“I’m sorry, but you just don’t seem like the artist type to me. You have an authoritarian personality. I mean, it’s all over you. It’s in the way you hold your posture, the way you dress, the way you shake hands. You don’t belong behind a canvas with a paint brush in your hand. You belong behind a badge with handcuffs hooked to your belt.”
“So, does that mean I can’t like art?”
“No, but if the Shroud was made in 1300, then it must be a forgery. And that’s what really intrigues you. Because forgery is a crime. This case has gone cold and now you’ve got the bug to restart a seven-hundred-year-old investigation.”
“Okay, I admit. It does sound interesting. I’d love to crack this one wide open. You think it was Leonardo da Vinci? No, two hundred years too old. I don’t know. I’d have to do some research.”
“And I have no doubt you will. And you may even figure this seven-hundred-year-old mystery out. Because that’s who you are. That’s what you’re driven to do. You ever consider going back to criminal justice?”
“What’s wrong with art?”
“I don’t think your heart’s really in it.”
Amari stared at her for a long moment, mulling her response, trying to say something in her defense that wasn’t a lie—because she hated lies.
“You see what I mean? You know I’m right.”
“I really like art. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Maybe you do. So keep it as a hobby. But you love criminal justice.”
“And you love psychiatry.”
“Yes, I do.”
“So don’t you have some studying to do?”
“Fine, I can take a hint,” Jenny said and went back into the den.
Chapter 6
Little Robby sat at his desk, leaned forward, elbows against the wood, palms mashed against his cheeks. He stared down at his history book. A watery drop fell from his nose and onto the page. He wiped the mucus away with the back of his hand. His legs stung from the red marks on his shins and thighs. Father had just spanked him because he saw his report card. He was a bad boy. Not deserving of God’s grace. Father insisted on all A’s, even in math. He had to try harder. Much harder.
A pounding came from the door.
It was Father! Without closing the book and losing his place, Robby quickly placed it into the top desk drawer and slid it closed, careful not to make noise.
“Yes, Father, I’m coming!” Robby rushed to the door. He unlocked it and stood back, waiting, hoping Father wouldn’t discover his secret.
The door flung open. Father looked like Moses with his long, messy beard, only the really mad Moses, like when he found out about the golden calf and broke the stone tablets. Robby’s little heart thumped hard in his chest and he wanted to cry, but that would only make it worse. Father would give him something to cry about.
“I told you never to lock this door again!” Father screamed.
“But I was changing,” Robby lied. “I didn’t want anyone to see my nakedness.”
Father grabbed him by the hair. “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord!” Father’s open hand clapped hard against the boy’s cheek.
He wailed from the pain.
“Where is it? Is it here?” Father went to the desk and snatched the top drawer open. He found the book and dropped it onto the desk. The page was still open to seventy-eight.
“That was from yesterday!”
Father dabbed his fingertip into the wet drop of booger-snot. He rubbed the wetness between his finger and thumb. “Lies! Take the position,” he said and pointed at the bed.
“Father, please. . .”
“‘Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of rest to the Lord.’”
“But they said in school that the Sabbath was Saturday. I promise, Father, I didn’t study yesterday. I didn’t.”
Father didn’t like that answer. He got even madder. “You just told me that book was open from yesterday!” He unbuckled his belt and yanked it out of the loops of his pants. “Take off your shirt.”
Tears and snot mixed in Robby’s nose and dripped down onto his lips. He didn’t want to, but he had no choice. It would only get worse the longer he waited. Not minding only made the spankings longer. Robby pulled off his shirt and fell face down on the bed. He held his face in his hands to catch the tears. And he waited.
“‘Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee!’”
Pain bit into the boy’s bare back.
“Tell me the verse!” Father demanded.
“Exodus 20:12.”
Another crack on his back. “And what does it mean?”
“It means to never disobey you.”
The belt bit again.
Chapter 7
A few days later, Jenny sat on the couch studying infectious diseases. Amari was at the kitchen table again, digging through her research. She had used Scotch tape to affix the images of the Shroud to a larger, firmer poster board for support. The ghostly, white photo-negative image of what was supposed to be Jesus seemed to watch her with knowing eyes, encouraging her to keep searching. Seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened kept ringing in her thoughts.
“I don’t know about this,” she called from the kitchen. “This is supposed to be a medieval forgery, but the history of this thing goes back way before medieval times.”
“What are you mumbling about over there?”
Amari flipped a page on her spiral notebook and followed her finger down to the entry she was looking for. “Here it is. It wasn’t called the Shroud of Turin until it actually came to Turin in 1578. But before that, it was in France, a town called Chambery. A fire broke out there. The box it was stored in had a silver lining. The silver melted and burned the Shroud. That’s why you see these four big burn marks on it. It’s like that because it was folded.” She held up a poster board for Jenny to see. On the front was an enlarged photo of the Shroud taken with normal photography. On the back was the photographic negative of the Shroud. “Can you see this?”
Jenny got up from the couch and came to the table. “I’m listening.”
“See,” she said and pointed. “These are the burn holes I’m talking about. It’s a miracle it wasn’t destroyed. Before that, it was in Lirey, France, in the mid-1350s. This is when the Shroud becomes well documented by the church. A knight named Geoffrey de Charny displayed it at a Catholic church and then, when he died in battle, his wife showed it later in 1389.”
“Did you know that viruses can live dormant in the nerves for years? Antibodies can’t penetrate the blood-brain barrier. So when the immune system weakens, viruses like the chickenpox can come back as shingles.”
“I’m sorry, Jenny, I know you have a test tomorrow. Just hold on a second and I’ll be done. So before that, there were reports of a cloth bearing the image of Christ in Constantinople. It was probably folded in a frame to show only the face. But there are two other references that claim there was a full-length image of a dead and naked Jesus in Constantinople at the same time. But during the Fourth Crusades, this image disappeared from Constantinople and suddenly the full-sized image shows up in Europe. They think maybe the Knights Templar were involved. Which could explain why the knight Geoffrey de Charny got ahold of it. But that’s just speculation.”
“Purulent pustules caused by the herpes virus are not speculation,” Jenny said. “I’m going to your brother’s room to use his desk.” She got up and patted Amari on the arm. “You’re doing an amazing job with this, Detective Johnston. But I’ll never be a psychiatrist if I don’t get through medical school first.”
“Not a licensed one, anyway.”
“Funny,” Jenny called back before she shut the door.
Amari went over her notes in her head. If this was a forgery, all the evidence suggested it was done much earlier than 1350. The year 944 was when the cloth first showed up in Constant
inople, only back then they referred to it as the Mandylion. Before that, around the year 600, paintings of Jesus started showing up that were symmetrically identical to the image on the Shroud, along with the beard and long hair. Before 600, all images of Christ were clean shaven with short hair. But all of the sudden, people believed Jesus had long hair, with a long nose, and big, owlish eyes. They must have known the image on the Shroud was of Jesus, so they were using the Shroud as a template for their paintings. A Justinian II coin was minted in 695 A.D. There was a face on the coin that looked like the face on the Shroud.
And in 325, historian Eusebius recounted a story about a King Abgar that reigned in Edessa from A.D. 13 to 50. Abgar had been ill and had sent a messenger to Jesus himself, asking if Jesus would personally come up to Edessa and heal him. But Jesus said he would send one of his disciples there after his earthly mission was complete. After Jesus’ death, Thaddaeus, one of the disciples, brought the king a cloth bearing the image of Jesus’ face. Miraculously, the king was healed of leprosy and paralysis. The image was then referred to as the Image of Edessa. The image of Jesus stayed in Edessa until the Christian community there left.
Amari folded her notebook, tossed it on the table, and leaned back in her chair. She hadn’t bargained for this. If it was a forgery, then she had to pin down the time of the forgery before she could begin to research any possible culprit or even the means of making such a realistic depiction. What if it wasn’t a forgery at all? What if it was the Shroud that held the crucified body of the historical Jesus?
Her eyes burned with fatigue. Her back and neck ached from leaning over that table all evening. She was too tired to think. It was after midnight. Jenny could stay up all night if she wanted, but Amari had had enough. She got up and cracked open Jenny’s door. “I’m going to bed. My brain’s fried.”
Jenny swiveled her chair around to face her. “You’re starting to remind me of my cousin, Kevin.”
“How’s that?”
“Your determination. Kevin’s the same way.”
“And look where it got him.”
“He’s very successful. I’ll give him that.”
“Jenny, you’ve heard Kevin talk about this a lot. Is he sure this carbon date is right? From what I’ve found, history doesn’t agree with him.”
“He never told me he doubts the numbers, but his body language and the concerned look on his face says otherwise.”
“Are you serious?”
“I could be wrong. Like you said, I’m not licensed yet, but my gut tells me he’s worried.”
“Now that’s interesting.”
“You want to interrogate him, Detective Johnston?”
“I thought you said he had some sort of confidentiality agreement.”
“I asked him about that and he said it was more of an expectation than a rule. He never signed any papers. Once they make the official announcement, it’ll be public knowledge. You can talk to him then.”
“You think he’d talk to me?”
“I’m sure he would. As long as you don’t make any trouble for him.”
“I don’t know, Jenny. I’ve got a lot more reading to do. Let me think about it.”
Chapter 8
The next afternoon, Amari sat at the couch reading. She wanted to finish Monsignor Ricci’s book before her evening shift at Pizza Hut. She knew now her obsession with the Shroud wasn’t just because she thought it was a forgery, and that she was simply trying to crack the case. Now she was obsessed because there’s no way it could be a forgery. And if it wasn’t a forgery, then it was real. She had always imagined what Jesus must look like. Sometimes she doubted he was real at all. The Shroud answered both questions. Yes, he was real, and this is what he looked like. Why wasn’t the whole world in on this? Why was it that the only thing she could remember about the Shroud was some article she saw in National Geographic? Everybody on the planet should be obsessed with the Shroud.
Whether you believed Jesus was the Son of God wasn’t even the point. Jesus was the most influential man in history. Every historian knew that. The world needed to pay more attention to the Shroud. And if she could have her way, that’s exactly what would happen. Somehow, she needed to find a way to open the eyes of the world. Unfortunately, she had no clue how a twenty-two-year-old college student was supposed to pull that off.
Jenny walked in and sat on the couch beside her. “Still at it, I see.”
“Still at it,” Amari said.
“Good. This is what you need to be doing, not finger painting.”
Amari rolled her eyes and turned to face Jenny. “It’s my time. Why do you care what I do with it? If I want to be an out of work artist, then just let me do it.”
“I know you’re grieving your mother’s loss, but it’s time to move on. You need to forgive your dad and go back to the world you love.”
“My dad hasn’t asked for forgiveness.”
“He’s probably too ashamed to mention it. Men are like that. They avoid emotional exchanges. Especially macho men like your dad. You’ll probably have to initiate the talk. It would take a load off his conscience if you did.”
“Didn’t we agree you wouldn’t practice psychology on me anymore?”
“And didn’t you tell me your name meant, ‘never gives up?’”
Amari refused to look at her.
“But you gave up. You spent three years and a half in college pursuing your dream, and then you just tossed it in the garbage. You gave up. Just like that.”
“Mother didn’t want me in law enforcement. She thought it was dangerous.”
“That’s because she couldn’t bear to see you get hurt. She won’t see it now.”
“I think she does see me.”
“So if something does happen to you, then you’ll join her in heaven. Don’t you believe in heaven, Amari?”
“I hope so. What about you?”
“Of course, I do. But this isn’t about me. It’s about you.”
“You remind me of Lucy from Charlie Brown. You know, when she offered psychiatric advice from a booth for five cents.”
“Oh, I love that episode. The Christmas one?”
“The point is, Lucy, I’m not paying you for advice.”
“I’m just following my dream, Amari. Everyone should do that. It’s why it breaks my heart to see you give up on yours. Especially when you’re so good at it,” she said and pointed at her book sitting next to her on the couch. “If I had a missing child, I would want you on the case. There’s a lot of kids out there. There’s a lot of criminals. The world will suffer if you gave up. Your mother wouldn’t want that.”
****
Robby wrapped the two ends of Father’s worn, brown belt around his fists, leaving about a foot gap of leather in between. This time, it was Father who would be spanked. He was one of those hypocrites Jesus talked about in Matthew 23:13. He deserved to be punished.
Father had made Robby read the Bible every day. Only Father seemed not to know what the Bible really said. The Bible said not to get drunk. Colossians said to love your wife and not abuse her. First Peter said to honor your wife as the weaker vessel. Father preached the Bible, but he was terrible at obeying it.
Father slept in his recliner. The sound of his snores mixed with Johnny Carson’s monologue on The Tonight Show. Smoke from a cigarette rose from the ashtray next to the recliner and filled the room with a smelly blue fog, illuminated only by the light from the TV. An empty bottle of whiskey sat next to the ashtray. Father never started a bottle he didn’t finish.
The truth was, Father wasn’t his real father at all—only his stepfather. Mother had revealed that just yesterday. She’d said a teenager was old enough to know the truth. She’d showed him a picture of his real father—a picture she’d hidden away all these years from her current husband. She let him keep it if he promised to hide it away from his not-real father—his fake-father—whose real name was Daniel.
He clenched his fists tighter around the belt and s
lowly moved toward Daniel. The beatings had gotten worse, and lately Daniel seemed to prefer Mother since Robby was almost his size. Something had to be done before it was too late. Either they had to leave or Daniel had to leave. And Daniel wouldn’t leave on his own. He would have to be forced. And then he would only come back—maybe at night or maybe during broad daylight. They would never be safe while he was alive.
Mother was in the hospital. She had told the doctors she had fallen down the stairs, but Robby knew the truth. He hadn’t hidden the picture of his true father good enough. Daniel found it and got furious. He had warned her never to tell Robby the truth. He pushed her down the stairs. Daniel would eventually kill her. It was only a matter of time.
Daniel had started to use his cigarette lighter on Robby’s bare skin when the bite of the belt wouldn’t make him cry anymore. Daniel said he did that so Robby would get a taste of what hell felt like, so he would learn to behave and go to heaven instead. It was the least of evils, Daniel had explained to him. It was done for his own good. But Daniel was the real sinner, not Robby. It was time Daniel paid for his sin, to get his own taste of what hell felt like.
Robby snuck through the dark and carefully moved into position behind Daniel’s recliner. Daniel snored even louder. Thunder couldn’t wake Daniel after he finished the whiskey bottle. The flames of hell would surely wake him. If God designed hell for sinners, then sending Daniel there was the will of God. Robby was an instrument of that will. Daniel was right about one thing. Sometimes in life, one had to choose the least of evils.
Robby snapped the leather belt taut between his fists. Blue veins bulged from the top of his now strong hands, hands that were merely an instrument, he reminded himself. He slowly reached the belt over Daniel’s head, careful not to wake him. He gently slid the belt under his long, tangled beard, and pulled it under the chin, resting the leather strap against Daniel’s throat. He clenched the belt so hard his fists trembled. He did this for Mother. He did this for the good of the world.
Carbon-14: The Shroud of Turin (An Amari Johnston Novel) Page 4
