Cross Bones (37 page)

Okay. Jake had intended to see Getz or Bloom or both. Had he?

I stared at the number. Cal ing at this hour would be futile. Rude.

“Screw rude.” I wanted Bloom to know I was looking for Jake.

Four rings. Voice mail. Message.

I stood a moment, fingers locked on the receiver.

Getz?

Why not?

Voice mail. Message.

Now what? Who else to ring?

I knew the cal s were pointless, but I was frustrated and had no better ideas.

Again, the flashing cursor from my id. There. Gone. There. Gone.

Indicating what? When nothing is making sense, I often repeat known facts over and over in the hope that a pattern may emerge.

Think.

Masada skeleton. Stolen.

Shroud bones. Missing.

Jake. Missing.

Courtney Purviance. Missing.

Avram Ferris. Dead.

Sylvain Morissonneau. Dead.

Hershel Kaplan. Solicited for a hit. By a woman. Maybe. Now in Israel. Was trying to sel bones?

My hotel room trashed.

My car fol owed.

Ferris-Kaplan-Blotnik telephone cal s.

Ruth Anne Bloom. I don’t trust her. Why? Jake’s early-on admonitions not to contact the IAA?

Tovya Blotnik. Jake doesn’t trust him.

Cave 2001 bones linked to Kidron tomb bones.

Was there a pattern?

Yeah. Everything led back to Max.

Why the itchy id? Was there a piece that didn’t fit?

If so, I wasn’t seeing it.

My gaze wandered to a snapshot above the monitor. Jake, smiling, holding a stone vessel in one hand.

My mind looped.

Jake. Missing.

I dialed another number. I was stunned when a voice answered.

“I’m here.” Muffled, as though spoken into a hand-cupped mouthpiece.

I identified myself.

“The American?” Surprised.

“I’m sorry to cal at this hour, Dr. Blotnik.”

“I—I’m working late.” Off-balance. Mine was not the voice Blotnik expected to hear. “It’s my habit.”

I remembered my first cal to the IAA. Blotnik sure wasn’t working late that night.

I skipped the niceties.

“Have you seen Jake Drum today?”

“No.”

“Ruth Anne Bloom?”

“Ruth Anne?”

“Yes.”

“Ruth Anne has gone up north to Galilee.”

Bloom had left Jake a message saying she was working late. Working late where? At home? At the Rockefel er? At a lab elsewhere? Had she changed her plans? Was she lying? Was Blotnik lying? Had Blotnik merely misunderstood?

I made a quick decision.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Tonight?”

“Now.”

“That’s impossible. I’m—” Blotnik was clearly rattled.

“I’l be there in thirty minutes. Wait for me.”

I didn’t listen to Blotnik’s reply.

In the car, I thought of Ryan. I should have cal ed and given my destination, but I hadn’t thought to do it before leaving, and I had no cel phone. Maybe I could cal from Blotnik’s.

It was a night of open gates.

I should have seen that as an omen. Instead, I assumed Blotnik had anticipated my arrival.

Driving into the compound, I circled to the front courtyard and hurried down the driveway on foot. The fog was giving way to mist. The air smel ed of turned earth and flowers and dead leaves.

The Rockefel er loomed like a giant black fortress, its edges merging with the velvety night. Rounding one corner, I glanced out the gate I’d just entered.

Across the way, the Old City slumbered, a place of dark and quiet stones. Gone were the delivery boys and housewives and schoolgirls and shoppers shouldering one another on the narrow streets. As I watched, a car turned from Sultan Suleiman onto Derech Jericho, its headlights white cones sweeping the haze.

I cut to the side door, an entrance used only by museum personnel. Like the gate, it was unlocked. Putting a shoulder to the wood, I pushed, and entered.

An ancient overhead fixture bathed the smal vestibule in ocher. Ahead, a short corridor ended at doors giving onto exhibit hal s. To the right, an iron-scrol ed staircase curved upward, a backstage portal to the staff offices Jake and I had entered from the museum’s interior.

I spotted a phone on a wooden shelf beside the exhibit hal doors. Crossing to it, I lifted the receiver. The dial tone sounded like a French horn in the night-empty building.

I dialed Ryan. No answer. Was Kaplan on the move? I left a message.

Deep breath, then I climbed, hand on the rail, weight on the bal s of my feet. At the top, I turned and headed down the long corridor, footsteps clicking off wal s and floor.

A single wal sconce saved the hal from total darkness. To my right, handrailed balconies overlooking first-floor hal s. To my left, arch-shaped recesses, al but one disappearing into inky darkness. Ahead, the access Jake and I had used on our visit to Getz.

The fourth alcove appeared softly luminous. On entering, I saw why. Pale yel ow light seeped from cracks framing Blotnik’s door.

So did voices, barely audible, but sounding serene enough.

It was 1A.M. Who in God’s name could be here with Blotnik? Jake? Bloom? Getz?

I crossed the alcove and knocked softly.

The voices didn’t falter.

I knocked again, harder.

Not a hitch in the conversation.

“Dr. Blotnik?”

The men kept talking. Were they men?

Leaning in, I put my ear to the door.

“Dr. Blotnik?” Louder. “Are you there?”

Funny how your mind takes snapshots. I can stil see the knob, old and going green. I can stil feel the coolness of the brass on my palm.

The id’s lightning-quick, conjuring maps while the senses are stil GPS’ing landmarks.

The hinges creaked as the door swung in.

The voices. The smel .

Some part of my brain charted.

Without knowing, I knew.

38

REALITY INTAKE. DATA BYTES RACING INTO MY EARS, NOSE, EYES.

Metered talk. BBC voices. Radio on a credenza beside Blotnik’s desk.

Hint of cordite in the air. Something else. Coppery. Salty.

The smal hairs rose on my neck and arms. My eyes jumped to the desktop.

A banker’s lamp emitting an eerie green glow. Stacked papers sheared across the blotter. Scattered books, pens. An upended pot, broken in two, the smal cactus stil rooted in the uncontained soil.

Blotnik’s chair was swiveled at an odd angle. Though the overheads were off, behind and above I could see blood droplets, as though the wal had been mortal y wounded.

High-velocity spatter!

Dear God. Who’d been shot? Jake? Blotnik?

I didn’t want to see.

I had to see.

Stepping softly to the desk, I peeked behind.

No corpse.

Relief? Confusion?

To the right rear, I noticed a closet. A dim radiance spil ed between the door and jamb.

Edging past the desk, I crossed and pushed with my fingertips.

More image assimilation. Dark wood, smooth from generations of too much varnish.

Metal shelving stacked with office supplies, boxes, and labeled containers. Weak light coming from an el ahead and to the left.

I inched forward, one hand trailing the edge of a shelf.

Five steps in, my foot slid on something sticky and wet.

I looked down.

A dark rivulet was snaking around the corner of the el .

Like the screech before the crash. The shadow before the hawk strike. The mental alarm sounded. I was too late.

Too late for whom?

I forced my legs to make the turn.

Blotnik lay on his bel y, blood-soaked yarmulke driven into a hole in his skul . There was another wound in his back, and another in his shoulder. Blood was congealing in the puddle haloing his body, and in the tributaries oozing from it.

My hand flew to my mouth. I felt woozy, almost sick.

I slumped to the wal , one phrase winging through my head.

Not Jake. Not Jake. Tel me you didn’t do this, Jake.

Then who? Ultra-Orthodox radicals? Christian fanatics? Islamic fundamentalists?

One second. Five. Ten.

My senses returned.

Skirting the blood, I squatted and placed fingers on Blotnik’s neck. No pulse. The skin felt cool, not cold.

Blotnik hadn’t been dead long. Of course not. I knew that. I’d spoken to him less than an hour ago.

Was the kil er stil here?

Stumbling back to the office, I grabbed up the phone.

No dial tone.

My eyes traveled the cord. Three inches from the mouthpiece, it ended cleanly.

High-voltage fear.

My gaze danced the desktop, fel on a paper.

Why that one?

It was centered on the blotter, square and neat. Despite the chaos. Below the chaos.

Before the chaos?

Had Blotnik been reading it? Might it lead me to Jake?

Crime scene! Don’t touch!my left brain hol ered.

Find Jake!My right brain countered.

I wiggled the paper free. It was Getz’s report on the shroud. Addressed to Jake.

Should Blotnik have had Getz’s report? Had he filched it from Getz’s office? Or were such reports routinely routed to him? Getz worked for the Rockefel er, not for the IAA. Wasn’t that why Jake had gone to her though he’d refused to talk to Blotnik?

Ordid Getz work for the museum? She’d offered to take possession of the shroud for the IAA. Was she actual y on Blotnik’s staff? Did she work for the Rockefel erand the IAA? I’d never asked Jake to clarify.

Was Getz somehow in col usion with Blotnik? Did it involve the shroud bones? But Jake hadn’t told Getz about the shroud bones. Or had he? Getz’s name and number were on the Post-it in Jake’s office. Had they spoken since we’d left her the shroud?

Jake hated Blotnik. He would never have given him the report.

A terrible thought.

Someone had stolen the shroud bones. Suspecting Blotnik, Jake had stormed over here to demand their return. Jake owned a gun. Had things gotten out of hand? Had he kil ed Blotnik in a rage?

I skimmed the report. Two words leaped out. “Skeletal remains.”

I read the paragraph. Getz had found microscopic bone embedded in the shroud. Her report suggested larger skeletal remains might exist.

Blotnik knew!

I quick-scanned the office. No shroud bones. I was checking the closet when I heard a soft creak.

My breath froze in my throat.

The door hinge!

Someone was in Blotnik’s office!

Footsteps crossed the office floor. Papers rustled. More footsteps. At the credenza?

Without thinking, I skittered backward toward the el .

One shoe hit the pooled blood and shot sideways. I pitched forward.

Instinct took control. I threw out my hands, clawing for a lifeline. My fingers closed on a metal upright.

The shelving wobbled.

Time fractured.

A bundle of paper hand towels teetered then tumbled to the floor.

Whump.

Sudden silence in the office.

Total silence in the closet.

Predator and prey sniffed the air.

Then, hurried footsteps.

Departing?

Relief.

Then fear, like a fist pressing my chest.

The footsteps were moving in my direction.

I crouched, paralyzed, maxed to every sound.

My mind hiccupped some forgotten caveat.

Never yield the advantage of lighting.

Blotnik’s visitor could see me better than I could see him.

Grabbing a book, I twisted and aimed at the fixture behind me. The bulb shattered, raining glass onto Blotnik’s body.

A silhouette fil ed the doorway, lumpy bag hanging from its left shoulder, right arm flexed, pointing a dark object from chest level. A brimmed cap shadowed the face so I couldn’t make out the features.

Throat-clearing, then,“Mi sham?” Who’s there?

The voice was female.

I held rigid.

The woman cleared her throat again and tried Arabic.

In the office, a tinny voice announced the BBC news.

The woman retreated one step. In the emerald backlighting I could see she wore boots, jeans, and a khaki shirt. Her armpits were stained. One blonde tendril looped from the side of her cap.

The woman was heavy, and way too short to be Getz. And blonde.

Ruth Anne Bloom?

I felt sweat on my face. Cold heat in my chest. Had this woman kil ed Blotnik? Would she kil me?

One thought rose up from the base of my brain.

Stal !

“Who are you?”

“I’m asking the questions.” The woman answered my English with English.

It wasn’t Ruth Anne Bloom. Bloom’s English was heavily accented.

I didn’t reply.

“Answer me. Or you’re in the frame for a lot of hurt.” Hard. But agitated. Unsure.

“Who I am doesn’t matter.”

“I’l decide what matters.” Louder. A threat of violence.

“Dr. Blotnik’s dead.”

“And I’l park some rounds in your ass just as quick.”

Cop talk? Was this woman on the job? Or one of the mil ions watching too much TV?

Before I could respond, she spoke again.

“Wait a minute. I know that accent. I know you.”

And I’d heardher voice. But when? Where? Had we crossed paths here? At the hotel? The museum? Police headquarters? I hadn’t met many women in Israel.

Sudden thought. The cal er to Jake’s flat had talked of a woman pestering the Hevrat Kadisha.

A number of the “harassing” cal s had been made by a woman.

Could this be the woman? Did she have her own agenda for Max? Had she stolen the shroud bones?

I had no idea as to motive. She spoke English, Hebrew, and Arabic. Was she Christian? Jewish? Muslim?

“Confiscating bones in the name of the Lord?” I threw out.

No response.

“Question is, which Lord?”

“Oh, please.”

Wet sniffing. The woman’s free hand darted to her face.

I wasn’t sure how to probe.

“I know about the Masada skeleton.”

“You don’t know jack.” Sniff. “On your feet.”

I rose.

“Reach and grab your skul .”

I rose and laced my fingers on top of my head. Senses buzzing, I tried a new line of questioning.