Intervention (44 page)

van and made sure it was properly secured.

“Okay,” Pete said, starting the motor. “Where to?”

“The archbishop of New York’s residence,” Jack said.

Pete looked at Jack. “Am I supposed to know where that is?”

“Fifty-first and Madison. You can turn left on Fifty-first off Madison and pull over to the curb. You’ll be dumping me off. You don’t have to wait.” Jack didn’t elaborate for two reasons. One, he wanted the least number of people to know what he’d done, and two, he was already deep in thought of what he was going to say to James. Jack knew that had the roles been reversed, he would have been feeling cataleptic.

Once Pete had navigated the crosstown traffic and turned onto Madison, the drive up to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral was slow but steady. It took a bit less than thirty minutes by the time Pete was able to pull over to the side of the road next to the residence. As soon as they’d come to a stop, Jack hopped out, slid open the van’s door, got the ossuary over to the edge, and then lifted it. By then Pete had come around, and he closed the slider.

“I appreciate the help, Pete,” Jack said over his shoulder.

“No problem,” Pete said, eyeing the stark, gray stone residence.

Jack hauled the ossuary up the front stone steps and, balancing it on a bent knee, gave the receiving bell a good pull. Within he could hear the chimes. Always mindful of possible imminent disasters, Jack could suddenly see himself dropping the awkward ossuary down the stone steps, where it would certainly shatter and dump the bones, scrolls, glass panes, codex, and Saturninus’s letter out onto the concrete. As a consequence, Jack gripped the stone more tightly and was even contemplating putting it down when the door was swept open by the same priest who’d welcomed him to lunch.

“Dr. Stapleton,” Father Maloney commented. “What can I do for you?”

“It might be nice to invite me in,” Jack suggested, with a touch of sarcasm.

“Yes, of course, come in!” Father Maloney stepped back to give room. “Is the cardinal expecting you?”

“He might be, since he knows more about what’s been going on than I, but I’m not certain. Why don’t I wait where I waited last week?”

“That is a superb idea. The archbishop is meeting now with the vicar general, but I will let him know you are here.”

“Very good,” Jack said. On his own, he’d already started down the hall, clearly remembering where the small private study was located. Father Maloney sprinted ahead and held the door ajar by the time Jack arrived. The first thing Jack did was place the ossuary on the floor. He was careful not to damage the flawless surface.

“Is there anything I can get you while you wait?”

“If you sense it is going to be a while, a newspaper might be nice.”

“Would the
Times
suffice?”

“That would be fine.”

Father Maloney closed the door behind him. Jack looked around the ascetic room, noting the same details he had on the previous visit, including the strong but not overbearing odor of cleaning fluid and floor wax. Already starting to get warm, he pulled off his leather jacket and tossed it onto the small club chair. Then he sat down on the mini-couch exactly as he’d done when he’d come for lunch, making him acknowledge how much a creature of habit he was.

Contrary to his concern, he did not have long to wait. Within just a few moments of Father Maloney’s departure, the door burst open. Dressed like a simple priest, James stepped into the room. After closing the door behind him, he rushed over to Jack and mimicked their greeting the week before with a brotherly hug. “Thank you, thank you, for coming right over,” James managed. It was then that he caught sight of the ossuary.

As if a schoolboy, James let go of Jack and clapped his hands in appreciation. “You already brought the ossuary! Oh, thank you! You have answered a prayer that the ossuary would come back to the Church. Tell me, is everything back into it?” James had his palms pressed together as if in prayer.

“Everything is in it,” Jack said. “Bones, samples, all of the scrolls, even Saturninus’s letter and the codex it came from. After what has happened, I felt I wanted to get it into your hands as soon as possible.”

“What did you think of this tragedy?”

“I was blown away,” Jack said. “I learned about it only an hour or so ago. I was told by a friend, Lieutenant Detective Lou Soldano.”

“I met him last night,” James said. “He was here at the residence.”

“He told me,” Jack said. “He’s a good man.”

“I sensed that.”

“Why didn’t you call me as soon as you learned what had happened?”

“I don’t know. I thought about it, but I’m so confused. Jack, I don’t know if I’m guilty or not.”

Jack looked askance at James. “What are you talking about? What do you think you might be guilty of?”

“Murder,” James said. Unable to maintain eye contact with Jack, he looked away. “I don’t know if I didn’t suspect in the hidden corners of my mind that there was a chance this might happen. When one plays with fire, pardon the pun, one can get burnt. I knew the person I was asking for would be unbalanced, maybe even to the extent of feeling he could use sin to fight what he considered to be a bigger sin. Luke called me yesterday morning to tell me that Shawn was about to change his mind and not publish. He said he was confident of success, and it was more due to tactics than argument. I should have known then that a tragedy was about to unfold, but instead I was so pleased plan B was going to work, I didn’t question what Luke meant by the word
tactics.
Obviously, in hindsight he meant this horrid martyrdom.”

“James, look at me!” Jack demanded, holding on to both of James’s shoulders and giving them a gentle shake. “Look at me!” Jack insisted. James’s face was an agony of torment, with injected eyes awash with tears and slack skin. Slowly his brimming, blue eyes came up to meet Jack’s. “I was part of this almost from day one,” Jack continued.

“Never once did you have any wishes of physical injury, much less thoughts of death toward Shawn or Sana. Never! Your goal was to find someone passionate and persuasive about the Virgin Mary, which you did. To go beyond that and scheme of killing someone is something your mind or my mind is not capable of doing. It’s only after the fact that we are able to consider it. Please don’t magnify the tragedy by trying to take responsibility. The responsibility was in the mind of the perpetrator, which we will never understand. Something set him off. Probably we’ll never know what, but something.”

“Do you truly believe what you are saying, or are you just trying to mollify me?”

“I believe it one hundred percent.”

“Thank you for being supportive. Your thoughts are important to me. You have encouraged me to take some time off to think and pray about this affair. I’m going to ask the Holy Father if I could spend a month or so at a monastery conducive to such contemplation and prayer.”

“That sounds like a good, healthy plan.”

“But first this awful episode must be cleaned up,” James said. He looked intently up into Jack’s face. “I’m afraid I have to ask one more rather large favor from you, my friend.”

“And what can that be?”

“The ossuary!” James said. “I need to ask you to help me put it back.”

“Put it back where?” Jack questioned, although he already guessed. He guessed because he too thought it was the best solution to the entire unfortunate episode. The ossuary should go back to where Shawn and Sana had found it, under Saint Peter’s. “Do you mean take it back to Rome . . . ?” Jack continued, his voice trailing off.

“I knew you would understand,” James said, reviving to a degree from his melancholy.

“You and I are the only ones who know about the story. I would not be able to do it myself. You must help me, and the sooner, the better.”

Jack’s immediate thought was Laurie, especially considering JJ and the need to check his antibody level to see if treatment could be restarted. “I’m afraid I have a full schedule these days,” Jack said. “When were you thinking of doing this?”

“Tonight,” James said matter-of-factly. “I have already made reservations for us late this afternoon. I hope you don’t feel aggravated by my presumptuousness assuming you’d agree. The ossuary will be coming with us on the same flight. We’ll be in Rome in the morning, and tomorrow night I will make arrangements to put the ossuary back where it came from. Then, if you’d like, you can come back to New York on Saturday. It’s taking you all the way to Rome, but you’ll be gone for only two nights. Don’t make me beg, Jack.”

Jack suddenly had a thought that made the idea of flying all the way to Europe seem like an interesting idea above and beyond putting the ossuary back into its burial site. It involved one of the three sheets of computer printouts he’d placed in his inner jacket pocket when he’d been packing everything else back into the ossuary in the lab. Instead of adding the printouts to the other objects, since they had come from the lab, he decided to pocket them with the idea of mulling them over at a later date. One of the pages had the name and an address of a patient seen at the Ein Kerem campus of the Hadassah Medical Center.

“I tell you what,” Jack said. “I’ll come tonight and help you put back the ossuary under two conditions. Number one, my wife, Laurie, and our four-month-old child come with us, provided I can talk her into it, and two, I can tell my wife the whole story of the ossuary.”

“Oh, Jack,” James whined. “The reason I need you to help is to avoid telling anyone else.”

“Sorry, James, that’s my offer. But I can assure you she’s as good as I or better when it comes to secrets. Not being able to tell her has been a burden and, frankly, not telling her and going all the way to Rome doesn’t sit well with me. Anyway, those are the two conditions if you want me to go tonight.”

James thought for a few moments and quickly decided that if he had to risk telling someone else, Jack’s wife was probably the best risk.

“All right,” James said reluctantly. “What time can you get back to me?”

“If all goes smoothly, within the hour. Should we meet here or at the airport?”

“Meet here. I’ll have Father Maloney drive us out to Kennedy in the Range Rover.”

L
eaving the residence, Jack beat it back to the OCME by taxi and ran directly in to see Bingham. Unfortunately, Bingham was over at City Hall, meeting with the mayor.

Instead, Jack ran up to the third floor and ducked into Calvin Washington’s office.

Luckily, the deputy director was there, and Jack merely informed him that he was going to be away for a long weekend. Since Jack was already off the autopsy rotation, it didn’t make much difference. Still, Jack felt better letting the powers-that-be know he definitely was not going to be in the neighborhood. Jack then went down, unfastened the tangle of locks on his bike, and headed home. He knew he had some serious uphill convincing to accomplish.

By the time Jack picked up his bike and carried it into the foyer, he was excited about the trip. He’d loved Rome the four or five times he’d been there, and he’d never been to Jerusalem. Stashing his bike in its closet, he took off up the stairs. It was now afternoon, which meant there were only three or so hours to get ready. James wanted everyone who was going to be at the residence by three.

“Laurie!” Jack yelled as he reached the kitchen, but Laurie was not to be found.

Passing the kitchen, Jack headed down the hall toward the family room and the living room. Just when he was about to yell again, he almost collided with her coming from the family room, a child-rearing book in hand. She also had an index finger pressed to her lips. “He’s sleeping,” she whispered forcibly. Jack pulled his head in like a turtle, feeling guilty for yelling out as he had. He knew better than to do such a thing before finding out JJ’s status. He apologized effusively with the explanation that he was excited.

“What on earth are you doing home so early?” Laurie questioned. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine!” Jack said, pronouncing “fine” with emphasis. “In fact, do I have a deal for you.”

“For me?” Laurie questioned with a smile. She ducked back into the family room and regained her seat on the couch with her feet on the coffee table. She had a cup of honey tea on the side table. “Not bad, huh. Woman of leisure! JJ’s having another good day.

This might be the longest nap he’s ever had.”

“Perfect,” Jack said. He sat down on the coffee table to be close when he talked with her.

“First, I have to make a mini-confession. I have not told you the full story of this ossuary that my archaeologist friend and his wife had been working on. I have to say, it is fascinating. The reason I hadn’t told you was because my archbishop friend pleaded with me not to do so. Anyway, that injunction is no longer valid, and I’m looking forward to telling you the whole story.”

“Why the change?”

“That’s a story in itself. My archaeologist friend, Shawn, and his wife were both killed last night in a house fire, so that’s the end of the ossuary-contents examination.”

“Oh, no! I’m so sorry,” Laurie said with sincerity. “Was it the house where we visited them?”

“Yes, it was. Once those old wood-frame houses catch on fire, look out. They practically explode in flame.”

“What a terrible tragedy,” Laurie said. “And to think, you were just there getting reacquainted. Does this mean you are losing another diversion?”

“Not quite.”

“No? You just said the deaths have halted the ossuary examination.”

“That’s true, but the ossuary has to go back to where it came from. I’m afraid my archaeologist friend and his wife actually stole the relic literally out from under Saint Peter’s Basilica. It had been buried next to Saint Peter for almost two thousand years.

I’ve promised the archbishop that I would help him take the ossuary back and replace it where it had been so that no one is the wiser. The archbishop and you and I will be the only ones to know of its existence, and you’ll have to promise not to tell anyone ever if you want to hear its alleged details.

“Now, here’s the deal. The three of us—you, JJ, and I—are going to fly tonight to Rome.