The young guard could only smile and shake her head.
“Senor Bondurant, my name is Commissioner Botta. We—”
“Before we get started,” Bondurant interrupted, “where is Domenika? Is she all right?”
“Safe and sound, two doors down,” Botta said. “You need not worry about her. She’s been very helpful. We’ve spoken with the Vatican. We know who you are and why you are here. “What we don’t know is your relationship to the dead man, the one lying in the morgue downstairs.”
“It’s just as I’ve told your deputy,” Bondurant said. “I honestly don’t know him. He tried to steal some important evidence we’ve gathered for our project here in Turin, and the next thing I know, I’m in the river fighting for my briefcase and my life.”
“We know the contents of your briefcase, Senor Bondurant,” Botta said. “What we can’t understand is why this man would have an interest in stealing it. These bits of material you are carrying around are certainly from an important relic, but they have no value beyond your intended use, is that correct?”
“That’s right,” Bondurant said. “They are scraps of material. They’re all meant to be destroyed as part of our experiments. Perhaps an antiquities dealer might have an interest, but they’re all generally meek types. I’ve not heard of one hiring ninja warriors like this guy to steal, jump off bridges, risk their lives—those mundane sorts of things.”
“Uh-huh. Tell me, then, Senor Bondurant,” Botta said. “I heard you from the other side of that wall before, but I want to hear it again. How did this ‘ninja warrior’ meet his death? You said it was an accident.”
“You could call it that, I guess,” Bondurant said. “A fortunate accident. If that rock didn’t come from out of nowhere to kill him, I’ve no doubt that I would have done it myself. Maybe I shouldn’t put it that way, but it’s a fact.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t, but I get your point,” Botta said. “You were the last person to see this man alive. That’s not good for you, especially in a city where we have very few homicides and even fewer suspects.”
“Have you had your coroner examine the body?” Bondurant asked.
“Of course.”
“Then you know the suspect you are looking for is dark, about fifteen feet tall, and weighs, oh, I don’t know, about ten tons?”
“You’re referring to the river rock you’ve said our ninja friend met with on his way down the Po,” the commissioner said.
“That’s the one.”
“Yes; fortunately for you, our divers found plenty of skin tissue on the outcropping of that rock that matches the victim or suspect or whatever it is we want to call him.”
“Good, then,” Bondurant said. He stood up stiffly. His heels screamed. “Domenika and I can go now, right?”
“Yes,” Botta said. “But we will want you to stay in town for a day or so in case we have the need for further questioning. However, there is a small matter—a formality, really. We are trying to learn the identity of your ninja friend. We are going to need to make a trip to the morgue for that.”
Bondurant’s face went pale. He knew the scene would be gruesome, as well as a useless exercise.
“You mean you are going to want me to examine the body to try to identify the man?” Bondurant asked.
“Yes, yes. I can’t release you without that,” Botta said. “It is procedure, and you must do your best. Both you and Ms. Jozef, I’m afraid. Each of you got a look at him.”
Botta opened the interrogation room door and motioned for Bondurant to follow. Domenika was waiting just steps down the dimly lit hallway, shadowed by the young inspector who had brought him a blanket. As soon as Domenika saw Bondurant, she raced over to him and wrapped her arms around him. Bondurant was just as glad to see her. They said nothing to each other. Eventually, Domenika pulled away.
Botta led the other three to the elevator at the end of the hall and pushed the down button. Just as the elevator doors were closing, Bondurant heard fast-moving footsteps headed their way. Out of the dim light of the hall, Inspector Vitali, Botta’s deputy, appeared, making his way into the elevator as fast as he could. He made it through the doors, out of breath, just before they closed.
“I think we have a lead on this man Sacco,” Vitali said, anxious to reveal his news. “He is known to us and could be important to the case. We’re not certain. But no Vanzetti has turned up.”
Bondurant could tell Vitali was hot to impress his boss and just as eager to get Bondurant back into the interrogation room.
“Excellent,” Botta said, barely able to disguise his embarrassment for his deputy. “This man Vanzetti—he could be the key to this case, I’m sure.”
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” Domenika asked. “These men lived a century ago. How could they possibly—”
“There have been some developments, many developments,” Bondurant interjected before Botta could speak up. “Inspector Vitali is pursuing a very unique angle to the case. It’s promising.”
Bondurant watched the contortions in Vitali’s face as they went from excitement to confusion to suspicion in a single moment.
Before Vitali could continue with his theory on the case, the elevator doors mercifully opened on the floor of the city morgue. The morgue was a large, white sterile room with several metal tables affixed to the floor. Alongside them was an entire wall of stainless-steel drawers. Bondurant presumed that behind one of them was the refrigerated remains of the suspect in question. The party was greeted by a balding, bespectacled man whom Bondurant thought looked the part. His glasses were so thick that Bondurant wondered how he had any vision at all.
“Welcome. I am Dr. Vincenzo Bianchi, the coroner here,” the man said. “And you are here to view the subject, the one who has drowned in the river?”
“We are, Vincenzo,” Botta said. “A simple identification check is all we’re here for. If you could point us to the body, we’d appreciate it.”
Dr. Bianchi sauntered over to the long row of drawers that contained the corpses presently in his charge. Bondurant could see the coroner needed to use his hand to count the number of drawers they passed, given how poor his sight was. When Bianchi reached the drawer marked “39” he stopped. Without a word, he turned and pulled hard on the drawer in a sweeping theatrical motion. It sped out quickly and sounded like a thunderclap when it came to a sudden halt. With as much fanfare as the coroner could muster, he yanked the clean white top sheet from the body before them. To a person, including Commissioner Botta, they let out a gasp.
What they saw in front of them was the body of an obese, naked woman who, by Bondurant’s estimate, weighed nearly four hundred pounds. She was split directly in half, from head to midsection. Both Domenika and Inspector Vitali took several steps backward, and Vitali began to dry heave at the sight. Commissioner Botta simply shook his head, as though he was not surprised. Bondurant grimaced. He had seen autopsies before, but none that looked like this. It looked to him like a difficult autopsy left only partially complete.
The coroner, having now moved within a few inches of the cadaver, squinted behind his thick spectacles and noticed his mistake.
“Porko miseria!” he cried out in one loud blast as he shoved the drawer closed and sent the massive mound of flesh careening back into its refrigerated home. “My mistake. My mistake. It is here that we want,” he said.
With a great deal less fanfare than his first attempt, he stepped one space backward to Drawer 40. This time he was careful to show the corpse more respect. He slowly slid the drawer open and simultaneously unveiled the body before them. A broad smile lit up his face.
Much to everyone’s confusion, and Commissioner Botta’s strong consternation, another wrong body lay before them again. Bondurant’s fists began to tighten, and his real anger at their predicament met its limit. The time for hide-and-seek with cadavers was over.
“All right, that’s it,” Bondurant said. He grabbed the manifest the coroner had been
working from to determine whether he could find the right drawer himself. He stared down at the paper to find the newest entry on the page, as he presumed no other bodies had arrived after the suspect they sought. It was then that he noticed the coroner’s mistake. The cadaver they sought was laid in Drawer 63, not Drawer 39. The coroner had read from his manifest upside down.
Bondurant led the group to Drawer 63 and nodded to the commissioner, who slowly slid it open. Even though he knew that they had located the right resting place for the suspect this time, Bondurant still believed the exercise was a complete waste of time. Neither he nor Domenika had gotten a worthwhile glimpse of the hooded figure, whether on the bridge or in the river. But if this was a formality that would release them from police custody, he was happy to oblige. Bondurant had only two days left to complete his work. According to the agreement he’d signed with the Vatican, his time would soon run out.
As the commissioner slowly pulled the sheet from the victim’s face, even the hardened Bondurant had a difficult time setting his eyes on what he saw. Half of the man’s skull was gone.
“I don’t recognize him,” Domenika said. She left Bondurant’s side and rushed toward the exit door. Commissioner Botta, Inspector Vitali, and Dr. Bianchi all stared at Bondurant’s face to see if it registered any sign of recognition of the man.
“There’s plainly not enough here to recognize anyone,” Bondurant said. “I’m sorry I can’t help you. I wish I could.” He turned away from the bloody mess and closed his eyes.
With that, the coroner began to pull the sheet over what remained of the corpse’s head. But before he could finish the task, Bondurant turned and stayed his hand.
“What is it?” Botta asked. “You said yourself you can’t possibly recognize this,” he said.
Bondurant moved closer to the corpse. “Have you got some sterile gloves?”
The coroner pulled a pair from his lab coat and handed them over. Bondurant covered only his right hand. His interest was in the area of the cadaver’s neck. A large fold of skin, once part of the victim’s neck, was bent over and out of place. It rested almost on the cadaver’s shoulder. Bondurant reached in, tugged on the fold of skin, turned it right side up, and, like a piece from a puzzle, placed it back where it belonged across the victim’s neck. Dried blood covered the entire patch of skin Bondurant had set back in place.
“A cloth and some water?” Bondurant said to the coroner. Within a minute he had what he needed. With a wet cloth now in hand, he scrubbed and wiped the area of skin that was his concern. As he did so, the once-bloodstained skin was wiped clean, revealing a remarkable clue.
A strange tattoo, in the form of a symbol and about the size of a coin, stood out in jet-black ink.
Bondurant thought he had seen the symbol somewhere before, but couldn’t place it. He made a mental image of it as best he could and turned to leave.
“You know this symbol?” Botta asked. “I’ve not seen it before.”
“I don’t know,” Bondurant responded in earnest. “I have to do some research before I can be sure. Let’s compare notes.”
Before they left police headquarters, Bondurant called Parenti and described the unusual mark in the hope the priest would be able to provide a clue as to who was so bent on stealing the fragments of the Shroud. Bondurant was as clueless as ever as to who was so intent on halting his progress to seek the truth of the Shroud, but he was also as determined as ever to find out.
CHAPTER 25
Turin, Italy
June 2014
You’re late,” Father Parenti admonished them. Aldo, who had been napping beneath a chair, skittered and slipped his way excitedly across the ornate marble floor of the library to greet them. Domenika bent down and scooped up the little fellow, stroking his head while his tail wagged in appreciation.
Parenti stood atop a wooden chair on one end of a long, leather-topped table in the main reading room of the Royal Library of Turin. He was dwarfed by several disorganized stacks of rare and ancient books he had collected in ten hours of frantic research. Several towers of texts toppled into one another. The glorious library, which resembled a cavernous wooden cathedral of vintage books and manuscripts that rose with stained glass windows stories high, was closed for the evening and deserted. The ancient and magnificent structure was shrouded in darkness save for the glow of four small reading lamps that cast strange shadows about the room. It had served as the work space where Parenti had labored late into the night. He had the permission of the library to remain after hours in trade for a loan of manuscripts missing from the House of Savoy—manuscripts the Vatican had hoarded for years.
“Late for good reason, Father,” Bondurant said as he collapsed into a chair at the table.
Domenika sat down right beside him, Aldo still in her arms. She looked exhausted as well.
“This has been two days from hell,” Bondurant said.
He had not exaggerated. The Polizia Locale had finally relented and set them free with the proviso that more questions would come. More important for Bondurant, after the intercession of the Vatican arranged by Domenika, they had been released from questioning with his briefcase and all its artifacts intact.
As if the grilling over his role in the death of the masked stranger weren’t enough, Bondurant had spent time earlier the previous morning in a bitter, unexpected dispute between Dr. O’Neil and Ravi Sehgal over Sehgal’s sudden new requirements to continue participation in the investigation. When their meeting had ended and the argument was over, Bondurant, as the project manager, had decided in O’Neil’s favor. But his victory came with a price. He had angered and alienated Sehgal, whom he was counting on to add immense scientific credibility to the project’s findings.
“All right, Doctor,” the priest said as he held a rolled-up newspaper in his hand and waved it about like a conductor’s baton. He stood in front of the piles of books arranged like orchestra players before him. “Let me make sure I have your description of the tattoo correct so that I’m not wasting our time. You were very brief on the phone.”
“Yes, yes. Go ahead,” Bondurant said, near the point of nodding off.
“Okay, then. You said the symbol you saw in the form of a tattoo appeared as a sort of pretzeled square with a right-facing swastika. Correct?”
“That’s right,” Bondurant said. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and concentrated as best he could. “Another way to describe it would be a swastika inside an interlocking cube.”
Parenti produced a pen from his pocket and held it forth.
“Draw it for me, Doctor. As best you can.”
Domenika leaned in and looked over Bondurant’s shoulder. Aldo scampered up into Bondurant’s lap to watch. Bondurant sketched the symbol he had glimpsed for only a second or two.
“Okay,” he said confidently. “Something like this.”
All three stared intently at the drawing he had produced from memory. The symbol was both elegant and devious. It appeared to form an infinitely connecting path of geometric shapes, containing within its core the disturbing image of a swastika.
“Yes! That’s it! That’s it!” Parenti cried out. “Now I know what you’re thinking, Doctor.”
“What am I thinking, Father?” Bondurant asked, eyes closed.
“You’re thinking the obvious. You’re thinking it’s some modern-day variant of the infamous swastika. The kind employed by the, what do you call them? The—”
“Skinheads,” Domenika offered as she suppressed a yawn.
“Yes, the skinheads. Well, then, Doctor, you would be wrong.”
“Who said ‘skinheads’?” Bondurant protested as he looked over at Domenika. “I didn’t say ‘skinheads.’ ”
“Or perhaps you are thinking this image has its roots in the early 1930s,” Parenti said as he pointed with his newspaper baton to a stack of tall books on the Third Reich. “An early forefather symbol, as it were, of the Nazi Party, or perhaps the, the—”
“Gestapo!” Do
menika said.
“Yes, the Gestapo!” Parenti said as he slammed his baton on the table for emphasis. “But again, Doctor, you would be dead wrong.”
“I would be dead wrong, Father?” Bondurant complained.
Parenti continued. “Or perhaps you have taken a measure of the other books around you on this table, Doctor. Perhaps you will have taken notice of the fact that the majority of books I have pored over suggest the culture of origin is actually—”
“Egyptian!” Domenika said as she stared at the stack of Egyptology volumes in front of her.
“Again, you would be completely foolish to suggest that, Doctor,” Parenti said with a laugh. “Quite near the brink of stupidity.”
“Okay, okay,” Bondurant said. “How many more guesses do I get before she makes me out to be a complete idiot, Father?”
Parenti was clearly enjoying lording his information over them.
“One last question, Doctor. What do I hold in my hand?”
“Oh, he’s good at this game, Father,” Domenika said dryly.
Bondurant hesitated, presuming a trick. Domenika lit up with the answer.
“It’s a—”
Bondurant reached over quickly and cupped his hand over Domenika’s mouth.
“It’s just a newspaper, Father,” he said.
“Close enough, Doctor,” Parenti said as he unrolled the paper on the table before them. “It’s last Tuesday’s New York Times. Here I’ve been all day on a wild-goose chase reviewing symbols of every ancient cult imaginable stemming back two thousand years. And where do I find it? Where do I find it? Last Tuesday’s New York Times.”
Parenti carefully opened the front section and turned to the third page.
Bondurant couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Incredible!” Bondurant said as he stared at a drawing identical to the symbol he had just sketched.
“What is it, Jon?” Domenika asked.
“I should have figured this out. I should have put two and two together.”
The Shroud Conspiracy Page 18
