Kaplan also feared Purviance might implicate him. Or worse. She’d planned to have her lover killed. If she swung into action herself, why not also off the weasel who’d scammed her three grand? And Kaplan’s buddy Litvak was pissed because Kaplan had promised the Masada skeleton and then defaulted. Like Purviance, Kaplan saw the opportunity for a twofer. Make yourself scarce locally and mend fences in Israel. He, too, booked it.
Why had Blotnik stolen the shroud bones? On that one Jake was probably right.
Blotnik had been a prodigy in his grad school days in New York. Articles in prestigious journals even before completion of the Ph.D. Then the opus, three hundred pages on Ecclesiastes Rabbah, a rabbinic commentary from the Talmudic era. Job offers flowed like wine at Cana. Blotnik moved to Israel, married, scored permit after permit to dig coveted sites. The world was his.
A junior colleague also decided to be his. Giddy while it lasted, the affair ended badly. Blotnik’s wife left him. His lover left him.
Maybe it was embarrassment. Maybe loneliness. Maybe depression. After the divorce, Blotnik largely disengaged. He organized a few excavations, published a few articles. A thin work on the ancient baths of Hammat-Gader. Then, two decades of nothing.
Ferris’s call must have come like manna from heaven. Masada bones missing for over four decades? During his many years in Israeli archaeology, Blotnik had heard rumors of such a skeleton. One can only speculate what else Kaplan or Ferris told him, or what had been whispered among his colleagues. The bones were those of an important figure in first-century Roman Palestine? A biblical VIP? Blotnik must have seen his future light up like a Hollywood marquee.
Then the manna was pulled back by the death of Ferris. Lights out. Not long after, I phoned. I had the Masada skeleton. A new dawn! Cue the credits!
Seeing a way to supercharge his flagging career, or supercharge his bank account, as Ryan believed, Blotnik had researched the Masada skeleton and Cave 2001. Then Max was, again, snatched from him. Jake and I came to say the skeleton had been stolen. Blotnik was despondent. His potential comeback had fizzled. Like Purviance, the boy genius handled disappointment poorly, and was in a foul mood.
Then, more manna. A document carelessly left at a Xerox machine.
Blotnik read Getz’s report and made himself a copy. First-century burial shroud? With the possibility of human remains? Discovered by Jake Drum? What was that bloke Drum’s theory about a Jesus family tomb?
The explosive implications of Jake’s theory and my shroud find weren’t lost on Blotnik. If he couldn’t have the Masada skeleton, this would work. Arming himself with a bolt cutter, he headed to Beit Hanina and waited for Jake to leave the house. It was easy.
And what of Jake?
True as stated. He’d driven to his site to find the Hevrat Kadisha causing major disruption. In the end, the police had to be called. By the time he’d left it was too late to visit Getz or Bloom. The police at the site had asked to see paperwork authorizing the excavation, which Jake kept at home.
Returning to the flat, he’d put down his pocket effects in the usual place, and dug out copies of his permits for the Talpiot site. Then he discovered the cabinet open and the shroud bones gone. Enraged, he’d stormed off without locking up. Trying to deal with both things at once, he’d first detoured to the district police headquarters to deliver his documents, then headed straight for Blotnik.
I had arrived at the Rockefeller first, and he found me in the closet.
So.
The shroud bones were incinerated to ash.
Blotnik was dead.
Kaplan was free.
Purviance would be charged with Blotnik’s murder in Israel. Extradition later? Maybe.
And Max?
Representatives of the Hevrat Kadisha admitted, under pressure from Friedman, that they’d liberated and re-buried the Masada skeleton. Neither thumbscrews, garrotes, nor threats of prosecution could get them to disclose the location. They’d heard all that before. To them it was a matter of sacred Jewish law. Halakha. Appeals for temporary access under their watch were unyieldingly rejected.
So. Only three things remained. The original Kaplan print. The bone samples taken for DNA testing. The photos I’d shot at my Montreal lab.
Otherwise, Max was gone.
41
IT WAS NOW THURSDAY, FOUR DAYS AFTER THE crash. Ryan and I would be returning to Montreal on the midnight flight. Before leaving Israel, we’d decided to make one last call.
I found myself again traveling the Jericho road. Ryan and I had passed Qumran, famed for its Essenes and caves and scrolls; and Ein Gedi, famed for its beaches and spas. On our left, the Dead Sea stretched cobalt-green toward Jordan. On our right, a tortured landscape of buttes and mesas.
Finally I saw it, stark red against the perfect blue sky. Herod’s citadel at the edge of the Judean desert.
Ryan made a turn. Two kilometers later we pulled into a lot and parked. Signs reassured tourists. Restaurants, shops, toilets, this way.
“Cable car or Snake Path?” I asked.
“How rough’s the climb?”
“Piece of cake.”
“Why the name?”
“The trail winds a little.” I’d been warned the trek was mean and dusty and took an hour or more. I was pumped.
“How about we cable up, then assess?”
“Wimp.” I smiled.
“It took a Roman legion seven months to reach the top.”
“They were battling an army of zealots.”
“Details, details.”
Masada is the most visited spot in Israel, but not that day.
Ryan bought tickets and we entered an empty cable car. At the top, we mounted a twisting staircase, then the ancient site sprawled before us.
I was awestruck. Romans. Zealots. Byzantines. Nazarenes? I was standing on the very same soil. Soil trod long before Europeans laid eyes on the New World.
I scanned what remained of the casement wall, shoulder high now, the old stones weathered and bleached. My eyes took in the playa within the wall’s encompass. Mojave dry, here and there a scrub vine eking out life. Purple blossoms. Amazing. Beauty in the midst of brutal desolation.
I thought of soldiers, monks, and whole families. Dedication and sacrifice. My mind wondered. How? Why?
Beside me, Ryan checked the orientation map. Above me, an Israeli flag snapped in the wind.
“The walking tour starts over there.” Ryan took my hand and led me north.
We visited the storehouses, the officers’ quarters, the northern palace in which Yadin had recovered his “family.” The Byzantine church, the mikveh, the synagogue.
We passed few people. A couple speaking German. A school group protected by armed parent-guards. Fatigue-clad teens with Uzis on their backs.
Standard circuit completed, Ryan and I reversed and headed toward the southern end of the summit. No other tourist was venturing that way.
I checked the diagram in my pamphlet. The southern citadel and wall were noted. A water cistern. The great pool. Not a word about the caves.
I paused at the casement wall, awed anew by the plain of sand and rock fading into shimmering haze. By the giant, silent formations molded by eons of scouring wind.
I pointed to a square faintly visible in the moonscape below.
“See that outline?”
Ryan nodded, elbow-leaning on the railing beside me.
“That was one of the Roman camps.”
I leaned forward and craned to my left. There it was. A dark wound piercing the flesh of the cliff.
“There’s the cave.” My voice cracked.
I stared, mesmerized. Ryan knew what I was feeling. Gently tugging me back, he arm-draped my shoulders.
“Any theories on who he was?”
I raised my hands in a Who knows? gesture.
“Guesses?”
“Max was a man who died between the age of forty and sixty about two thousand years ago. He was buried with more than twenty o
ther people in that cave down there.” I pointed over the casement wall. “A younger person’s tooth ended up in his jaw. Probably by mistake. Lucky mistake. Otherwise we might never have known of the link between the cave people and the family in Jake’s shroud tomb.”
“The one Jake believes is the Jesus family crypt.”
“Yes. So Max may very well have been a Nazarene, not a zealot.”
“Jake is damn sure that tomb belonged to the Holy Family.”
“The names match. The decorative styles of the ossuaries. The age of the shroud.” I kicked at a stone. “Jake’s convinced the James ossuary came from that tomb.”
“Are you?”
“I’m intrigued.”
“Meaning?”
I thought a moment. What did I mean?
“He could be right. It’s just an overwhelming concept to grasp. Of the three great religions woven through the history of Palestine, all rely more on divine mystery and spiritual belief than on science and reason to establish their legitimacy. Historic facts have been given differing spins to make them mesh with favored orthodoxy. Inconsistent facts are denied.
“The facts Jake postulates as to the Kidron tomb could potentially undermine elements of the Christian creed. Maybe Mary didn’t remain a virgin. Maybe Jesus had siblings, even offspring. Maybe Jesus remained shrouded in his loculus after the crucifixion.”
I tipped my head at the cave below us.
“Same goes for Cave 2001 and certain elements of revered Jewish history. Maybe Masada wasn’t occupied solely by Jewish zealots during the first-century revolt. Maybe early Christians were up here, too. Who knows? What I do know is that it’s tragic DNA wasn’t obtained from the shroud bones. Especially since it’s clear that at least one of the people in the cave up here was related to the people in Jake’s tomb down there.”
Ryan considered that. Then, “So, even though DNA links a tooth from Masada to the Kidron tomb, you think the resurfacing of Max and the discovery of the shroud bones within weeks of each other was pure coincidence?”
“I do. The tooth was undoubtedly from someone in Cave 2001, and mistakenly became associated with Max. But Max may have been only the messenger, not the message, in this whole saga. Funny. I’m even more curious about whose tooth it was than I am about who Max was.”
“I’m not following.”
“This all started with Max, but Max may simply have lucked into a prime cemetery plot.”
“Still lost.”
“Because Max’s grave was at the back of the cave, his body wasn’t disturbed by animals. It’s possible he remained intact not because he was buried in a manner that differed from the others, or because his social status was more exalted than the others, but simply because he was put into the ground at a greater distance from the cave mouth. But since his was the only complete, articulated skeleton, people viewed Max as special. Someone shipped him out of Israel. Lerner stole him. Ferris and Morissonneau hid him. In the end, Max’s main contribution may be that he survived intact and led us to the odd molar.”
“Tying the Kidron tomb to Masada. Jake got any theories whose tooth it might be?”
“Lots of bodies in the cave. Jake’s thinking a nephew of Jesus, maybe a child of one of the sisters. The mitochondrial DNA shows a maternal link.”
“Not a sibling?”
“Unlikely. Inscriptions account for Jude, Joseph, James, if that ossuary’s real, the Marys, and Salome. Simon died years later.”
Again, we fell into silence. I spoke first.
“It’s funny, Max started everything. Lerner stole him from the Musée de l’Homme because he believed Joyce’s story about the scroll and his theory about Jesus living on at Masada. It turns out Joyce could have been right about Jesus, some Jesus, but wrong about Max. Max can’t be Jesus of Nazareth, who died in his early thirties, according to Scripture. His age doesn’t fit, and his mitochondrial DNA makes him an outsider to the Kidron tomb matrilineage. But Max could be a nephew of Jesus.”
“Grosset’s scroll was supposedly written by someone named Jesus, son of James.”
“Exactly. But the tooth could also be from a nephew of Jesus. According to Bergeron, the tooth man died at the age of thirty-five to forty. If one of Jesus’ sisters had married a man named James and had a son, that child would have shared her mitochondrial DNA. If these events took place around the time of the crucifixion, the age would fit. The tooth could have belonged to a Jesus, son of James. Hell, Ryan. Any male in that jumble could have gone by that name. We’ll never know.”
“Who was the Cave 2001 septuagenarian in Yadin’s report and book?”
“Same answer. It wasn’t Max, it wasn’t the tooth man, but it could have been any male in that heap.”
Ryan’s next comment went right to the heart of it.
“The kicker is, whoever that tooth belonged to, if Jake’s right about the James ossuary, and by corollary the Kidron tomb and the Holy Family, the tooth’s presence in the cave places Nazarenes on Masada at the time of the siege. A fact inconsistent with Israel’s accounts of Masada.”
“Very much. Israeli theologians in particular would view a Nazarene connection to Masada as sacrilege. Consider their reluctance to discuss the cave skeletons or do further testing.”
I turned and gestured toward the northern end of the summit.
“There’s a small monument off the western side, at the tip of the Roman camp, where all the Masada remains were reinterred in sixty-nine. The Cave 2001 bones could be exhumed, but the Israelis won’t do it.”
“And the shroud bones?”
“We’ll never know. If Jake had been able to get DNA or pursue other testing, maybe scanning electron microscopy of the calcaneus lesion, we might have learned more. As it stands, all we have are the few lousy photos I took in the loculus.”
“What about the hair and bone samples Getz recovered?”
“The hair could yield something someday. The bone particles are barely more than dust. I’m amazed Getz spotted them.”
“Jake hadn’t set some of the shroud bones aside?”
“Never had a chance.”
“Is he planning to ask for DNA testing on the James ossuary bones?”
“He submitted a request. The Israelis turned him down and they have the bones. Knowing Jake, he’ll keep at it.”
“The James ossuary may be fake.”
“It may,” I agreed.
“Jake’s theory may be wrong.”
“It may.”
Ryan pulled me tight. He knew I was hiding feelings of guilt and disappointment. Max was gone, interred for all time in an anonymous grave. The Cave 2001 bones were gone, interred under one of Israel’s most sacred monuments. The shroud bones were gone, destroyed in a holocaust of fuel and fire.
For a moment we stood gazing out at that melancholy rim of the universe. Empty. Dead.
For years I’d read and heard about this conflicted piece of our planet. It was impossible not to.
The book of Psalms called Jerusalem the City of God. Zachariah called it the City of Truth. Whose God? Whose Truth?
“LaManche phoned today.” I switched back to a world in which some control over my life seemed possible.
“How is the old bird?”
“Pleased that I’ll be back on Monday.”
“You’ve only been gone a week and a half.”
“He had news. There was an exhumation. Sylvain Morissonneau suffered from congestive heart failure.”
“The priest at the abbey?”
I nodded. “He died of a massive coronary.”
“No wild-eyed jihadists?”
“Just bad heart muscle, probably coupled with an elevated stress level brought on by the reemergence of the skeleton issue.”
“Reminds me. Friedman has breaking news. He ran the maid’s note past Mrs. Hanani and finally got the story on the B-and-E of your room. There was no B. Hossam al-Ahmed is a hotel cook who’s been tomcatting around on his girl, one of the hotel maids. The lady
-done-wrong decided to set the cad up. Trash a room, point a finger. Your door was unlocked.”
“It’s ironic. All our mega-theories to explain Ferris’s murder and the theft of Max. Ultra-Orthodox Jews did it. Zealot Christians did it. Islamic fundamentalists did it.
“In the end, it was revenge and greed. Two of the old reliables. No state secret. No holy war. No sweeping question of doctrine or creed. We unraveled the methodology of a murder and we identified a killer. I should be elated, but somehow in the context of the last two weeks the murder seems mundane, almost like Charles Bellemare.”
“The stoned-out cowboy stuck in the chimney?”
“Yes. In pursuing our small players over the large stage, I got overwhelmed by the larger context. The murder seemed almost insignificant.”
“We both got caught up.”
“I read something called the Gallup International Millennium Survey. Researchers sampled populations in sixty countries representing one point two billion souls worldwide, trying to learn how people feel about God. Eighty-seven percent of the respondents considered themselves part of some religion. Thirty-one percent believed theirs was the only true faith.”
Ryan started to speak. I wasn’t done.
“But they’re wrong, Ryan. Despite the rituals, the rhetoric, and even the bombs, every religion is saying mostly the same thing. Buddhism. Taoism. Zoroastrianism. Sikhism. Shamanism. It doesn’t matter. Take your pick.”
“You’ve lost me, cupcake.”
“The Torah, the Bible, the Koran. Each offers a recipe for spiritual contentment, for hope, for love, and for controlling basic human passions, and each claims to have gotten the recipe straight from God, but via a different messenger. They’re all just trying to provide a formula for orderly, spiritual living, but somehow the message gets twisted, like cells in a body turning cancerous. Self-appointed spokesmen declare the boundaries of correct belief, outsiders are labeled heretics, and the faithful are called upon to attack them. I don’t think it was meant to be that way.”
“I know you’re right, cupcake, but this working cop long ago abandoned any hope of ridding La Belle Province of crime. I don’t think I’m up to reconciling the world’s religions. Back home there are bodies in the morgue that deserve our attention. We do what we can. And you know what? We’re pretty good at it.”