Kathy Reichs - Cross bones

Jesus, son of Joseph. But what Jesus? What Joseph?

Had Jake really found the tomb of the Holy Family? If so, who was the shrouded man I’d found in the hidden loculus?

“There’s something else, Jake.”

“What?”

I started to speak, but Jake’s phone stopped me.

“Miracle of miracles. Could that be the Hevrat Kadisha, actually returning my call about Max?” he said, loping to the office.

In Jake’s absence I reread the reports on Max and his tooth.

The nuclear DNA told me Max was male. No biggie. I knew that from the bones. Same for the odd molar stuck in Max’s jaw. Male.

The mitochondrial DNA told me Max was not a member of the matrilineage in the Kidron tomb. His sequencing was unique. If this really was the Jesus family, Max was an outsider. Or at least not a descendant of one of those females.

The mitochondrial DNA also told me the odd molar in Max’s jaw belonged to someone other than Max. Okay. Bergeron said that. He was certain it came from a younger individual.

It was the next statement that made no sense. I was on my third reread when Jake returned.

“Assho-”

“Hevrat Kadisha?”

Tight nod.

“What did they say?”

“Baruch Dayan ha-emet.”

I curled my fingers in a come-on gesture.

“Blessed is the one true Judge.”

“What else?”

“We are the spawn of Satan. They are following the greatestmitzvah. Now the self-righteous little wankers plan to put the screws to my Talpiot site.”

“You’ve unearthed skeletal remains at a first-century synagogue?”

“Of course not. I told him that, but he didn’t believe me. Said he and his storm troopers would be landing today in full force.”

“Did you ask if they took Max?”

“The good rabbi refused to discuss it.”

Jake hesitated. “But he also said something weird.”

I waited.

“He wanted all the harassing phone calls to stop.”

“And?”

“I’ve only contacted the Hevrat Kadisha twice.”

“So who’s doing all the phoning?”

“Apparently the rabbi doesn’t know.”

A strange silence followed. I broke it.

“You were right, Jake.” I held up the mitochondrial DNA reports on Max and his tooth. “This could be bigger than either of us imagined.”

“Lay it on me.”

I did.

Now Jake looked like the doe in the headlights.

I’D REPEATED IT TWICE. JAKE WAS STILL NOT GETTING IT.

“The tooth and the skeleton show different mitochondrial-DNA sequencing. That means the tooth came from a different person than the skeleton. But we already knew that. The dentist affiliated with my Montreal lab already told us that. The tooth came from someone younger than Max.

“And Max’s mitochondrial DNA is unique, different from both the tooth person and the members of the tomb matrilineage. If Max was a member of that family, his mother was an outsider.”

“A female who married in.”

“Possibly. But the real shocker is that the mitochondrial DNA in the molar is identical to the mitochondrial DNA in the Kidron tomb family.”

“DNA ties the tooth, but not the skeleton, to the Mary lineage?”

“Sequencing links the odd tooth from Max to the matrilineally linked individuals in your tomb.”

“The tooth that was reinserted into Max’s jaw?”

“Yes, Jake. It means the owner of the tooth was related to the people in your tomb. He was a member of that family, a maternal relative.”

“But the tooth didn’t belong in that jaw. How did it get there?”

“My guess is the transfer was a simple mistake. The tooth probably slipped from the jaw of one of the individuals in the commingled remains, and became erroneously incorporated with the bones of the articulated skeleton. Maybe during recovery. Maybe during transport. It couldn’t have happened at Haas’s lab. We now know Haas never saw Max.”

“So at least one person in Cave 2001 was unquestionably related to the people in the Kidron tomb. What the hell was a member of that family doing up on Masada?”

Jake walked to the window, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked down. I waited while he wandered through thoughts of his own.

“Yadin’s reticence to discuss the cave burials. Haas’s failure to report on them.” Jake’s voice was hushed. “Of course. Those weren’t zealots. A group of Nazarenes was living in that cave.”

Though Jake wasn’t really speaking to me, his hold on my attention was complete.

“What the hell have we stumbled onto? Who was this Max? Why was that one skeleton not given to Haas? Who was hidden in the loculus in the Kidron tomb? Why weren’t those bones ever collected and placed in an ossuary?”

It came out sounding like the middle of a thought.

“Jesus followers on Masada, one of them with biological ties to the tomb in the Kidron. One of them a member of the Holy Family. And to prove that I’ve got to prove the James ossuary came from that tomb.”

Jake turned, eyes burning with something that froze my response.

“I thought we had two unrelated first-century finds, each mind-blowing on its own. That’s not true. It’s all connected. The missing Masada skeleton and the Kidron tomb are all part of the same story. And it’s mega, maybe the biggest discovery of the century. Hell, the millennium.”

Jake strode back to the table, picked up the physical anthropology report, laid it down, touched an ossuary photo, then another, stacked the photos, laid the report on top of the stack, ran his finger around its edge.

“This is bigger than evenI imagined, Tempe. And more dangerous.”

“Dangerous? But we no longer have Max. And no one knows about the shroud bones.”

“Not yet.”

“It’s time we tell Blotnik.”

Jake spun on me. “No!”

I jerked as though shocked by live current.

Jake raised an apologetic hand.

“Sorry. My head’s cranking up again. It’s just. I-Not Blotnik.”

“Jake, are you allowing personal feelings to cloud your judgment?”

“Blotnik’s a has-been. No.” Jake snorted. “That’s being charitable. He’s a never-was. And a real asshole.”

“Blotnik could be Caligula, but he heads the IAA. The man must have done something to earn that position.”

“He published a few brilliant articles back in the sixties, got the academic world shitting its fancy French shorts, got a lot of plum offers, then sat back and never wrote another thing of merit. Now he rides on the backs of others.”

“Despite your view of Blotnik, the IAA has authority over antiquities in this country.”

Outside, a car door slammed. Jake’s eyes skittered to the window, to the locked cabinet, then back to mine. Sighing, he picked up and began clicking a ballpoint pen.

“I’ll visit Ruth Anne Bloom this afternoon.”

“Bloom is the physical anthropologist attached to the IAA?”

Jake nodded.

“You’ll tell her about the shroud bones?”

“Yes.” With his free hand, Jake squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“You’re not just saying that?”

“I’m not just saying that.” Jake threw down the pen. “You’re right. It’s too risky to keep the bones here.”

Risky for whom? I wondered, watching Jake cross back to the window. The bones? Jake? Jake’s future career? I knew my friend. He, too, had academic ambitions.

“Would you like me to go with you to the Rockefeller?”

Jake shook his head. “I’ve got to swing by the dig and warn my crew about the Hevrat Kadisha. They know the drill, but I want to be sure the damn bone police don’t take them by surprise.”

I looked at my watch.

“I’m supposed to meet Ryan at the hotel at four. But I can change that.”