The Inquisitor's Key: A Body Farm Novel

by Jefferson Bass

  Miranda stared at Father Mike, then looked again at the shattered medallion, turning it this way and that in the faint light. Jutting from one edge of the crater was a splintered bit of something green and gold, an incongruously synthetic material. “This thing has a circuit board in it,” she said slowly. “Is this a tracking device? Have you been following Dr. Brockton?”

  He shrugged. “Even Saint Anthony can use a bit of help.”

  She eyed him warily. “So who are you, really? You’re clearly not a small-town Irish priest.”

  Other things began to crystallize in my mind. “It wasn’t just coincidence that I met you that day in the library, was it? You’d been watching me, looking for an opening.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence, lad. It’s true, I’d had my eye on you.”

  “That was you with the binoculars and camera,” Miranda accused. “Watching us, taking pictures, the day we were up here on this bridge? You’ve been after the bones all along.”

  “And that whole story about the IRA and your brother,” I added. “That was total bullshit.”

  “No, not total. I did lose a brother in the Troubles, but it wasn’t the Brits killed him, it was me. A bomb I was rigging went off prematurely. So the penance part is true—I’ll be doing penance for Jimmy till the day I die.”

  “But you’re not really a priest.”

  He shrugged. “A priest, no. And if you ask the Holy Father about me, he’ll say he’s never heard of me. But I serve the church. I like to think of meself as a modern-day Knight Templar.”

  “So why do you want the bones?” Miranda asked. “Or why does the pope, or whoever the hell is your boss?”

  “To cover the church’s arse, Miss. If these are the bones of Christ, it buggers the story about the Resurrection and the ascension into Heaven. You can see the difficulty, can’t you?”

  “But they’re not the bones of Christ,” I said. “They’re the bones of Meister Eckhart, a fourteenth-century theologian and preacher. I already told you that.”

  “Aye, so you did. You also told me that Eckhart was murdered—crucified, no less—by a cardinal who later became pope.

  And that Eckhart, not Christ, is the man on the Holy Shroud. Can’t you see how that would bugger the Holy Father if word got around?”

  I felt like such a fool. It was obvious—in the way he carried himself, in the ease with which he handled the weapon—that he was a soldier or cop. Was he one of the pope’s Swiss Guards? Or part of some more secret agency—a Vatican version of the CIA? How could I have mistaken him for a simple village priest?

  The rifle was slung loosely over his shoulder. It had a collapsible stock and a large-diameter scope that was designed either for low light or night vision. On top of the scope was a thin, cylindrical gadget that I guessed to be a targeting laser.

  I felt an insane urge to laugh at the irony: Miranda and I had just escaped death at the hands of a Protestant fanatic, and now we were about to die at the hands of a Catholic assassin. I looked up at her, expecting to see sadness and fear in her face. Instead I saw stealth, cunning, and concentration. Almost imperceptibly she was edging behind Father Mike, edging toward the gun that had flown from my hand when Reverend Jonah’s bullet had slammed into my chest. She was three feet from it, then two feet from it, and then she was there, directly behind him. I needed to distract Father Mike, or whoever this guy was. “So will you do penance for killing Miranda and me, too? What sort of penance will our deaths require?”

  As I asked the question, Miranda reached for the gun. Without even looking, Father Mike swept a leg in a wide, swift arc, knocking her feet out from under her. She landed hard, with a thud and a grunt. She kept trying, though, going for the gun and managing to get a hand on it just as Father Mike’s foot came down on her wrist. She cried out sharply in pain, and I struggled up to lunge for him. I was stopped short by the barrel of the rifle, jabbing into my throat two inches above the top of the Kevlar vest.

  “I probably should kill you, lad, but I won’t. If I wanted you dead, I’d’ve let the reverend do the bloody bit. I don’t feel bad about shooting him and his ape—no penance needed for them two—but I don’t need more innocent blood on my hands. It’s asking for trouble, but I’ll be letting you go. I hope you don’t mind if I take a little souvenir with me, though.” He took the pistol from Miranda’s hand, then lifted his boot off her wrist. “Sorry to hurt you, miss. You strike me as a strong-headed lass, so I didn’t figure you’d listen if I just said, ‘Stop.’ I hope I’ve not done any serious harm.”

  “I’ve got a bump on my head and maybe a sprained wrist, but I’ll be okay,” Miranda said. “Hurts a bit, but you saved me from the crazies, so if you promise not to kill me, I promise not to hold a grudge.”

  He smiled at that—a smile that reminded me of the kind, comforting fellow who’d offered a friendly ear on the staircase at the library a few days and a lifetime ago. Looking at me, he cocked his head at Miranda. “She’s good in a pinch. I’d trust her with me back any day.” He tossed the preacher’s pistol over the railing, and it plunked into the water somewhere in the vicinity of the femur I’d lobbed a few minutes before. “Can I trust you two to sit here quiet-like till you can’t hear me scooter any longer?” I nodded; he turned and looked at Miranda, and she nodded, too. “Fair enough. After that, you can scream bloody hell and sic the coppers on me. If they catch me, it means I’ve lost me knack.”

  He walked to the stone box sitting ten feet away, farther out on the bridge, where Reverend Jonah had left it. Lifting the lid from where I’d leaned it against the railing, he fitted it into place, but not before taking a quick look inside. Then he squatted and lifted the box, giving his right shoulder a shrug to keep the gun sling from slipping off.

  “Those bones have brought bad luck to everybody that’s tried to latch onto them,” I said. “Are you sure you want them?”

  He shrugged, and the box bobbed slightly. “It’s not up to me, lad. I’ve got orders.” He drew even with us, and as he did, he turned toward us. “Good luck to you both. I’d keep wearing that medal, lad—it seems to be working for you.”

  He turned away, and suddenly a bright mist of red sprayed from his back. Father Mike sank to his knees and set the ossuary down with a thud, as if taken by a sudden need to pray. Then he pitched forward across the top of it.

  “Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” gasped Miranda. She ran to him and laid a hand on Father Mike’s shoulder as the life gurgled out of him. “Oh Jesus Mary and Joseph.”

  A man stepped from behind the corner of the tower at the end of the bridge and walked slowly toward us. “Hello, Docteur,” he said. “Bonsoir, mademoiselle.” The man was Inspector René Descartes.

  “Inspector? How long have you been here?”

  “Five minutes, maybe.” He shrugged. “In time to see the preacher and the muscleman die.”

  My mind was whirling, spun by a trinity of fear, sadness, and anger. “You didn’t need to shoot the priest, Inspector,” I said. “He wasn’t going to hurt us.”

  “But I did,” he said.

  I was confused. “Did what?”

  “I did need to shoot him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was taking the bones.”

  “You could have just told him to put them down. He had his hands full. He was no threat.”

  “He was a big threat, Doctor. Or a big problem, at least. Just as you and mademoiselle are.”

  “I don’t understand, Inspector.”

  “Do you know how much a French police inspector earns, Doctor?”

  “No. Not enough, probably.”

  “Enough for a one-bedroom apartment and a ten-year-old car and one week at the beach every August,” he said. “Do you know how much I can sell these bones for? Three million U.S. dollars.”

  “How? Who’s left to sell them to, Inspector? The crazy Protestant and the commando Catholic are both dead now. The religious market would seem to have dried up rather suddenly.�
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  “Ah, but you forget the art market,” he said. He smiled ironically. “It seems the art dealer, Madame Kensington, has a very eager and very rich client, one who is happy to have another chance at the bones. It’s a shame that you threw away one of them, but I think the blood on the box—along with the story of the crazy preacher and the soldier priest—will make up for the missing bone. A collector who will pay three million dollars for the bones of Christ is surely the kind of person who appreciates a good story. Imagine that you are a billionaire. Imagine that you have these bones, the most special bones in the world, and that you can take them out and show them off to your most trusted friends. Imagine how attentively they will listen as you tell how much money and how much blood it cost to get them. The story itself is worth a million, yes? Maybe I should raise the price, Doctor; what do you think?”

  “I think you’ve forgotten something. A week ago you called Felicia Kensington a piece of shit.”

  “Ah, oui, she is a piece of shit. But she’s a gold-plated piece of shit, filled with diamonds.”

  “So you’re a faker, a forger, too,” I said. “A counterfeit cop. You just pretend to care about truth and justice.”

  He shrugged, then wedged the toe of a boot under Father Mike’s body and tipped him off the top of the ossuary. “Okay, let’s go. My colleagues are slow, but even they will be arriving soon, after this many gunshots. Doctor, will you be so kind as to carry the bones?”

  I squatted, then hoisted the box. “Father Mike was letting us go. Are you?”

  “Ah, sorry, non, Doctor. The false priest gave you false hope. I give you the sad truth. La triste vérité. If you live, things will be very difficult for me. I wish I didn’t have to kill you, but I do. Don’t take it personally.”

  “I take it very personally, Inspector.”

  “Quel dommage. Too bad. But do as you wish.”

  Just ahead, something bright and orange caught my eye: the safety mesh spanning the gap in the railing. We were almost to the gap, and a desperate idea formed in my mind.

  “Inspector, I need to shift my grip; I’m about to drop this, and I doubt that your client will be happy if it gets broken. Let me just set it on the railing for a second.”

  “Non. Not on the railing,” he said. “I saw how you balanced it on the railing to trick the preacher.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll set it on the ground,” I said, “but I need to do it now. It’s slipping.” Without waiting for him to give permission—or deny it—I squatted and set down the ossuary, with the thunk of stone on stone. “Whew,” I said, straightening up and bending backward to stretch. I interlaced my fingers, stretched my arms, and pushed my palms outward to crack my knuckles.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “Come on.”

  “Okay. I’m ready. That helped.” I squatted again and worked my fingers under the ends of the ossuary. “Miranda, can you give me a hand? Just till it’s up?”

  “Why don’t you let me carry it awhile?” Miranda squatted on the other side of the box and wedged her fingers under as well. I felt her fingers graze mine on the underside of the box.

  “No, I’ll be fine,” I said. “Just help me lift—that’s the hardest part. Remember, lift with your legs, not your back.” I tapped one of her fingers, a gesture I desperately hoped she’d interpret as a signal. Her eyes met mine, and when they did, I rolled mine upward as far as I could, raising my eyebrows at the same time. “Okay, on three,” I said. “One. Two. Three!”

  With all the strength I had, I straightened my legs and flung myself backward, shouting “Push!” as I did. Miranda shoved hard on the box, accelerating my backward fall. With my momentum, Miranda’s push, and the ossuary’s weight, I slammed into Descartes with the force of a linebacker. He grunted heavily and tumbled backward, my weight driving us both toward the gap in the railing. I felt momentary resistance as the orange safety mesh snagged us and stretched; we hung like that, suspended over the water, for an agonizing instant—the detective’s arms windmilling for balance, grasping for anything solid—and then, with a crack as sharp as a gunshot, the plastic snapped and we fell: Descartes underneath, my body against his, and the stone box clutched to my chest. We did a backward flip in the air, and the centrifugal force of our spin sent pale bones cartwheeling into the black sky. We fell surrounded by them, as if we were inside some macabre snow globe of mortality.

  Descartes hit the water flat on his back, and the double impact—first from hitting the water, then from being slammed by me—forced the air from his lungs like a punch in his gut. I’d braced myself as best I could, taking a deep breath and tensing my stomach muscles against the ossuary’s weight.

  The water closed swiftly over us, the momentum of our fall and the weight of the stone box driving us downward. Plunging through the cold blackness, the light fading fast above us, I felt Descartes struggling and clutching and scrabbling at me, as if I were a tree or a ladder he would climb to safety. I also felt the edges of the plastic webbing clawing at my hands and face as the loose ends fluttered and swirled around us.

  I had no more than a few seconds of air in my lungs, and I was plunging toward the river bottom, entwined with a drowning man and thirty pounds of stone. In desperation, I slammed my head backward, making solid contact with the inspector’s face. His grip slackened long enough for me to twist free. I still had hold of the ossuary, clutching the edge of one end in my left hand. Let it go, a voice in my head screamed. Let it go. Pull him to the surface.

  I ignored that voice. I redoubled my grip on the ossuary, and with my other hand I grabbed a fluttering end of plastic mesh and wrapped it around the box. Then, fumbling for the other end of the mesh, I cinched it around Descartes’s foot. Only then, having trussed him to a stone anchor, did I push myself away and begin a desperate, breathless ascent. I felt his fingers clutch at my legs and then slip away as I kicked upward and he descended.

  Only the faintest glimmer of light showed overhead, and as I flailed toward it, running out of air, the light began to dim. My last thought, as my mouth opened and my lungs filled with water, was for Miranda. Keep her safe, I thought—no, I prayed. Then: It is finished. Now.

  And then there was blackness.

  CHAPTER 43

  SIRENS WAIL AND TIRES SCREAM TO A STOP ON THE pavement at the base of the bridge. Eight men leap from the caravan of police cars, running toward the stairs, weapons in hand.

  One of the officers cries out and points upward, and the others look just in time to see a figure—a young woman—climbing onto the railing of the bridge and scanning the water below for ripples, bubbles, anything. She balances there briefly, arms stretched wide, as if Jesus and Mary, Savior and Virgin, manifested at one and the same time. Then she sees something; she does not hesitate, but hurls herself headfirst, as heedless as a seabird that spies a flash of silver scales in the water. She cleaves the surface with scarcely a splash, and the policemen stand transfixed, staring at the widening circles that are the only evidence of what they have just witnessed. Long moments pass; one man clutches his partner’s arm; another crosses himself.

  At last the waters stir. The woman breaches, gasping and coughing and retching in the river. With one arm she pulls for the bank; with the other, she encircles the lifeless body she has harrowed from the depths.

  She drags him onto the bank and presses water from his lungs, then—holding the shattered silver medallion he wears around his neck—she covers his mouth with hers and exhales, breathing into him the breath and prayer of life.

  The man—Brockton—stirs, and groans, and lives again.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: ON FACT AND FICTION

  Spoiler alert: This explanatory note refers to key details of the book’s plot. If you haven’t finished the book and don’t want to risk spoiling the suspense, stop reading now … if you’re strong enough to resist temptation.

  Avignon—the city of the popes—is both faithfully and lovingly portrayed in this book. First settled by Celts several centuries
before Christ, Avignon was forever changed in 1309 when Clement V, the first French pope, settled there with his court to avoid the perils of Rome, which was in the grip of a deadly feud between two powerful clans. Over the next seven decades, the Avignon papacy—called “the Babylonian captivity” by critics who believed that Rome was the only legitimate location for the papal palace—transformed Avignon from a small, sleepy town of some 5,000 to a booming, wealthy, and cosmopolitan city of 50,000. Avignon became the crossroads of money and power in medieval Europe. Kings, emperors, and other movers and shakers came to Avignon to seek papal favors, to apply political pressure, and to revel in luxuries that far surpassed those at the Parisian court of King Philip of France.

  No surprise, then, that fourteenth-century Avignon was also a crossroads of artistic talent. Within Avignon’s walls, popes, cardinals, and nobles rubbed shoulders with gifted painters and poets. Several famous figures from Avignon’s glory days play prominent roles here in this book. Nothing here contradicts the historical record, though their actions in these pages do—admittedly, exuberantly and occasionally wickedly—go considerably beyond the bare-bones record history offers us.

  Francesco Petrarch—the prolific poet and philosopher whom some historians call “the father of humanism”—bitterly criticized the Avignon papacy and the Babylonian captivity, even as he lived off the tithes and other proceeds collected by the “whore of Babylon.” Petrarch’s decades-long adoration of the unattainable young noblewoman, Laura—an infatuation that continued even after she died during the Black Death of 1348—is one of history’s most famous unrequited romances. Petrarch wrote reams of sonnets to and about Laura; even at the time, though, some critics wondered if he was more in love with the idea of being in love—more smitten with himself as tragic hero—than with the actual, flesh-and-blood Laura: a woman whose lips he never even kissed.