Sign of the Cross

by Chris Kuzneski

  ‘Yes,’ Payne said, ‘Donald Barnes. He was an American.’

  ‘As are you,’ the cop said, never lifting his eyes from his pad. He took their names and addresses, then asked, ‘Were you friends with the deceased for long?’

  ‘Not really. We just met him today at the funeral.’ Payne studied the cop, waiting for some kind of reaction. ‘He willingly gave us assistance when we needed it. Directions, a list of sites to see, and so on. He also described the helicopter crash that killed your colleague on Monday.’

  The cop nodded, still not reacting. ‘Any idea where he was from, or where he was staying?’

  Payne shrugged. ‘Midwestern U.S., maybe Nebraska. At least that’s what his T-shirt says. And as far as his hotel goes, we’re not sure. We didn’t know him long enough to find out.’

  As Payne finished speaking, the young officer who’d led them down the steps approached the detective. He whispered a number of Italian phrases, then held up a single key adorned with the monogram GHR. The detective smiled at the discovery. ‘Gentlemen, are we through here?’

  Jones shook his head, then lied. ‘Actually, there’s one more thing. We took a few pictures with Donald in front of the cathedral. Could we possibly have the film as a remembrance?’

  The detective glanced at the body and frowned. ‘Camera? We didn’t find any camera. No wallet, film, or anything of value… In my opinion this was just a robbery that went bad.’

  Payne and Jones knew that was bullshit. But the last people they were going to tell were the cops. If they did that, all the cops were going to do was get in their way.

  Regrettably, that ended up happening anyway.

  As they emerged from the well, Jones growled, ‘This wasn’t a robbery. It was an assassination.’

  Payne pushed through the crowd of onlookers. ‘An assassination? How do you figure?’

  ‘Because it’s too coincidental to be anything else. This town hasn’t seen violence in years, now there are three deaths in two days. Plus the latest victim just happens to be someone with proof of the crash site. C’mon! What else could it be?’

  ‘So let me get this straight. We started with one case, and now we’re up to three: Dr Boyd, the stolen crash site, and Donald Barnes.’

  ‘Yep, that about sums it up.’

  ‘Damn! We aren’t very good at this.’

  Jones laughed. ‘Any ideas on where to start?’

  Payne nodded. ‘Let’s stick to Boyd, since that’s the reason we’re here. Let’s assume it was his truck at the bottom of the cliff. I mean, no one’s come forward to claim it. Plus there was a police chopper hovering above it and rumors of a grave robber in the area. That means either he died in the explosion, he’s still in Orvieto, or he left town some other way.’

  ‘Makes sense to me.’

  ‘And unless he had an accomplice, he either stole a car or bummed a ride.’

  ‘Or used public transportation.’

  ‘And since there aren’t any airports in town, the odds are pretty good that he used a bus.’

  Payne looked at Jones, then both of them looked at the row of buses parked on the far side of the piazza. Seconds later they approached the one-story terminal that sat on the northern end of the square. A silver bus idled near the entrance, delayed by an elderly porter who checked tickets with one hand while grabbing the butts of unsuspecting females with the other.

  Jones said, ‘I’ll talk to the guy at the front counter and show him Boyd’s picture. Why don’t you look for a map so we know where we’re going?’

  Payne glanced around the lobby and spotted a rack of brochures leaning against the far wall. Restaurant guides, museum tours, and hotel listings – most of which were written in English. A pamphlet for La Badia, a twelth-century ecclesiastical complex that had been converted into a local hotel, caught his eye. The blend of wooden beams and tufa walls reminded him of ancient times until he noticed a television stuffed in a tiny stone alcove. Talk about a feng shui killer.

  Payne returned the brochure and picked up another, this one for the Grand Hotel Reale. It wasn’t as well-maintained as La Badia, yet he got the feeling that it used to be something special. He marveled at the beautiful frescoes and the antique furniture in the lobby, plus the large fountain that was carved out of a shade of marble that –

  ‘Jon? Are you ready?’

  Payne turned toward Jones who was standing near the entrance. ‘Yeah, I’ll be there in a second. I was just –’ He stopped in midsentence, thinking back to Saint Patrick’s Well. Payne couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to put everything together.

  ‘You were just what?’ Jones walked toward him. ‘I got some good information from the front counter and… Are you OK? You look kind of puzzled.’

  ‘Not at all. In fact, I’m feeling rather enlightened.’ Payne handed him the brochure for the Grand Hotel Reale. ‘What do you think?’

  Now Jones was the one who was puzzled. ‘About what?’

  ‘The hotel. Could this be where Barnes was staying?’

  He flipped through the brochure. ‘I have no idea. Why?’

  ‘Remember the young cop in the well? What did he find in Barnes’s pocket?’

  Jones replayed the incident in his mind. ‘A key with his initials on it, right?’

  ‘Close, but not quite. It had someone else’s initials, not his. It had GHR, not DB.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right: GHR. But what’s that have to do with –’

  And that’s when he realized the same thing that Payne had. The key chain didn’t have Barnes’s initials on it because he didn’t own the keys. And where does a tourist get keys? At a hotel. And what hotel in Orvieto had the initials GHR? The Grand Hotel Reale.

  ‘Holy shit! Do you think the cops are there yet?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Payne guessed. ‘They lost one of their officers on Monday, and the rest are probably at the well. No way they’re there yet.’

  ‘So?’ The mischief in Jones’s eyes told him everything he needed to know. He was going to the hotel whether Payne was joining him or not. ‘What do you think?’

  Payne smiled. ‘I think we should see how long it takes you to pick an Italian lock.’

  28

  Maria Pelati was a woman torn, an archaeologist with a guilty conscience. She was possibly sitting next to the most important document ever written, yet all she wanted to do was set it on fire. But how could she? If it was real, it would bring her more fame and fortune than she’d ever dreamed possible. At the same time she knew she’d never be able to enjoy it because of all the suffering the scroll would cause.

  A billion Christians suddenly doubting the existence of Christ because of her discovery.

  There were so many thoughts swirling through her brain she didn’t know what to focus on first. The scroll. Its ramifications. Her beliefs. The truth was, she needed to think about everything, but before she could do that, she needed to ask Dr Boyd one simple question. And his answer would help determine her plan of attack.

  ‘Sir,’ she said quietly. ‘Are you sure that the scroll is real?’

  The sound of her voice startled Boyd, who was lost in thought. ‘I believe so, yes. I still need to run some tests to be certain. However, the grandeur of the Catacombs seemed beyond reproach, too real for this to be a ruse.’

  ‘And your translation… is it accurate?’

  ‘There’s always a chance that I misinterpreted a word or two. Still, the basic message would remain the same. Tiberius handpicked Jesus as the Jewish Messiah and did so for the financial gain of the Empire.’

  ‘But how is that possible? I mean, how does someone create a Messiah?’

  ‘That, my dear, is a mystery that wasn’t addressed in the scroll.’

  She nodded, a million questions racing through her mind. ‘And what about you? What do you think? Is any of this feasible?’

  He paused, looking for the courage to answer. ‘The possibility had crossed my mind. Although I was raised a Christian, I’m
also a scholar, which means I’m forced to leave myself open to a world of possibilities. Even if the evidence goes against my beliefs.’

  He paused, figuring out what to say next. ‘Maria, the truth is we found Tiberius’s seal on the cylinder and his handwriting on the parchment, which gives us plenty of reason to believe that he composed the note. And if he wrote it, then we’d be foolish not to examine every alternative, including the possibility that he found a way to pull this off.’

  Maria swallowed hard. ‘Even if that means Jesus wasn’t the Son of God?’

  Boyd nodded.

  Silence filled the room for several seconds. The only thing heard was the rumble of the room’s air conditioner. Finally, Maria said, ‘I’m sorry, professore, I don’t think I can be a part of this anymore.’

  Then, before he could say anything, Maria left the library and went on a long walk, oblivious to the fact that she would soon be making a key discovery during her journey through Milan.

  Tourists marveled at the view from the roof of Il Duomo while Maria Pelati sat in the corner, motionless, like one of the 2,245 marble statues that decorated the cathedral. On a normal day, she would’ve mingled with the rest of the people, admiring the spires that soared above her or contemplating the 511 years it took to build. However, this wasn’t a typical afternoon.

  After pondering the scroll for over an hour, she emerged from her trance and realized she was dripping with perspiration. In an attempt to cool off, she eased down the thirty-degree slope of the slate roof toward a portal in one of the spires, yet found neither the breeze nor shade she was hoping for. The heck with this, she thought. I’m probably going to hell for finding the scroll so I might as well sit in some air conditioning while I still have the chance.

  Maria passed an elaborate row of statues that depicted a medley of saints, knights, and sinners in a variety of poses. Despite their exquisite craftsmanship, none of them grabbed her attention until she approached the final one, a majestic man in a flowing toga. Strangely, there was something about his face that seemed familiar. The sweeping curve of his lips. The lighthearted twinkle in his eyes. The arrogant protrusion of his jaw. The cocky smile on…

  ‘Oh my God!’ she blurted. ‘The laughing man!’

  Stunned by her discovery, Maria considered racing back to tell Dr Boyd but realized if she didn’t scour the church for information, he would insist on a return trip – a trip where he would lead the investigation. And that was something she wanted to avoid.

  Thinking quickly, she decided the easiest way to get background material on the statue would be to have a conversation with one of the tour guides. There were several on the roof alone, so she infiltrated a group near the tallest spire and listened to the guide’s lecture. ‘The tower stands three hundred and sixty-seven feet above the plaza, an astonishing height when you consider the age of this remarkable building. To comprehend how high we are, let’s walk toward the edge of the roof…’

  When the group trudged forward, Maria approached the tour guide, a man in his early thirties. ‘Excuse me,’ she said in Italian. ‘I was wondering if you could answer a question.’

  One glance at her smoldering brown eyes was all it took. The rest of the group could fend for themselves. ‘Yeah, um, sure. Whatever you need,’ he replied.

  ‘Thanks.’ She placed her arm in his and pulled him away. ‘There’s a statue over here that looks so familiar. Do you think you could tell me about it?’

  The tour guide grinned confidently. ‘I’d be happy to. I’ve been working here for nearly five years. I know everything about this place.’

  ‘Everything? That’s amazing. Because this place is so big.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ he bragged. ‘It’s five hundred and twenty feet long and two hundred and eighty-four feet wide. That’s bigger than a soccer field. In fact, it’s the third-largest cathedral in the world.’

  ‘And yet you know so much about it. You must be so smart.’

  He beamed. ‘Which statue did you want to know about? I’ve got stories about them all.’

  Maria pointed to the laughing man. ‘What can you tell me about him?’

  The guide’s cocksure smile quickly faded. ‘Not very much. That’s one of the few objects that’s shrouded in mystery. When I was first hired, I asked the curator of the local museum about it, and he claimed it was the oldest artifact in the church, predating the other statues on the edifice by hundreds of years. Plus it’s made from a different type of stone than the others. Most of Il Duomo is made of white Carrara marble, but not this guy. He was made from marble that’s foreign to Italian soil. The only place that it can be found is in a small village near Vienna.’

  ‘Austria? That seems kind of strange.’

  He agreed. ‘Even stranger is this monument’s placement. Look at the other statues around us. Does he seem to belong with any of them? The others depict the struggle of the common man in their quest for God, but not him. He’s anything but a peasant. Yet someone in the Church decided to place him here at the end of the series. Why they did we’re not really sure.’

  Maria closed her eyes and thought back to the Catacombs. There, just like here, the laughing man seemed completely out of place. First, in the middle of Christ’s crucifixion scene, grinning his evil grin. Next, on the hand-carved box that contained Tiberius’s scroll. And now, his unexplained appearance on Il Duomo.

  This guy had a habit of popping up where he didn’t fit. But why? Or better yet, who?

  ‘One more question before I let you go. Do you have any theories on who he might be?’

  The guide shrugged. ‘The only clue that we’ve found is the letter on his ring.’

  ‘Letter? What letter?’

  The tour guide pointed at the statue’s hand. ‘You can’t really see it from down here. The man who cleans the monuments noticed it last year. Still, we have no idea if the letter is the subject’s initial or the artist’s – or neither.’

  ‘What letter is it?’ she demanded. ‘A, B, C?’

  ‘The letter P, as in Paul.’

  Or in Paccius, she thought to herself. Excited by the possibility, she kissed the tour guide on both cheeks.

  ‘Thank you! Thank you so much! That’s the letter I was hoping you’d say.’

  ‘It was? Why’s that?’

  But instead of answering, Maria ran off to tell Dr Boyd the good news, convinced she had discovered proof of the laughing man’s identity.

  29

  Nick Dial unzipped his portfolio and carefully removed its contents. Inside, he had the portable bulletin board that he’d filled with a series of pictures, notes, and maps.

  After hanging it in the Libyan police station, he tried to figure out what he needed to add. Definitely some pictures of Narayan. Maybe some close-ups of the bloody arch. He also needed to start drawing connections to the Jansen case, pointing out similarities, no matter how ridiculous they might seem. He knew the preposterous often turned out to be the most profitable.

  Glancing at Jansen’s side of the board, the first thing he noticed was his unblemished skin. Why savagely beat the second victim, tearing his back to shreds, but leave the first victim untouched? Did they run out of time with Jansen? Did something spook them? Or were they following the pattern that Dial had seen several times before: the more victims that someone kills, the more comfortable the killer becomes?

  Or maybe, Dial thought, this had nothing to do with comfort. Maybe this had something to do with religion, something he was overlooking. Just to be safe, he decided to call Henri Toulon at Interpol headquarters to get additional background information on Christ’s death.

  ‘Henri,’ Dial said, ‘how are you feeling after your night of drinking?’

  Toulon answered groggily, ‘How did you know I was drinking? Are you back in France?’

  ‘No, but you always have a night of drinking.’

  ‘Oui, this is true.’

  ‘Did you have a chance to research that Shakespeare stuff that we dis
cussed?’

  Toulon nodded, jiggling his ponytail like a tassel. ‘Yes I did, and I decided it was bullshit. Nothing more than a red herring to lure you away from the truth.’

  ‘I was hoping you were going to say that. My gut told me to follow the religious side of this case, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I would’ve been so screwed if Hamlet came into play.’

  Toulon smiled as he placed an unlit cigarette between his lips. ‘Was there anything else?’

  Dial stared at Narayan’s autopsy photos. ‘Just one more thing. The victim here is different than the one in Denmark. I thought you might have some theories on it.’

  ‘What kind of differences?’

  With his finger Dial traced the marks on Narayan’s back. ‘This one was beaten with some sort of a whip. And I mean beaten badly. We found more blood than skin.’

  ‘The victim was scourged?’

  ‘Scourged? Is that what the Bible calls it?’

  ‘That’s what everyone calls it. It was so common back in the day that John didn’t even have to explain it in his Gospel. In John 19:1, he wrote, they “took Jesus and had him scourged.” No need to go into details. Everyone knew what it meant.’

  ‘Everyone but me,’ Dial muttered. ‘What did the weapon look like?’

  ‘They used a whip called a flagellum. In Latin it means “little scourge.”’

  ‘There was nothing little about Narayan’s injuries. It cut right through his muscle.’

  Toulon nodded. ‘That was its intent. The flagellum is a leather whip with tiny balls on the end. They were made of bone or metal barbells, some had tiny claws like barbed fishing hooks. That way when soldiers withdrew their weapons they would rip out chunks of flesh.’

  ‘Pretty barbaric.’

  ‘Yet common. Ultimately, it was done to weaken the criminal so he’d die quicker on the cross. In a twisted way, they did it out of mercy.’

  Dial shook his head at the logic. There was nothing merciful about these wounds. He could see Narayan’s rib cage through the slashes in his flesh. ‘How long would the scourging last?’