Kathy Reichs - Cross bones

“What else?” Jake glanced over his shoulder at the door. My eyes followed, as though controlled by his movement.

“At least six of the tomb individuals are related,” I said.

“Oh?” Jake drew closer, throwing a shadow onto the printout.

“But that’s exactly what you’d expect in a family tomb. The surprising thing is th-”

“Which six?” Jake’s levity had vanished.

“I don’t know. Your individuals are reported only by sample numbers.”

Jake cupped a hand on his mouth for a second or two. Then he snatched the printouts, shot to his feet, and crossed the room in three lanky strides.

“Jake. That’s not the most significant thing.”

I was addressing empty air.

Forget the tomb bones. I wanted to talk about Max. That was important. Then I remembered the tooth report.

No, I told myself. It was all important now.

I found Jake in the back bedroom arranging prints on a worktable. Joining him, I could see they were the ossuary photos Ryan and I had viewed.

As I watched, Jake wrote a name on the lower border of each print. Beside each name, he added the DNA lab’s reference number.

Handing me the printouts, Jake called out the first sample number. I checked the nuclear DNA report.

“Female,” I read.

“Marya,” he said. Mary.

Jake drew a female symbol on the Marya ossuary photo, then flipped through a set of stapled pages.

“The physical anthropologist estimated this gal was old, sixty-five plus.” He jotted the figure, then read the next lab number.

“Female,” I said.

“Mariameme. The one called Mary.”

Jake checked the physical anthropologist’s report. “Older adult.” He marked the photo, then read the third number.

“Male,” I said.

“Yehuda, son of Jeshua.”

Jude, son of Jesus, I translated in my mind.

“Twenty-five to forty years.” Jake read the next number.

“Female,” I said.

“Salome. Older adult.”

One by one, we worked our way through the remains that had been associated with inscribed ossuaries. Mary. Mary. Joseph. Matthew. Jude. Salome. Jesus. In each case, the inscription fit the gender predicted by the nuclear DNA. Or vice versa.

Two sets of remains from the tomb floor were determined to be those of a male and a female.

Amplification of nuclear DNA was unsuccessful for Jesus and Matthew, and for the other samples recovered from the tomb floor. No results. No information on those individuals.

Jake and I looked at each other. It was like waiting out a no-hitter. Neither of us put it into words. But even with the gaps, it all fit. The Jesus family.

“So who’s related to who?” Jake asked.

“Whom.” Nervous reflex. I switched from the nuclear- to the mitochondrial-DNA report.

“Remember, these results show links, or lack of links, through female lines. Mother-daughter, mother-son, siblings sharing the same mother, cousins whose mothers had the same mother, and so on. Okay. Here goes. Mariameme and Salome are related.” I spoke aloud as I matched sample numbers to names. “So is Marya, the older Mary.”

Jake made notations on the three prints.

“Yose is part of the lineage. So is Jude.”

More notations.

“The male from the tomb floor is related.”

“Meaning he shows the same mitochondrial-DNA sequencing as Mariameme, Salome, Marya, Yose, and Jude.”

“Yes,” I said. “The female from the tomb floor is unique. That’s no big deal. She may have married into the family from outside. As a relative only by marriage, not blood, she, and her children, if she had any, would have had the mitochondrial DNA of her mother’s line.”

“Nothing from Daddy.”

“Mitochondrial DNA does not recombine. The whole shooting match comes from Mom.”

I continued with the printout.

“Matthew is also unique. But again, if his mother was from another family, he would haveher mitochondrial DNA, not that of her husband.”

“He could be a cousin.”

“Yes. The offspring of a brother and his wife.”

I looked up.

“The Jesus material was too degraded for amplification. Sequencing wasn’t possible.”

Jake began sketching a family tree, hand darting like a hummingbird.

“Everything tallies. The older Mary is the mother.” Jake drew a circle, named it Mary, and sent spokes shooting downward from it. “Salome. Mary. Joseph. Jesus. According to scripture, those are four of Mary’s seven kids.”

The inscription. Yehuda, son of Yeshua. Jude, son of Jesus.

Donovan Joyce’s crazy theory. Jesus survived the crucifixion, married, and fathered a child. Were we back to that?

My mind wouldn’t accept it.

The hell with the no-hitter. I jumped into the commentary.

“How does Jude fit in?” I asked.

Jake raised both brows and dipped his chin. Need I say the obvious?

“Jesus with siblings, living on, and becoming a daddy? You’re talking about the three fundamental doctrines of the Catholic Church-virgin birth, resurrection, and celibacy.”

Jake raised both shoulders. He was so agitated the move came across more spasm than shrug.

“No, Jake. What you’re inferring can’t be. This Jude has DNA that links him to the other women in your tomb, to the older Mary, Salome, and Mariameme. If Jesus had fathered a son, that child would have the mitochondrial DNA of its mother’s family, not its father’s family.”

“Fine. Jude could be a nephew of Jesus. A grandson of Mary.” Jake added a circle at the end of one spoke, and sent another spoke shooting downward from it. “One of the sisters could have married another man named Jesus and had a son named Jude.”

“Donovan Joyce claimed he’d seen a scroll written by someone named Jesus, son of James,” I offered, almost against my will.

“That couldn’t have been James of the ossuary, Jesus’ brother. James’s wife would have been unrelated, and James’s son would have had his mother’s mitochondrial DNA, not his grandmother’s, right?”

“Yes.”

Thoughts were whipsawing in my head. “Jake, there’s someth-”

Again he cut me off.

“The female from the tomb floor is unrelated. She could be-” Jake stopped as the thought struck him. “Holy hell, Tempe. Donovan Joyce thought Jesus married Mary Magdalene. Others have suggested the same thing. That female could be Mary Magdalene.”

Jake was barely taking time to breathe.

“But it really isn’t important who she is. And Matthew’s unrelated, right? He could be one of the disciples who, for whatever reason, ended up buried in the tomb. Or a son of one of the brothers, another nephew.”

“Lot of mights. Lot of maybes.” I resisted the pull of Jake’s exhilaration.

Jake ignored that.

“James is missing because his ossuary was stolen. And Simon died decades later. Hot damn, Tempe, it’s practically the whole family.”

The same thought crossed our minds simultaneously. Jake voiced it.

“So who’s the crucified man in the shroud?”

“Maybecrucified,” I cautioned.

“Okay. The Jesus from the ossuary could be another nephew. Damn! Why couldn’t that lab sequence him?”

Abruptly, Jake strode to the ossuary cabinet. Disengaging the padlock, he peered in. Satisfied, he closed and resecured the door.

Jesus alive and with offspring? Jesus dead and remaining shrouded in a tomb? Each scenario seemed worse than the next.

“It’s all speculation,” I said.

When Jake turned, his eyes bored into mine. “Not if I can prove the James ossuary came from that tomb.”

I picked up the mitochondrial-DNA report. Marya, Mariameme, Salome, Yose, Yehuda, and the unknown male were members of a single matrilineage. Matthew had come from another lineage, and the unknown female from the tomb floor had come from yet another. The bones from the ossuary inscribedYeshua, son of Yehosef were too degraded to yield DNA.