Cross Bones (5 page)

But sorting out the dead ends requires reconstruction.

There was no getting around it. I’d have to put the pieces back together.

That would take time and patience.

And a lot of glue.

I got out my stainless steel bowls, my sand, and my Elmer’s. Pair by pair I joined fragments and held them until the bonding set. Then I placed the mini-reconstructions upright in the sand, positioned so they’d dry without slippage or distortion.

The lab techs’ boom box went silent.

The windows darkened.

A bel sounded, indicating the house phones had rol ed to night service.

I worked on, selecting, manipulating, gluing, balancing. Silence settled around me, grew loud within the after-hours-big-building emptiness.

When I looked up, the clock said six-twenty.

Why was that wrong?

Ryan was due at my condo at seven!

Flying to the sink, I washed my hands, tore off my lab coat, grabbed my belongings, and bolted.

Outside, a cold rain was fal ing. No. That’s being kind. The stuff was sleet. Icy slush that clung to my jacket and burned my cheeks.

It took ten minutes to hack through the glacier on my windshield, another thirty to make a drive that was normal y fifteen.

When I arrived, Ryan was wal -leaning outside my door, a bag of groceries beside his feet.

There exists some indissoluble law of nature. When encountering Andrew Ryan, I look my worst.

And Ryan looks like something sketched out by a matinee-idol planning committee. Always.

Tonight he wore a bomber jacket, striped woolen muffler, and faded jeans.

Ryan smiled when he saw me, purse drooping from one shoulder, laptop in my left hand, briefcase in my right. My cheeks were chapped, my hair wet and plastered to my face. Runoff had turned my mascara to an Impressionist study in sludge.

“Dogs got tangled in the traces?”

“It’s sleeting.”

“I think you’re supposed to yel ‘mush.’”

Ryan pushed from the wal , relieved me of the computer with one hand, and with the other brushed aside my bangs. Several held form as a solid clump.

“Close encounter with Dippity-do?”

“I’ve been gluing.” I dug out my keys.

Ryan moved to the cusp of a comment, held back. Bending, he snatched up his bag and fol owed me into the condo.

“Chirp?”

“Charlie, boy,” Ryan cal ed out.

“Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.”

“You and Charlie spend some quality time,” I said. “I’m going to de-glue.”

“Tap pant—”

“I didn’t even order them, Ryan.”

In twenty minutes I’d showered, shampooed, blow-dried, and applied subtle but artful maquil age. I sported pink cords, a body-molding top, and Issey Miyaki behind each ear.

No tap pants, but a man-kil er thong. Dusty rose. Not the undies my mother would have worn.

Ryan was in the kitchen. The condo smel ed of tomatoes, anchovies, garlic, and oregano.

“Making your world-famous puttanesca?” I asked, stretching to tiptoes to kiss Ryan on the cheek.

“Whoa.” Ryan wrapped me in his arms and kissed me on the mouth. Fingering my waistband, he pul ed outward, and peered down my back.

“Not tap pants. But not bad.”

I did a two-handed push from his chest.

“You real y didn’t order them?”

“I real y didn’t order them.”

Birdie appeared, looked disapproving, then strol ed to his bowl.

During dinner, I described my frustration with the Ferris case. Over coffee and dessert, Ryan gave an update on his investigation.

“Ferris was an importer of ritual clothing. Yarmulkes, tal iths.”

Ryan misread my expression.

“The tal ith’s the prayer shawl.”

“I’m impressed you know that.” Like me, Ryan was raised Catholic.

“I looked it up. Why the face?”

“Seems it would be a very smal market.”

“Ferris also handled ritual articles for the home. Menorahs, mezuzahs, Shabbat candles, kiddush cups, chal ah covers. I plan to look those up.”

Ryan offered the pastry plate. There was onemil e feuil e left. I wanted it. I shook my head. Ryan took it.

“Ferris sold throughout Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritimes. It wasn’t Wal-Mart, but he made a living.”

“You talked again with the secretary?”

“Appears Purviance real y is more than a secretary. Handles the books, tracks inventory, travels to Israel and the States to evaluate product, schmooze suppliers.”

“Israel’s tough duty these days.”

“Purviance spent time on a kibbutz back in the eighties, so she knows her way around. And she speaks English, French, Hebrew, and Arabic.”

“Impressive.”

“Father was French. Mother was Tunisian. Anyway, Purviance tel s the same story. Business doing wel . Not an enemy in the world. Though she did feel Ferris had been more moody than usual in the days leading up to his death. I’l give her a day to finish with the warehouse, then we’l have another little chat.”

“Did you find Kessler?”

Ryan crossed to the couch and dug a paper from his jacket. Returning to the table, he handed it to me.

“These were the people cleared for autopsy patrol.”

I read the names.

Mordecai Ferris

Theodore Moskowitz

Myron Neulander

David Rosenbaum

“No Kessler.” I stated the obvious. “Did you locate anyone who knows the guy?”

“Talking to the family’s like talking to cement. They’re doinganinut. ”

“Aninut?”

“First stage of mourning.”

“How long doesaninut last?”

“Until interment.”

I pictured the cranial segments taking shape in my sand bowls.

“Could be a long one.”

“Ferris’s wife told me to come back when the family’s finished sitting shiva. That lasts a week. I suggested I’d be dropping by sooner.”

“This must be a nightmare for her.”

“Interesting sidebar. Ferris was insured for two mil ion big ones, with a double-up clause for accidental death.”

“Miriam?”

Ryan nodded. “They had no kids.”

I told Ryan about my conversation with Jake Drum. “I can’t imagine why he’s coming here.”

“Think he’l real y show?”

I’d wondered that myself.

“The hesitation tel s me you’ve got your doubts,” Ryan said. “This guy a flake?”

“Jake’s not flaky. Just different.”

“Different?”

“Jake’s a bril iant archaeologist. Worked at Qumran.”

Ryan gave me quizzical look.

“Dead Sea scrol s. He can translate a zil ion languages.”

“Any that are spoken today?”

I threw a napkin at Ryan.

After clearing the table, Ryan and I stretched out on the sofa. Birdie flopped by the fire.

We talked of personal things.

Ryan’s daughter in Halifax. Lily was dating a guitarist and considering a move to Vancouver. Ryan feared the items were not unrelated.

Katy. For her twelfth and final semester at the University of Virginia, my daughter was taking pottery, fencing, and a class on the feminine mystique in modern film. Her independent study involved interviewing patrons of pubs.

Birdie purred. Or snored.

Charlie squawked and resquawked a line from “Hard-Hearted Hannah.”

The fire crackled and popped. Ice ticked the windows.

After a while everyone drifted into silence.

Ryan reached back and pul ed the lamp chain. Amber light danced the familiar shapes in my home.

Ryan and I lay molded like tango dancers, my head nestled below his col arbone. He smel ed of soap and the logs he’d carried in for the fire. His fingers caressed my hair. My cheek. My neck.

I felt content. Calm. A mil ion miles from skeletons and shattered skul s.

Ryan is built on sinewy, ropelike lines. Long ones. Eventual y I felt one line grow longer.

We left Birdie in charge of the hearth.

5

RYAN LEFT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING. SOMETHING ABOUT ALL-WEATHERradials and balance and a warped rim. I am not a good listener at 7A.M. Nor am I the least bit interested in tires.

I am interested in air routing between Charlotte and Montreal. I can recite the entire USAirways flight schedule. Knowing the daily direct flight had been eliminated, I was certain Jake wouldn’t arrive before midafternoon. I rol ed over and went back to sleep.

A bagel and coffee around eight, and I headed to the lab. I was leaving for five days, and knew the Ferris family was anxious for information.

And for the body.

I spent another Elmer’s morning joining the dozens of segments I’d built the day before. Like assembling atoms into molecules into whole cel s, I built larger and larger sections of vault.

The facial bones were a different story. Splintering was extensive, either due to the cats, or simply due to the fragile nature of the bones themselves.

There would be no reconstructing the left side of Ferris’s face.

Nevertheless, a pattern emerged.

Though the lines were complex, it appeared that no break crossed the starburst radiating from the hole behind Ferris’s right ear. Fracture sequencing pointed to that wound as the entrance.

But why were the hole’s edges beveled on the outside of the skul ? An entrance site should have been beveled on the inside.

I could think of one explanation, but fragments were missing from the area immediately above and to the left of the defect. To be certain, I’d need those fragments.

At two I wrote LaManche a note, explaining what I lacked. I reminded him that I was going to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in New Orleans, and that I would return to Montreal Wednesday night.

For the next two hours I ran errands. Bank. Dry cleaner. Cat chow. Birdseed. Ryan had agreed to take Birdie and Charlie, but the man has interesting views on pet care. I wanted to raise the odds in favor of proper feeding.

Jake phoned as I was driving underground into my garage. He was in the outer vestibule. Hurrying upstairs, I let him in the front door and led him down the corridor to my condo.

As we walked, I remembered the first time I’d laid eyes on Jake Drum. I was new to UNCC, and had met few faculty members outside my discipline.

None from the Department of Religious Studies. Jake appeared in my lab late one evening, at a time when assaults on female students had caused security announcements to be broadcast campus-wide.

I was nervous as a mouse staring across a tank at an underweight python.

My fears were ungrounded. Jake had a question concerning bone preservation.

“Tea?” I offered now.

“You bet. I got pretzels and Sprite on the plane.”

“The dishes are behind you.”

I watched Jake select mugs, thinking what a terrible perp he’d make. His nose is thin and prominent, his brows bushy and dead straight above Rasputin black eyes. He stands six feet six, weighs 170, and shaves his head.

Witnesses would remember Jake exactly as he is.

Today I suspected he’d caused strangers on the sidewalk to circle wide. His agitation was palpable.

We exchanged smal talk while waiting for the kettle.

Jake had checked into a smal hotel off the western edge of the McGil University campus. He’d rented a car to drive to Toronto the next morning. On Monday he’d leave for Jerusalem, where he and his Israeli crew would excavate their first-century synagogue.

Jake proffered his usual invitation to dig. I proffered my usual thanks and regrets.

When the tea was ready, Jake settled at the dining room table. I retrieved a magnifier and Kessler’s print and laid them on the glass.

Jake stared at the photo as though he’d never seen one before.

After a ful minute, he took up the lens. As he scanned the print his movements grew measured and deliberate.

In one way Jake and I are very much alike.

When annoyed, I grow churlish, snap, counter with sarcasm. When angry, truly white-hot livid irate, I go deadly calm.

So does Jake. I know. I’ve heard him debate issues at faculty council.

The ice facade is also my response to fear. I suspected this was also true of Jake. The change in his demeanor sent a chil scurrying through my mind.

“What is it?” I asked.

Jake raised his head and stared past me, lost, I could only guess, in a moment of probes, and trowels, and the smel of turned earth.

Then he tapped the photo with one long, slender finger.

A disjointed thought. Were it not for the cal uses, Jake’s hands might have been those of a concert pianist.

“Have you spoken with the man who gave this to you?”

“Only briefly. We’re trying to locate him.”

“What exactly did he say?”

I hesitated, debating what I could ethical y divulge. Ferris’s death had been reported by the media. Kessler had not asked for confidentiality.

I explained the shooting, the autopsy, and the man who cal ed himself Kessler.

“It’s supposed to have come from Israel.”

“It does,” Jake said.

“That’s a hunch?”

“That’s a fact.”

I frowned. “You’re that certain?”

Jake leaned back. “What do you know about Masada?”

“It’s a peak in Israel where a lot of folks died.”

Jake’s lips did something approaching a smile.

“Please expand, Ms. Brennan.”

I dug back. Way back.

“In the first centuryB.C. —”

“Political y incorrect. The term isB.C.E now. Before the Common Era.”

“—the whole area from Syria to Egypt, anciently known as the land of Israel, which the Romans cal ed Palestine, came under Roman rule. Needless to say, the Jews were pissed. Over the next century, a number of rebel ions arose to throw the Roman bastards out. Each was a bust.”

“I’ve never heard it put in quite those terms. Go on.”

“About sixty-sixA.D. , sorry,C.E. , yet another Jewish revolt steam-rol ed across the region. This one scared the sandals off the Romans, and the emperor deployed troops to suppress the insurgents.”

I tunneled deep for dates.

“About five years into the revolt the Roman general Vespasian conquered Jerusalem, sacked the temple, and routed the survivors.”

“And Masada?”

“Masada’s a giant rock in the Judean desert. At the start of the war a group of Jewish zealots hiked it to the top and hunkered in. The Roman general