Intervention

Epilogue

7:49 A.M., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2008

NEW YORK CITY

Since Jack wasn’t doing autopsies for the week, he didn’t make it a point to arrive at the OCME particularly early, and today he arrived at seven-forty-nine. On normal days by that time he surely would have already picked out what he considered the best cases and would already be down in the autopsy room with Vinnie Amendola, giving him a hard time or vice versa. Instead, Jack was content to be locking up his bike at the side of one of the intake garages in full view of security. When he was finished, he gave security a wave, comforted by knowing the guys would keep an eye on his bike.

Since Shawn and Sana were not expected in until ten or thereabouts, Jack decided to finish the paperwork on all his outstanding cases if possible, so that when he went back to doing autopsies he’d be starting out with a perfectly clean slate, something he’d not experienced in the thirteen years he’d been there. Wanting to get a coffee as well as a sense of what was generally happening in the morgue that morning, Jack went up to the ID room, where he knew one of the better MEs was on duty for the week, Dr. Riva Mehta. She had been Laurie’s office mate for many years and was a dedicated, intelligent, and hardworking colleague, which was more than Jack could say about too many others on the staff.

He could smell the coffee even before he got there. Although he teased Vinnie mercilessly about most everything else, Jack never teased him about making the coffee. Vinnie had it down to a science, and by not varying his technique, the coffee was not only good for institutional brew, it was also consistent. After a half-hour bike ride, it always hit the spot.

“Anything particularly interesting?” Jack asked Riva, squeezing behind her where she was sitting at the desk to glance over her shoulder before turning his attention to the coffee.

“It’s about time, you lazy bum,” a husky voice announced.

Jack looked up from the coffee machine to see his old friend Lieutenant Detective Lou Soldano toss Vinnie’s Daily News aside and struggle to his feet. As usual, when Lou appeared early in the morning, it looked as if he’d been up all night, which he had been, with his tie loosened, his shirt’s top button unbuttoned, and his broad cheeks and neck stubbled. To complete the picture, the dark bags under his eyes hung down like a hound dog’s to intersect with his tired smile creases, while his closely cropped hair, which was never particularly combed, was standing up on end near his cowlick. It looked like he hadn’t been home for a week, not just overnight.

“Lou, old friend,” Jack said with true affection. “Just the man I want to see.”

“Yeah, how’s that?” Lou asked warily, as he sauntered over to join Jack at the coffee machine. They briefly shook hands.

“I never apologized for the ridiculous conversation I forced you to have. Remember? It was about chiropractic.”

“Of course I remember. Why do you think you have to apologize?”

“I was on a mini-crusade, and I think I carried it all a little too far for a couple of people, yourself included.”

“Bullshit, but if you want to apologize, fine! You’re forgiven. Now apologize for coming in here so late. I’ve been here for forty-five minutes thinkin’ you’d be coming through the door any second.”

“I’m off autopsies this week.”

“Christ! Wouldn’t you know! How about letting me know next time?”

“I would have let you know this time if I thought you cared. What’s up?”

“It was a busy night last night, besides the usual mayhem. There was an arsonist’s fire in the West Village, which burnt up three people, two of whom the archbishop tells me you knew.”

“Who?” Jack demanded, although he had a sudden painful feeling he already knew, especially it being the West Village, with the archbishop involved. “Was it on Morton Street?”

“Yeah, it was. Forty Morton Street. How well did you know them?”

“One more than the other,” Jack said, catching his breath. He suddenly felt weak-kneed. “Good grief,” he added, with a shake of his head. “What happened?”

“We’re still piecing it all together. How did you know them?”

Jack handed Lou the coffee he was holding and then poured himself another. “I think we better sit down,” he said. When they had, Jack told the story about Shawn and Sana Daughtry, and that he had known both Shawn and the archbishop in college. Until he knew more from Lou, he didn’t mention the ossuary. “I was at Forty Morton Street last Saturday night for dinner.”

“Lucky you weren’t there last night,” Lou said. “It was a typical arsonist’s blaze. The accelerant was gasoline in the basement, but not a lot of help was needed. The house was an eighteenth-century wood-frame firetrap.”

“Have you made IDs on the three victims?”

“Reasonably, but we’re hoping for confirmation from the OCME. We’re quite sure two of the victims are the owners of the house, but we need to corroborate. Everybody is burnt up to a cinder. The third victim was more difficult to identify. We ended up finding some of his belongings, and he is now the prime arson suspect. His name we believe is Luke Hester, and it turns out he’s one of these religious nuts who lives upstate at a monastery with a dubious reputation that is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. By contacting the monastery, we learned he was on some kind of assignment to the archbishop of New York, who we then roused out of bed. From the archbishop we got the story. Apparently, this third victim, who truly is supposed to have been some kind of religious fanatic, was temporarily living with the Daughtrys. It’s the archbishop’s fear that the religious guy killed both himself and the couple as a kind of martyrdom to keep them from publishing anything negative about the Blessed Mother, Mother of God. Can you believe this? I tell you, only in New York City.”

“How was the archbishop when you spoke with him?” Jack asked. He could hardly imagine what James was thinking. Jack was sure he must be devastated.

“He was not a happy camper,” Lou admitted. “In fact, he was devastated,” he added, as if reading Jack’s inner thoughts. “Right after I told him, he couldn’t talk for several minutes.”

Jack didn’t respond but rather just shook his head.

“Well, I came over here to watch you do the posts,” Lou said. “Just in case some unexpected information becomes available, which you, in particular, are famous for.”

“Who’s doing the three burned cases?” Jack called over to Riva.

“I am,” Riva answered. “But if you want one or two or all three, just let me know.”

“No, thank you!” Jack responded. He had already made up his mind to help James rather than Lou by gathering up all the evidence of the ossuary affair and getting it into James’s hands. “There you go, Lou,” Jack said to his detective friend. “Dr. Mehta is one of the best. I’m certain you will find her more charming than I, and even a bit faster.”

“When are you planning on starting, honey?” Lou called over to Riva. Jack cringed. Riva didn’t like to be called “honey” by chauvinistic policemen, as evidenced by her not bothering to answer. With his back toward Riva, Jack stepped between her and Lou and made a motion of drawing his finger beneath his chin as if cutting his throat. “No honey or darling or anything like that,” Jack whispered, for Lou’s benefit.

“Gotcha!” Lou voiced with immediate understanding. He rephrased his question and got an immediate response: fifteen minutes.

“I got a last bit of advice,” Jack said. “Don’t waste a lot of time on this investigation. It’s nothing more than a sad, regrettable tragedy in which everyone was doing what they thought they had to do.”

“I’d pretty much gotten that impression talking with the archbishop,” Lou countered. “The monk had no criminal record whatsoever. The most curious aspect, though, was how professional he behaved, except at the end, getting burnt up himself. Our arson investigators were impressed. Not only did he use an accelerant, gasoline, but he knew how to vaporize it maximally and also how to use trailers in the basement to take the fire to all areas of the cellar in the quickest time. He even axed a few vent holes to make sure the fire rose through the house quicker than it would have done otherwise. The man was a natural arsonist.”

“I have my cell phone,” Jack said, shaking Lou’s hand again. “Right now I’m going to run over to the archbishop’s and console him. He’s probably blaming himself, since he’s the one who introduced the parties. I can’t understand why he didn’t call me.”

“You’re right about him blaming himself,” Lou said. “He said as much to me. I’m sure he’d like to hear from you.”

“Longer than I’d like to admit,” Jack said. Confident he was leaving Lou in terrific hands, Jack reversed his direction and proceeded back down to the basement, on his way to the office of the motor pool. Although he had some mild concern about irritating Calvin after the fact, Jack had it in mind to borrow a white medical examiner’s transportation team (METT) van with a driver for thirty to forty minutes. When he walked into the motor pool, he wasn’t concerned any longer. All five drivers were sitting around having coffee. Five minutes later, Jack was riding shotgun with Pete Molina driving. Pete had been one of the night drivers with whom Jack had gotten acquainted but who’d recently been moved to the day shift.

They drove quickly up to the OCME DNA building, where Jack had Pete pull into the loading dock and wait. Running inside, Jack had security open the lab the Daughtrys had been using. Locking the door behind him, Jack did not waste any time, lest Lou’s investigative team learn of the lab before Jack could remove the relics. Jack had a sudden urge to see that everything went back to its rightful owner, a job best done by James.

Back into the ossuary went everything: bones, scrolls, even the remainder of the samples Sana had been working on within the laboratory itself. When that was all in place, Jack added two more objects: the codex and Saturninus’s letter, which Shawn had brought from his office two days previously. Jack then loaded the ossuary onto the cart that Shawn had used to bring up all the glass panes.

After checking a second time to be certain he had everything, Jack pushed the cart back down to the service elevator and then to the loading dock. Luckily, Pete was still exactly where Jack had left him. If a delivery had come in, he would have had to move. After showing his ID to another member of security, Jack carried the ossuary onto the METT 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.”

Leaving 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. Tomorrow night, I help James put the ossuary back. Then Saturday you, JJ, and I are going to fly on to Jerusalem so that we can meet with someone. Sunday we will fly home. What do you think?”

“I think you are nuts,” Laurie said, without so much as a moment of thought. “You expect me to fly all night tonight with a sick four-month-old child, to be in a foreign city for not even one full day and then fly on to another city, and then fly all the way home? How long would it take to fly from Jerusalem to New York, anyway?”

“I don’t know exactly. Probably quite a while. But that’s not the point. I want you to do this for me. I know it sounds crazy and that it will be very difficult, probably more difficult than I can imagine, but I feel it is important for me. I will help with JJ. I’ll hold him more than half the time. In Rome, we can hire a nurse to give you a little free time, same in Jerusalem. Also, he’s been better for the last three or four days, I’ve lost count.”

“It’s been three days he’s been better,” Laurie clarified.

“Okay, three days! We can do this and be back in four days. I will really help. I’d even breast-feed him if I could.”

“Yeah, sure,” Laurie scoffed. “That’s easy to say. So, on the plane you’ll hold him even if he gets antsy and excitable.”

“Yes, I will hold him. For the whole flight, if you’d like. Just say yes. You will understand more when I tell you the full story of the ossuary, which I’ll do on the plane tonight. Say yes!”

“In order for me to even consider such a nutty idea of flying to Rome and Jerusalem with a sick infant, you are going to have to tell me the full story of the ossuary right this second.”

“It will take too long.”

“Sorry, buster. That’s the deal. At least give me a synopsis.”

As quickly as he could, Jack outlined the events over the last number of days beginning with his surprise luncheon visit James’s residence and seeing the ossuary for the first time.

Although at first doubtful that she was going to find the story interesting enough to justify what Jack was demanding of her, Laurie became truly fascinated. “Oh, all right, damn you,” Laurie said suddenly, before Jack had completed has précis. “I’ll probably forget how you talked me into this moment of insanity, but you have yourself a deal, although you don’t have to hold him for the whole flight, just your share, and not just when he is sleeping, either. You are going to be holding him when he’s fidgeting as well as when he’s lying still. Is that understood?”

“Perfectly,” Jack said, his face lighting up. He leapt to his feet. “Now, I have some preparations to do and calls to make. We have to be at the archbishop’s residence by three.”

“You think you have preparations,” Laurie said, putting her book aside. “I hope we don’t regret this.”

In some ways Rome was a disappointment for Jack. On his other visits, which had all been in late spring, summer, and early fall, the weather had been bright, sunny, and warm. On this occasion in December, Rome was overcast, dreary, and damp, with some rain. On top of that, he’d anticipated some cloak-and-dagger intrigue involving sneaking the ossuary into the Vatican and then getting it from where they would be staying into the necropolis. Instead, what he learned was that the Vatican was more or less run like a gigantic club for the benefit of the cardinals. If you were a cardinal, anything but everything was okay.

Since James had used the same carton to take the ossuary back as it had arrived, it was naturally assumed by any handlers that the contents were his personal belongings. There had been no attempt whatsoever even to suggest opening it at the airport either on departure or arrival, or when they entered the Vatican. As James had made arrangements for all of them to stay within the Vatican at Casa di Santa Marta, named after the patron saint of hoteliers, Saint Martin, the ossuary and their checked baggage was there waiting for them when they arrived. After having claimed it all at the airport, it had gone ahead in a Vatican van, while James and his entourage had come into town on what James called, “the more scenic route.”

The Casa di Santa Marta was built to house the cardinals during a conclave when they were supposed to be attentive to the business of electing a new pope, so the décor was decidedly ascetic, another mild disappointment for Jack. When James had told them they were all staying within the Vatican, Jack had allowed himself to fantasize about some Renaissance décor.

What had been better than expected had been the night flight and JJ. Not only had JJ slept for a long nap that afternoon, he also slept most of the night on the plane, first in Laurie’s arms, then Jack’s. Jack had had plenty of time to tell Laurie the details of the ossuary story, which he had glossed over that afternoon.

“Will I get to see it?” Laurie had asked.

“There’s no reason why not,” Jack had responded.

To eliminate any potential snafus for that night, James arranged a private tour of the necropolis for that afternoon with one of the archaeologists from the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology. When the time came for the tour to begin, JJ was again conveniently asleep, encouraging Laurie to say, “He’s catching up from the last two months.” Although Laurie was hesitant, she allowed James to talk her into coming on the tour after James found several nuns willing to stay with JJ, one of whom would come and get Laurie the moment the child awoke.

The visit turned out to be quite helpful. At first they couldn’t figure out where it could have been that Shawn and Sana had found the ossuary, and it wasn’t until the resident archaeologist pointed out to them that to get to the tunnel entering Peter’s tomb, one had to raise one of the panels of the glass tourist deck to get down to the lowest level of the most recent excavation.

Although Jack did feel some tenseness and nervousness prior to his and James’s setting out that night after ten with Jack carrying the ossuary and James an enormous ring of keys, it quickly dissipated. Jack had thought they would have to sneak in, but they didn’t. James had actually visited the archpriest, also a cardinal, who currently administered the basilica, and told him flat out he wanted to visit Clementine Chapel and Peter’s tomb that night, and was given the ring of keys and assured the lights would all be left on.

The walk from Casa di Santa Marta to the northwest apse entrance of Saint Peter’s was thankfully short, less than a New York City block. After James unlocked the door, Jack walked into the hushed and darkened basilica through what he later learned was the Porta della Preghiera. To him, entering the basilica was the single most memorable moment of the evening. About a half-hour earlier the clouds outside had parted, at least temporarily, and a gibbous moon had slid into view seemingly for Jack’s benefit, which was now sending shafts of moonlight through the windows at the base of Michelangelo’s dome. The effect was to emphasize the vastness of the interior of the building.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” James questioned, coming up behind Jack.

“It’s enough to make me religious,” Jack responded, only half in jest.

James led the way across the transept, crossing to the column of Saint Andrews, one of the four holding up the enormous dome, where he unlocked another door that led below to the crypt.

It took them another twenty minutes to descend all the way down to the lowest level of the excavation and the exact location in the wall of the tunnel leading into Peter’s tomb where the ossuary was found. The spot was marked by a sharply defined rectangular opening in the wall. Since the dirt was loose, Jack was able to dig it out with ease and quickly discovered all the lights, buckets, and other paraphernalia that Shawn and Sana had used and then buried.

“We’re going to have to haul this stuff away,” Jack said. “But it will be easy. We can use the buckets. But first why don’t you find me some water? I can make a paste and really seal this up.”

“Great idea,” James said. “I saw a water source a ways back.”

While James was off foraging for the water, Jack got the ossuary back into the wall and started packing the rocks, dirt, and gravel around its sides. By the time James came back, he was ready to do the most exterior part, packing now-wet dirt on the end of the ossuary. When he was finished, it was almost impossible to see where the opening had been. As he was packing the last of the dirt, he thought about one unfortunate legacy of what he was doing hiding the ossuary. Mankind would have to forgo the Gospel of Simon. Jack felt bad about that, and although he’d never had much interest in the history of Christianity, he did now, and he would now always wonder what Simon Magus had really been like. Was he the bad boy he’d always been portrayed as, or had he been something else entirely?

As much as Rome was rainy, gray, and dreary, Israel was crystal clear, with a desert-blue sky, and dazzlingly, even luminously, bright. Jack, Laurie, and JJ came into the country on a noontime Rome-Tel Aviv flight, with Jack’s nose pressed against the glass. Once again, JJ surpassed Laurie’s best-case scenario. As soon as the plane had gotten to altitude, he’d dropped off to sleep, and he was still sleeping when the wheels touched down with a thump and squeak on arrival.

Waiting for them at the gate was a representative of a tour company called Mabat, who helped them through passport control and baggage formalities and then seamlessly handed them off to a car and driver scheduled to take them to Jerusalem. Jack had gotten the name of the tour company from a seasoned traveler, because he wanted to maximize the short time they were planning on staying in the country. The driver, for his part, took them directly to the King David Hotel, where he handed them off to an expat, Midwesterner-cum knowledgeable-tour-guide by the name of Hillel Kestler.

“I understand you want to go first to the Palestinian village called Tsur Baher,” Hillel said with a smile. “Now, I’ve gotten lots of different personal requests, but this is the first to Tsur Baher. Can I ask why? There’s not much to see there, I have to warn you about that.”

“I want to meet this woman,” Jack said, handing over the name and address that had come out of the computer uploaded with CODIS 6.0 and attached to the 3130XL genetic analyzer.

“Jamilla Mohammod,” Hillel read. “Do you know her?”

“Not yet,” Jack said. “But I’d like to ask her for a favor, a favor that I’m willing to pay for. Is this something you could help us with? Do you speak Arabic?”

“Not too terribly well,” Hillel admitted, “but probably good enough. When would you like to go?”

“We have only today and tomorrow unless we decide to stay longer,” Jack said. “If you don’t mind, let’s go. I assume you have a vehicle for us.”

“Most definitely. I have a Volkswagen van.”

“Perfect. Let’s go, Laurie.”

“Are you sure about this?” Laurie asked, not sounding convinced. She’d heard the story of the ossuary and the results of the mitochondrial DNA, but still had misgivings.

“We’ve come all this way. How long to the village, Hillel?”

“It will take about twenty minutes to get there,” the guide said.

“Twenty minutes, that’s all,” Jack said. He reached for JJ and took him out of Laurie’s arms. “Let’s give it a whirl. There’s nothing to lose.”

“All right,” Laurie said finally.

Exactly eighteen minutes later, Hillel made a turn into a village with a dirt street and a handful of concrete cube-style houses sprouting rebars for further expansion. There were some shops, including a smoke shop, a small general store, and a spice shop. There was also a school with lots of kids in uniforms.

“The easiest way to do this is to visit the mukhtar,” Hillel said over the voices of the children.

“What’s a mukhtar?” Jack questioned back.

“It means chosen in Arabic,” Hillel said. He closed the vehicle’s windows so as not to need to shout. “It refers to the head of a village. He will know Jamilla Mohammod for sure.”

“Do you know the mukhtar here in Tsur Baher?” Jack asked. He was sitting in the front passenger seat. Laurie was in the back, with JJ in his car-seat carrier.

“No, I don’t. But it doesn’t matter.”

Hillel parked and then ran into the general store. While he was gone, several of the schoolchildren wandered over and stared up at Jack. Jack smiled and waved at them. A few of the children self-consciously waved back. Then a man came out of the store and waved the children away.

A moment later, Hillel reappeared from inside the store. He walked over to Jack’s side of the car. Jack lowered the window.

“There’s a sitting area in the store,” Hillel explained. “It’s the local hangout, and conveniently the mukhtar happens to be here. I asked about Jamilla, and he has sent for her. If you want to meet her, you are invited inside.”

“Terrific,” Jack said. He climbed from the car and opened the sliding door for Laurie and JJ.

The interior of the store was stacked with all manner of goods from floor to ceiling, from groceries to toys, from hardware to computer paper. The sitting area Hillel had mentioned was in the rear, with a single window looking out on a hardscrabble backyard supporting a covey of skinny chickens.

The mukhtar was an elderly man in Arabic dress, with sun-baked leathery skin. He was contentedly puffing on a hookah. He was clearly pleased to have company and quickly ordered tea all around. He was also eager to hear that the Stapletons were from New York City because he had family there and had visited twice. While he was busy explaining which part of Brooklyn he’d visited, Jamilla Mohammod walked in. Like the mukhtar, she too was in Arabic dress. She wasn’t completely covered, but her dress was black, as was her knotted scarf. Her exposed skin on her hands and face was also about the same color and consistency as the mukhtar’s. Life had been a struggle for both, it was clear.

Unfortunately, Jamilla did not speak English, but since the mukhtar did to a degree, Jack spoke to Jamilla with the mukhtar’s kind intervention. He first asked her if she had any experience as a healer. Her answer was some experience but mostly with her own children, of which there were eight, five boys and three girls.

He asked her if she’d ever been sick. Her answer was no, although the year before she’d been hit by a car in Jerusalem and had been in the Hadassah hospital for a week with broken bones and blood loss. Jack then asked her if she would try to cure his child by placing her hand on his head and declaring him cured of his cancer. Jack pulled out several hundred dollars in cash and placed it on the low table. He said it was consideration for her efforts. Jack then took JJ from Laurie and approached the woman.

For the moment JJ was seemingly pleased to be the center of attention. He cooed contentedly as Jamilla did as she was asked. The mukhtar translated as Jamilla said that she wanted all illness cast from the child’s body from that moment on. It was obvious she was self-conscious and unaccustomed to such a role.

Laurie looked on, she too feeling self-conscious. Jack had told her what he was planning, and although she thought it somewhat embarrassing, she also thought it harmless, and if Jack seriously wanted to go through with it, she wouldn’t stand in the way. Now, as it was actually happening, she truly didn’t know what to think. Jack was the opposite. When he’d thought about doing it, he wanted to go through with it as a way of leaving no stone unturned. There was something mystical about the ossuary, and he wanted to take advantage of it. Now that the faith healing was actually being attempted, however, he felt silly, like he was grasping for straws. Well, he was grasping for straws.

“Okay!” Jack said suddenly when he felt the affair had gone on a bit too long, and he pulled JJ back from Jamilla’s touch. “That’s terrific! Thank you very much!” He picked up the money, handed it to Jamilla, then started for the door. All of a sudden he wanted to be away, to forget the situation. He knew that his actions were motivated by desperation, just like that of other desperate patients forced into the hands of alternative medicine. But the reason Jack wanted to get back out to the car quickly was because he was afraid he was about to cry.

All right,” Dr. Urit Effron said. He was on the full-time staff of the Hadassah University Hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem. “Here come the images from the Siemens E-Cam, and we’ll have a better idea why your son’s urine yesterday was normal for catecholamine metabolites.”

Jack and Laurie strained forward. Both were intensely interested. The previous day, leaving the town of Tsur Baher, they’d driven back to Jerusalem, where they decided to go to the emergency room at the Hadassah hospital. The episode with the faith healer had started them talking about JJ, especially since he’d been acting so normal. What they had decided to do was see if they could get an antibody level for mouse proteins done while they were on the road so that they could recommence treatment as soon as they got home.

What they learned was that they would have to return to Memorial in New York City for that test, but the pediatric oncology resident who saw them offered to do the blood tests available to see how active JJ’s tumors were in light of his doing so well. To everyone’s astonishment, particularly his parents, the results had come back normal. At that point the resident had offered to repeat the definitive test for neuroblastoma called an MIBG scan.

Having learned a significant amount about the test and its risks and benefits when JJ had been diagnosed, both Jack and Laurie were eager to repeat it. They wanted to know where they stood after the first go-round with treatment at Memorial hospital. After the injection of the short-half-life radioactive iodine the day before, they had returned for the scan to be done. At that moment, the first images were coming from the machine.

“Well, there you go,” Dr. Effron said, “the homovanillic acid and the vanillylmandelic acid were normal because there are no more tumors.”

Jack and Laurie ventured a glance at each other. Neither wanted to speak, lest the trance they were in would burst and they’d be forced back to reality. It seemed JJ had been cured!

“This is very good news indeed,” Dr. Effron said, looking up from the screen to make certain the parents had heard. “Three cheers for Memorial. Your son’s one of the lucky ones.”

“What are you trying to tell us?” Laurie forced herself to ask.

“Neuroblastomas, particularly with very young patients like your son, can be unpredictable. They can just suddenly resolve — cure themselves, if you will. Or they can respond to treatment like this. Were your son’s rather extensive or widely spread?”

“Very widely spread,” Laurie said, beginning to allow herself to accept what she was seeing, no tumors, and what she was hearing, that JJ was cured. Had it been spontaneous as Dr. Effron suggested, or had it been the mouse antibody from Memorial, or had it been Jamilla, Laurie had no idea, but at the moment she truly didn’t care.