” I said. “Frustrated, I guess.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know. I liked the theory. Liked the story I was spinning.”

  She frowned. “Liked it better than the possibility that they really are the bones of Jesus?” I pondered that, and while I was pondering, she pounced. “I don’t believe this. You’re jealous, aren’t you?”

  I drew back; it felt almost as if she’d slapped me. “What on earth do you mean? Jealous of who?”

  “Jealous of Stefan. You’re afraid that he was right after all — that he really did make the greatest find ever.” She shook her head, the disappointment in her eyes unmistakable. “He’s dead, Dr. B; you’re alive. You’ve got no reason to envy Stefan, and no need to be petty. If those are the bones of Christ, so what? It doesn’t make you any less, and it doesn’t make Stefan any more. It’s pretty clear he was up to no good. But just think — what if he was up to no good with the actual, for-real bones of Jesus Christ? How totally amazing! Can’t you see that?”

  My mind reeled and raced, seeking how best to defend myself. Then, almost as clearly as if they’d been spoken aloud, I heard the words of Meister Eckhart: Do exactly what you would do if you felt most secure. But what would that mean, what would that be? What would I do, if I were my best self right now? I was so surprised at the answer that I laughed out loud. “Thank you,” I said. Her eyes narrowed, and I saw her bracing for the next salvo of sarcasm. “No, I mean it. Thank you. You’re absolutely right.” Was this really me talking? “I cared more about my pet theory than about the truth. That’s wrong — one of the cardinal sins in science. And yeah, I probably wanted to look smarter than Stefan, be righter than Stefan.”

  “Why?”

  “Dunno. Maybe I wanted a little sip of schadenfreude. Maybe I was desperate to impress you.”

  She shook her head again, but this time, as she did, she began to smile. “Sometimes, for such a smart, impressive guy, you can be so dumb,” she said. “But hey, that was good work you did just then.”

  I took a deep breath, blew it out. “So. Let’s rethink this. If the bones really are first century, and they’re linked to the Shroud, does that mean the Shroud’s authentic after all? Was the carbon dating of the Shroud botched?”

  “What, three separate labs all got it wrong, and all by thirteen hundred years? No way.”

  “What about the invisible-patch theory, then? You think maybe the labs tested fabric from an invisible medieval patch?”

  “Give me a break; the Shroudies are so grasping at straws there. Besides, I think Emily Craig’s right about the image. I think it was created by a terrific artist in the Middle Ages using that dust-transfer technique she described. It’s simple, and it’s credible. And that pseudoshroud she did of her friend was pretty damn convincing. Emily’s no Giotto or Simone Martini, but she proved her point.”

  “So, circling back to your snuff-film theory,” I said. “How do you reconcile that with the idea that the bones are thirteen centuries older than the Shroud?”

  “I don’t. I can’t.” She shrugged. “But interesting symmetry, in an ironic way, don’t you think? If the Shroud of Turin’s a medieval fake, but the bones from the Palace of the Popes are the real deal?” Suddenly she grinned. “Hey, try this one. What if the Shroud’s not the world’s first snuff film but the world’s first forensic facial reconstruction? What if your guy Martini saw the bones of Jesus and decided to put the flesh back on them? Maybe Master Simone was a thirteenth-century version of your NCMEC pal, Joe Mullins?”

  My phone warbled, echoing loudly in the stairwell. The last call I’d gotten at the library had been the TBI agent’s bad news about Rocky Stone, so I was already gun-shy; when I recognized Descartes’s number on the display, I felt a tightening in my stomach. “Inspector?”

  “Oui, Docteur.”

  “Does this mean the fish are biting? Has something come in on the fax machine at Lumani?”

  “Ah, non, not yet. That is not why I am calling you. This is something else.”

  I felt my body relax, and only then did I realize how tightly I’d tensed when I saw who was calling. “What is it?”

  “Where are you? Something interesting has just turned up.”

  “Again? This is a big day for int
eresting finds. Miranda and I are at the library.”

  “I am at Beauvoir’s apartment. Not far away. I can be at the library in five minutes.”

  “Would it be easier if I came to the apartment?”

  “It’s probably better if you don’t — one of the fish might be watching. It’s okay if he sees us questioning you. But it’s not good if it looks like you’re part of our team.”

  “I understand, Inspector. I’ll see you here.”

  “Meet me in the library courtyard. Without mademoiselle. Oh, and Docteur? Don’t look happy to see me.” Only after he hung up did I realize what he meant: One of the fish might be watching.

  * * *

  There were no parking places beside the library, but Descartes didn’t let that stop him. He pulled his car — a white Police Nationale sedan with lights and markings — onto the narrow sidewalk, practically scraping the passenger side against the wall of the adjoining building. It was the parking technique of choice — or necessity — in many of Avignon’s narrow streets.

  I’d been waiting for him on a bench in the library’s courtyard. When he approached, I stood; I was about to stretch out my hand when I remembered his sign-off, so instead of a handshake, I offered him a scowl. “What do you want now, Inspector?” He raised his eyebrows, as if to tell me I’d gone a bit overboard, so I backed off. “What’s up?”

  “This arrived at Beauvoir’s apartment a little while ago,” he said in a voice I felt sure could not be overheard. “Take a look.” He handed me a padded FedEx envelope. The lettering on the airbill was faint and smudged; it was easy to tell that it had come from the United States but hard to tell much more than that. Finally I deciphered “Miami,” and then — above that — two smeared words that looked like “Be Anal”: words, I realized with a start, that were probably “Beta Analytic.” The envelope was almost flat, but not quite, and I gave it an exploratory squeeze. Through the envelope’s built-in padding, I felt something small and hard, like a pebble. Opening the envelope, I found, as the size and shape had suggested I would, a human tooth — a canine — its ancient enamel a dull grayish brown.