The Inquisitor's Key: A Body Farm Novel

by Jefferson Bass

  Suddenly I felt a chill as I remembered Miranda’s barely intelligible words when Reverend Jonah had let me talk to her. “The key is to get the bones,” she’d said. Twice. My God, she must have meant this key. But what door, what hiding place, did this key unlock? It must not be a door at the palace, because Stefan’s master key—which Descartes and his men had a copy of—was different from this. What else had Miranda said during that important, frustrating, garbled call? She’d clearly been trying to tell me something else important, but much of the message had been mangled by the poor reception. She’d told me not to get greedy like Stefan, and then she’d said something about Stefan being interrupted. But then she’d added something odd, something I hadn’t understood: She’d told me to “be interruptible.” I’d been trying to ask her what that meant when Reverend Jonah had snatched the phone away from her and slapped her. “Be interruptible.” Turning the key over and over in my hands, I stared absently at it and repeated the words slowly, as if they held some magic, some mantra. “Be interruptible. Be interruptible. Interruptible.”

  And then, tearing open my door, I raced down the stairs, flung open the wooden gate of the inn, and sprinted through the twisting streets, past the floodlit façade of the Palace of the Popes, beneath the outstretched arms of the cathedral’s gilded virgin and oversized crucifix, and down a zigzag ramp to the northern edge of the city wall, toward the dark waters of the Rhône.

  I’d just reached the base of the Bénézet bridge—the bridge of Incorruptible, Interruptible Saint Bénézet—when my phone rang. It was Reverend Jonah. “Now or never, Professor,” he hissed.

  “Now,” I said. “Right now, by God. But you have to bring her to me. The bones and I are at Saint Bénézet’s Bridge. Walk up the sidewalk from the south side of the bridge. If I see anyone with you but Miranda, I’ll throw the bones off the bridge and into the river.”

  What bones? The rhetorical question posed by Descartes still applied. I didn’t have the bones yet, didn’t know for sure they were here. But they had to be here. There was no other explanation that fit…and no time to look anywhere else.

  “And if I see anyone with you, I’ll shoot the girl,” he countered. “If you have any doubt about that, remember what happened to your colleague.”

  “What about the Sixth Commandment, Reverend? ‘Thou shalt not kill’? Or did God say you could ignore that one, when he took you up to Heaven for your private sneak preview of the Apocalypse?”

  “We’re all sinners, Doctor. Some of us, by the grace of God, are forgiven sinners. That’s the only difference. I’ve sinned many times in my life. I’ll probably sin many more. But I am cleansed and made spotless by the blood of Jesus Christ. By the miracle of grace. And when the trumpet sounds—soon, very soon—I will stand with the righteous. Because I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Make straight his path!’ Unworthy as I am, Doctor, I am God’s chosen instrument.”

  His words—and his fervent, escalating intensity—filled me with dread, but I knew better than to show fear. “And so am I, Reverend,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster, or could pretend to. Growing up, I’d been surrounded by fundamentalist Protestants—Southern Baptists, Primitive Baptists, even a few snake-handling Holy Rollers. I cast my mind back to that subculture and its language, hoping to speak to the preacher in words that would carry weight with him. “I’m the Lord’s instrument, too. Listen to the Spirit, Reverend, and you’ll know it’s true. I found the bones. I escaped the snares you’ve set for me. And now I charge you—as Jesus charged the woman caught in the act of adultery—‘Go and sin no more.’ Forgiveness requires repentance, Reverend, and repentance isn’t true—it’s a lie—if you’re already plotting the next sin. So bring her to me in ten minutes, and do it with a pure heart. I charge you in the name of Him you serve.”

  “Don’t you dare presume—” he began, but I hung up. It was a risk, I knew, but then again, I was playing a high-stakes game of chicken with a madman. Doing anything was a big risk…but doing nothing would be a bigger risk. Seven hundred years after he’d said them, Meister Eckhart’s words still rang true: “The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake.” In this case, I felt sure, the price of inaction would be Miranda’s death.

  I rang Descartes. The phone rang and rang, then finally rolled to voice mail. Christ, I thought, he’s in the basement of one of those thick stone towers. Those signal-proof towers. After the voice-mail announcement finished—the only part I understood was the name, “René Descartes”—I blurted, “Inspector, it’s Brockton. I know where the bones are. I’m meeting the preacher in ten minutes. Saint Bénézet’s Bridge. Hurry. But whatever you do, don’t spook him, or he’ll kill Miranda.”

  A massive wooden door sealed the portal at the base of the tower that anchored the stone bridge to the rocky hillside. The door had an ancient-looking iron lock. By the light of my cell phone, I wiggled the key into place and turned. The lock resisted; I twisted harder, praying I didn’t snap the ribs off the spine of the key. Still it resisted, so I applied more force, and more prayer…and the lock yielded. Hurling my weight against the door, I bulled it open and then raced up the stone stairs and out onto the top of the bridge. Fifty yards ahead was the crumbling little chapel where Bénézet’s incorruptible remains had lain for hundreds of years, until the French Revolution dethroned the dual monarchies of king and church.

  At the door of the chapel, I repeated the same sequence: light, key, prayer, force. Again, just as I was expecting the key to snap, the lock turned and the door opened.

  The chapel’s interior was pitch-black. The cell phone’s display had offered plenty of light to see a keyhole, but it made a mighty feeble searchlight. On hands and knees, I searched the perimeter of the chapel. I found rat carcasses, pigeon droppings, and a few scraps of paper and plastic that the mistral had whirled through the window openings. But I did not find a stone ossuary.

  I did, however, find another door, a small door set into one of the chapel’s side walls. I stood up, found an iron handle, and opened the door. It opened onto a staircase that descended to a lower level: a low-ceilinged chamber that must have been the chapel’s crypt. This must have been where Bénézet’s body had lain until it was spirited away by nuns for safekeeping. Could this be where Stefan had hidden the ossuary—an ironic in-joke by the arrogant archaeologist?

  On a simple stone altar in the center of the crypt was Stefan’s last laugh: the ossuary, its inscribed cross and lamb plainly visible even by the faint light of my phone. Without even lifting the lid to make sure the bones were inside, I slid the box off the slab and staggered up the stairs to the top of the bridge.

  CHAPTER 42

  I REACHED THE EDGE OF THE BRIDGE AND BALANCED the ossuary on the narrow round railing just as Reverend Jonah emerged from the tower. Half a step in front of him was Miranda; with his left hand, he clutched her left arm; with his right, he pushed her ahead of him like a shield.

  “Let her go, Reverend,” I called. “Let go of her arm and keep walking toward me, with both hands where I can see them.”

  He brought his right hand from behind her back, and I saw it held a gun, which he pressed to Miranda’s ribs. “Show me the bones.”

  My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth, but I knew I had to speak with apparent calmness and strength. “Let go of her first. And put down the gun.”

  “No, Doctor.”

  “That was our deal, Reverend. I get her; you get the bones.”

  “Our deal counts for nothing. My loyalty is to a far higher power than you. Now show me the bones, or by that power, I’ll pull this trigger.”

  My mind was screaming, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. “If you shoot her, the bones go into the river. And if you shoot me, the bones go into the river. You’ll notice that they’re balanced rather precariously here on the edge, Reverend. In fact, the only thing keeping them from falling right now is that I’m ke
eping a tight grip on them. But since you insist, I’ll show you.” I lifted the lid of the ossuary and set it down on the bridge, propping it against the knee-high lower railing. Keeping my eyes on him, I reached into the box and felt for a femur. Grasping it by the femoral head—the “ball” at the upper end of the thighbone—I lifted it from the box. “This is the left femur, Reverend. The left femur of the Son of the Most High. Now let her go.” He shook his head and took a step toward me, pulling Miranda with him. I waved the femur at him warningly. “How will you explain this to your God, Reverend?” With that, I let the bone hang down alongside my leg, then I gave my wrist a quick snap. The bone flipped upward, tumbling end over end as it arced upward toward the far side of the bridge. Still spinning, it dropped below the railing and hit the dark water below with a faint splash.

  Reverend Jonah gave a strangled cry and rushed to the railing. Then he whirled and leveled the gun at me. Anything could happen in the next instant, I knew, but at least Miranda was no longer in his grasp, with a gun to her ribs. “You…you…” His voice was shaking, and so was the gun.

  “Remember, Reverend, if you shoot me, the rest of the bones fall into the water. And Reverend? This stone box is heavy, and my hand’s getting tired.” To underscore the point, I let the box wobble a bit on the railing. As it tilted farther toward the water, the bones shifted inside, grating slightly as they slid. “You probably know this, Reverend, but if you’re looking for DNA in an old skeleton, the best places are the teeth and the long bones. They encapsulate the DNA better than the smaller bones do; they protect it from bacteria and pollutants and the ravages of time. The best of the long bones for what you hope to do is the femur.” Reaching into the box again, I found the other femur and took it out, just as I had the first. “Unfortunately, by breaking your word, you’ve already lost one femur. It’d be a real shame to lose the other.” I waved the end up and down, as if I were winding up to toss it.

  “Don’t,” he gasped.

  “Then put the gun down. I’m counting to three—the number of the Holy Trinity, Reverend. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They’re all watching, all wondering if you’re about to fail them. If these bones go into the river, do you really think they’re going to welcome you with open arms and say, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant?’ Somehow I doubt it, Reverend. But I guess your faith is stronger than mine. One.” I gave the bone an upward snap, but did not release it. “Two.” Another snap. “Three.” I dipped my arm lower this time, so I could put plenty of force in the toss.

  “Stop! All right, all right.” He laid the gun on the cobblestones and held out both hands.

  “That’s better,” I said. “Miranda, walk away.”

  “I’m not going without you,” she said.

  “Go on, Miranda. I’ll be right behind you. As soon as you’re off the bridge, I’ll give the bones to the Reverend, and I’ll be with you in sixty seconds. Now go.”

  “I can’t, Dr. B.” To my surprise, she was crying. “I can’t leave you here with him.”

  “Yes you can. You have to.” Surprised and moved by her vulnerability, I suddenly felt on the verge of coming undone myself. “Don’t be afraid, Miranda. I’ll be fine.” I wasn’t sure I believed that, but I needed her to believe it, at least long enough to walk out of harm’s way. “I love you, Miranda. Now go.”

  “I love you, too, Dr. B.” It came out as a whisper, but it bored into me more strongly than if she’d shouted it.

  She began to walk, slowly at first, then faster, her heels clopping on the stones. Finally she broke into a run, her clattering footfalls echoing off the rock bluff from which the bridge seemed to grow. When she reached the tower and started down the stairs, I nodded to the preacher. “Okay, Reverend, come get your precious bones. But don’t forget, they’re still hanging in the balance here. It’s not too late for me to let them go if I think you’re trying anything.”

  He was ten feet away, walking slowly and stiffly, almost as if he were marching in a slow-motion procession; his eyes were gleaming, his breathing was fast, and his lips were forming whispered words that I couldn’t hear. When he was two steps away, I said, “Stop.” He stopped, swaying slightly as he stood. “Hold out your arms. I’m going to hand this to you. Brace yourself; it’s heavy.”

  “Could you set it on the ground? I’ve got a bad back.”

  I wanted his hands occupied for a few seconds. “Have faith, Reverend. Remember the words of Isaiah: ‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.’ Hold out your arms and get ready to take this, Reverend, because I’m about to lose my grip.”

  He took another step, and I swung the ossuary off the rail and into his outstretched arms. As he staggered under the weight, I darted across the bridge to the other side, snatched up the gun he’d laid down, and pointed it at him. “Liar,” he hissed. “Deceiver. Son of Satan.” He squatted and set down the ossuary with a thud.

  “Not so, Reverend. I mean you no harm. I just want to make sure I get off this bridge alive.” Keeping the gun and my gaze trained on him, I backed away from him, toward the tower and staircase at the end of the bridge. I’d made it halfway when a scream—Miranda’s scream—split the night.

  I turned and ran for the stairs, calling, “Miranda? Miranda!”

  At that moment she emerged onto the bridge again, slung over the shoulder of Reverend Jonah’s goon, who appeared like some twisted, evil version of Saint Christopher carrying the Christ child. How had he gotten back on the road so quickly, I wondered, after his crash in the mountain tunnel? Had he flagged down a passing motorist? If so, what had become of the misguided Good Samaritan?

  In person, Junior looked far bigger than the security-camera photo had suggested; he was a giant of a man, with a neck the diameter of a tree trunk and arms as thick as live-oak limbs. Miranda was writhing and struggling in his grip, with no more effectiveness than a toddler.

  “Vengeance is mine,” crowed Reverend Jonah behind me. “Thus sayeth the Lord.” I turned to face him again. He was walking toward me, a second gun in his hand. He raised it, took aim at me, and I saw a flash from the muzzle, then felt myself flung backward as the fist of God slammed into my chest. I hit the wall of Saint Bénézet’s Chapel with my back and head; my legs gave way and I slid down the rough wall and onto the stones of the bridge. “Vengeance is mine,” I heard Reverend Jonah repeat. “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory.” My vision was fading as he stepped toward me, but I could see him closing in, leveling the gun at my head. “Prepare to meet thy God.” Dimly I heard a shot, and then another.

  Clearly delirious now, I saw the preacher crumple to the stones directly in front of me, followed by Miranda and her burly captor. “Miranda, no,” I groaned. But then, miraculously, Miranda pulled free and staggered to her feet. She stared down at Junior, whose head was lying in a pool of blood. “Dr. B, Dr. B,” she was sobbing. “Oh, dear God, Dr. B.” Behind her, striding toward me, I saw the angel of death coming to claim me. He was dressed in black, but instead of a scythe, he carried a rifle.

  “Ah, lad, I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner,” said the angel of death, whose features crystallized into the face of Father Mike.

  “Take Miranda,” I gasped. “Get her out of here.”

  “Let’s see about you first, lad,” he said. “Hurt bad, are you?”

  “Not sure. Hard to breathe. How’d you find me?”

  “Saint Anthony,” he said. “Remember? ‘Tony, Tony, look around’?” He took hold of my collar and ripped open the front of my shirt. He looked startled, and then he began to laugh. “I’ll be damned. Maybe there’s something to the hocus-pocus after all.”

  “What?” I looked down, expecting to see blood, but there was none. Then I remembered. “Oh, the vest.” The gift Hugh Berryman had sent to accompany the Arikara Indian skeleton was a vest—a Kevlar vest, a bulletproof vest—and th
e Bible verse Hugh had referenced, Ephesians 6:11, admonished, “Put on the full armour of God.” I’d recognized the vest right away; Hugh wore it whenever he worked a death scene, and I’d often teased him about it. But now I owed my life to it, and I vowed never to make fun of it again.

  Before I could explain, Miranda reached to my chest, then held up the medallion Father Mike had given me to wear. The image of Saint Christopher had been obliterated; lodged in its place, at the center of the medallion, was a flattened lead slug. “My God,” Miranda breathed. “Incredible. Absolutely incredible. What are the odds? So you’re not even hurt?”

  “Easy for you to say,” I grunted. “Feels like I’ve been kicked by a mule.” But even as I said it, the pain was beginning to ease.

  “You’ll have a nasty bruise, I’m thinking,” said Father Mike. “Maybe even a cracked sternum. But all things considered, you’re one mighty lucky fella.” He leaned closer, noticing the vest, inspecting it. “Takin’ no chances, were you, Bill Brockton?” He smiled slightly. “This vest, by the by—it wouldn’t have stopped that slug, lad. It’ll stop a 9-millimeter, but not a .45, which is what the good reverend baptized you with.”