The Book of Lost Fragrances

Fourteen

NEW YORK CITY

TUESDAY, MAY 24, 4:00 A.M.

Preferring uninterrupted quiet, Jac worked through the night, as she often did when she was editing an episode of her TV show. Before watching her final cut, she needed to clear her head, so she leaned on the windowsill and breathed in the cool air. Through the spaces between buildings, she could see the Hudson River, and for a few minutes, she followed a tugboat until it disappeared behind a warehouse.

“The Minotaur” was going to be her best episode yet. Her treasure hunt for the myth’s genesis had been difficult and even dangerous, and her conclusions were controversial. When the show aired in the fall, the evidence she and her team had discovered about the kernel of truth that sparked the myth should itself spark a serious debate with scholars, mythologists and archaeologists.

According to ancient legend, King Minos of Crete constructed an impressive maze to imprison the repulsive product of his wife’s affair with a beautiful white bull that came from the sea. The offspring was the Minotaur-which had the body of a man but the head and tail of a bull-a creature with a monstrous appetite for human flesh.

The Minotaur caused so much terror and destruction that the architect Daedalus was brought to Crete to build an intricate labyrinth to contain it. Trapped, the beast lived in the maze. Every nine years, seven young men and seven young women from Athens were brought to the labyrinth for it to feed upon.

The revolting sacrifices were devastating. The loss of life left scars. Engendered fear.

Finally, Theseus, the son of King Aegeus, declared he would slay the beast and end the cycle of destruction. He volunteered to be one of the victims.

When Theseus arrived on the island, Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with him. The idea she might lose him was intolerable. She gave him a sword and spool of red fleece so that he could kill the bull and then find his way out of the maze. And then marry her.

Face to face with the monster, Theseus attacked him and killed him. The Minotaur slain, its blood spilled, Theseus returned to Ariadne and took her with him to Athens.

Was there a real basis for the story? Had there been a monster or a madman imprisoned in a maze?

Archaeologists had long believed the ruins of Knossos Palace in modern-day Heraklion in Greece bore a resemblance to the fabled labyrinth. And even though no actual evidence was ever found to support the theory, the city benefited financially from the tourists who came to see the palace and its environs for themselves.

But Jac had learned of a quarry twenty miles away in the village of Gortyn where a team of archaeologists was excavating two and a half miles of tunnels and caves. Was it possible that was the site for King Minos’s labyrinth? She took her production team to Greece to find out.

Working with the Gortyn archaeologists, they explored the intertwining passages that twisted and tangled into one another. While filming in one of the dead-end chambers, the cameraman’s lights illuminated a faint outline of an archway in what had appeared to be a solid stone wall.

On camera, the archaeological team excavated the area and found a sealed-up entranceway to a hidden cavity. Jac’s director of photography filmed its opening, capturing the first light in thousands of years shining in on the jewel-like hollow.

The wall was decorated with red figure paintings on a black background, all framed with glowing gilt funeral wreaths. These amazingly fresh paintings of groupings of men and of women covered every inch of space. Some appeared to be planned for; others were squeezed in as if the artist had run out of room.

Jac counted. There were fourteen to a group. Seven men and seven women. Each time.

What appeared to be a stone altar sat in the center of the chamber. Six feet long and three feet high. Highly decorated and carved with-were those eye sockets staring at the interlopers? The cameraman shone his light on the ceremonial table. And a terrifying and-to Jac-marvelous fact was revealed.

The altar wasn’t made of stone at all but of human bones. Hundreds of femurs, tibias, fibulas, ulnas, radiuses and pelvic girdles had been fitted together intricately to form the rectangle.

Jac was sure, without knowing how she could be certain, that she was standing in the Minotaur’s lair and that testing would prove the bones were from approximately 1300 BCE-the same era as the mythical bull.

When the lab reports came in, she was the only one not astonished to learn that the human remains and paintings were dated approximately 1300 BCE.

She shivered now, remembering the feeling she’d had while reviewing the paperwork. Her instincts had been right.

Now it was time to go back to work.

Jac crossed her spare, white office, sat down at her desk and hit the Play button. The opening shot was of the entrance to the caves. She turned down the volume. It was always smart to watch an edit once without sound and just focus on the cuts.

Ten minutes into the episode, her phone rang. No one except her brother ever called this early. If Robbie was excited about something, he was more than capable of forgetting the time difference.

“Out of area,” intoned the phone’s mechanical voice. The machine never recognized overseas calls; it had to be Robbie. So she answered it.

Despite the interruption, she was always glad to talk to him, even if they wound up in another argument. But all of that would soon be over. The sale of the two perfumes was all set to go through. Robbie just needed to sign the papers, and then the House of L’Etoile could pay off its debt, and they could go back to being simpatico siblings.

“Hi, Robbie.”

“C’est Mademoiselle L’Etoile?” the male voice asked. It clearly wasn’t Robbie.

“Yes, who’s calling?”

There was a beep and static. “Hello?” the voice repeated.

“Yes, I’m here. Who’s calling?”

“This is Inspector Marcher. I’m calling from Paris. I’m sorry to disturb you. I know it’s very early.”

“What is it, Inspector?”

“When was the last time you spoke to your brother?” The urgency in his tone cut through her fatigue.

“My brother?” Her heart lurched. When Jac had heard it was the police, she’d assumed this would have to do with her father. “Robbie?”

“Yes, mademoiselle.”

“He was here about two weeks ago, and-”

“Have you talked to him since then? On the phone?”

“Has something happened to him?”

“Have you heard from him since then?”

“Yes, of course.”

“When was the last time?”

“Yesterday. He emailed me in the morning. Doesn’t Lucille know where he is? She’s the woman who-”

“Yes, I know who she is. So you haven’t heard from him since then?”

“No. What is this about? Isn’t he at the office? Sometimes he goes off on spiritual retreats on the spur of the moment. Maybe he’s-”

The inspector interrupted again. “No. He’s not at a retreat. And he’s not at home. He had several appointments this morning that he didn’t cancel.”

Jac reached for her bag. If something had happened to Robbie, she had to get home, pack, get on a plane, get to Paris.

“What is this about, Inspector?”

“We have reason to believe your brother is missing, mademoiselle.”