by Robin Cook
“You have my attention,” Jack said warily. There had been times when listening to other people’s problems had awakened his own. Much as he wanted to avoid that, he couldn’t help but be curious. Still, Jack could not believe that he, a die-hard agnostic, could possibly help the archbishop of New York City, arguably one of the most powerful leaders in the world.
“It involves our mutual friend, Shawn Daughtry,” James added.
“Have you been playing cards again?” Jack asked, in an attempt at humor. Back in college, James and Shawn would play poker at least once a week and get into heated arguments about how much one owed the other. Several times, Jack had to intervene to get them back to talking to each other.
“This issue is of extraordinary importance,” James said. “I would prefer you not make light of it.”
“Excuse me, Father,” Jack said, realizing James was dead serious. Still trying to lighten the sudden downturn in the tone of the conversation, Jack added, “Am I supposed to call you Father, Father?”
“My title is Your Eminence,” James said, easing up a trifle. “But you can call me James, which from you I vastly prefer.”
“I’m glad,” Jack responded. “Knowing you from college as I do, it might be difficult to call you Your Eminence. It sounds too much like a rude anatomical statement.”
“You haven’t changed, have you?” James said, even more light- heartedly.
“Unfortunately, yes, I have changed. I feel like I’m living a second life totally separate from the first. But I’d rather not get into it, at least not now. Maybe when you call me in another thirty years, I’ll be ready to talk about it.”
“Has it been that long?” James said, with a touch of regret.
“Actually, it’s been thirty-one; I rounded it off to the nearest decade. But I’m not blaming you. I’m just as guilty.”
“Well, it’s something that should be rectified. After all, we live and work in the same city.”
“It seems that way,” Jack said. Jack was one of those people who refrained from spur-of-the-moment social commitments. Considering how long it had been and how divergent their careers had become, he didn’t know if he wanted to reopen a relationship from what seemed like a previous life.
“What I’d like to propose,” James said, “is we get together just as soon as possible. I know it is short notice, but would you consider coming here to the residence for a quick lunch?”
“Today?” Jack asked with utter surprise.
“Yes, today,” James reiterated. “This problem has just been dumped in my lap, and I don’t have a lot of time to deal with it. That’s why I need to ask your help.”
“Well,” Jack said, “it’s short notice, and I was invited to lunch with the Queen, but I can give her a call and tell her we’ll have to reschedule, as the Catholic Church needs my intervention.”
“I beg to differ concerning your assessment of yourself. You haven’t changed one iota. But thank you for being willing to come. And thank you for your irreverent humor. It would probably be best for me to lighten up a bit, but I am very concerned.”
“Does it have something to do with Shawn’s health?” Jack questioned. That was the main thing he was worried about: some health issue like cancer, as it would be too close to his own problems.
“No, not his health but his soul. You know how headstrong he can be.”
Jack scratched his head. Recalling Shawn’s loose sexual mores from college, Jack would have thought his soul was in jeopardy from the age of puberty on, which begged the question of why there was such a rush today. “Can you be a bit more specific?” he asked.
“I’d rather not,” James said. “I’d rather discuss the issue tête-à- tête. When can I expect you?”
Jack glanced at his watch. It was ten minutes until noon. “If I leave now, which I can do, I’ll be there in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Wonderful. I do have an official reception I must attend with the mayor at two p.m. I look forward to seeing you, Jack.”
“Likewise,” Jack said as he hung up the phone. There was a strange unreality to James’s request. It was like the president calling and saying get down here to Washington immediately: The country needs you. Jack laughed out loud, grabbed his leather jacket, and headed down to the basement.
As Jack was unlocking his bike, he became aware that someone had come up behind him. Turning around, he found himself confronted by bulldog-faced Chief Bingham. As usual, his expression was grim, perspiration dotting his forehead.
“Jack,” Bingham began. “I wanted to say again how sorry Calvin and I are about your son. Having had children ourselves, we can, to some degree, imagine how very difficult it must be. Remember, if there’s anything we can do, just let us know.”
“Thank you, Chief.”
“Are you heading out?”
“No, I just drop down here every so often to unlock and lock my bike.”
“Always joking!” Bingham commented. Knowing Jack as well as he did, he wasn’t about to take offense the way he used to when Jack first came on board at the OCME. “I assume you’re not heading out to lunch with a chiropractor friend.”
“Your assumption is entirely correct,” Jack said. “Nor am I heading out to see an acupuncturist, a homeopathist, or an herbalist. But I am going to lunch with a faith healer. The archbishop of New York just called and asked to have lunch with me.”
Bingham burst out laughing despite himself. “I have to hand it to you. You’re creatively quick on the retort. Anyway, ride carefully, and if truth be known, I wish you wouldn’t ride that bike. I’m always terrified you’re going to come in here feet first.” Still chuckling, Bingham turned and walked back into the depths of OCME.
Jack rode uptown on Madison, the fresh air reviving him. In fifteen minutes he arrived at the corner of 51st Street.
The archbishop’s residence stood out dramatically from the neighboring modern skyscrapers, a modest, rather severe three-story slate-roofed house of gray stone. The windows on the lower floors were covered by heavy iron bars. The only sign of life was a glimpse of Belgian lace seeming out of place behind a few of the barred windows.
With the bike secured along with his helmet, Jack mounted the granite steps and gave the shiny brass bell a pull. He didn’t wait long. As the locks clicked open, the heavy door swung inward, revealing a tall, thin, red-haired priest whose most prominent feature was a hatchet-like nose. He was dressed in a priest’s black suit and a heavily starched, old-fashioned white clerical collar.
“Dr. Stapleton?” the priest questioned.
“Yes, indeed,” Jack said casually.
“My name is Father Maloney,” the priest said, stepping to the side.
Jack entered, feeling somewhat intimidated by his surroundings. As Father Maloney closed the door behind him, he said, “I will show you to His Eminence’s private study.” He strode off, forcing Jack to run a few paces to catch up.
The sounds of busy Madison Avenue had disappeared behind the heavy front door. All Jack could hear besides the tick of the grandfather clock were their footsteps on the highly polished oak floor.
Father Maloney stopped before a closed interior door. As Jack came up to join him, the priest opened the door and stepped aside to allow Jack to enter.
“His Eminence will join you momentarily,” he said, backing out of the room and quietly closing the door.
Jack glanced around the spartan room, which smelled of cleaning fluid and floor wax. The only decoration besides a small crucifix hanging on the wall above an antique prie-dieu were several framed formal photos of the pope. Besides the prie-dieu the furniture was limited to a small leather couch, a matching leather chair, a side table with a lamp, and finally a small lady’s writing desk with a straight-backed wooden chair.
Jack walked across the glossy wooden floor, his leather soles tapping loudly. He sat on the sofa without leaning back, feeling as if he were someplace he didn’t belong. Jack had never been religious, as his sch
oolteacher parents had not followed any faith themselves. As he grew up and was forced to think about the issue, he’d decided he was an agnostic, at least until the tragedy that had stripped him of his family. From then on, Jack had given up on the comforting idea that there was a God. He didn’t think a loving God would let his beloved wife and his darling daughters perish as they did.
Suddenly, the door burst open. Already on edge, Jack leaped to his feet. In walked His Eminence James Cardinal O’Rourke in full regalia. For a beat the men regarded one another, each resurrecting a flash of pleasant memories. Although Jack could definitely see a glimpse of his old friend in the cardinal’s face, the rest of his appearance surprised him. Jack didn’t remember him being as small as he now appeared to be. His hair was shorter and not so vibrantly red. But it was the clothing, of course, that had changed the most: James reminded Jack of a Renaissance prince. Over black pants and white collar, James wore a black cassock enhanced with cardinal-red piping and buttons. Over the cassock was an open scarlet cape. On his head was a cardinal-red zucchetto skullcap. Cinched around his waist was a broad scarlet sash, while around his neck hung a jeweled silver cross.
The two men threw their arms around each other. They hugged for a moment before stepping back.
“You look terrific,” James said. “You look like you could run a marathon this minute. I don’t think I could run the length of the cathedral if I had to.”
“You’re too kind,” Jack said, as he gazed down at James’s gentle face with soft, freckled, shiny red cheeks and pleasantly rounded features. His sharp, sparkling ice-blue eyes told a different story, and one more consistent with what Jack knew of his old friend, who was now a powerful, ambitious prelate. The eyes reflected James’s formidable and canny intelligence, which Jack had always envied.
“Truly,” James continued. “You look like a man half your age.”
“Oh, stop it,” Jack said with a smile. Suddenly he remembered how facile James was at flattery, a trait he’d always used to great advantage. Back at Amherst, there wasn’t a person who did not like James, thanks to his ability to beguile others.
“And look at you,” Jack said, trying to return the compliment. “You look like a Renaissance prince.”
“A chubby Renaissance prince whose only exercise is at the refectory table.”
“Think about it,” Jack continued, ignoring James’s comment. “You are a cardinal, one of the most powerful people in the Church.”
“Fiddlesticks,” James remarked, waving him away as if Jack was teasing him. “I’m just a simple parish priest caring for my flock. The Good Lord has put me in a position that’s way over my head. Of course, I can’t question the Lord’s ways; I do the best I can. But enough of this small talk. We can indulge ourselves more at lunch. First, I want to show you something.”
James led the way out of the study, down a long hall, and past a formal dining room, where there were two place settings at a table for twelve, and into a large kitchen with modern appliances but old-fashioned soapstone countertops and sinks. A woman was at the sink washing a head of lettuce. She was a big woman, about four inches taller than James, with her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun. James introduced her as Mrs. Steinbrenner, the housekeeper, and the absolute ruler of the residence. Her response was to shoo James out of what she called her kitchen and to feign anger when he stole a carrot stick from a carefully arranged vegetable platter.
“That is your lunch,” she scolded with a heavy German accent, slapping James’s hand. Pretending to be intimidated, James motioned for Jack to follow him down the cellar steps.
“She pretends to be Brunhild,” James explained, “but she is a lamb. I could not do without her. She does all the cooking, except for large parties, keeps the place spotless, and keeps everyone, myself included, in line. Now, where is the light switch?”
They had reached the concrete basement, which was divided into rooms by rough, white-stained lumber. James flicked a switch, revealing a central corridor lined with padlocked doors on either side.
“I really, really appreciate your coming over on such short notice,” James said as he stopped in front of one of the doors. He took out a key, opened the lock, and pulled open the hasp. The door’s hinges squeaked as the door opened outward. He fumbled again to get the lights before proceeding into the room and motioning for Jack to follow.
It was a rectangular room about twenty feet long and ten feet wide with a nearly twelve-foot ceiling. The end wall was made of exposed, roughly dressed granite blocks that also served as the building’s foundation. Shelving ran down the walls, supporting carefully labeled cardboard moving boxes. Down at the end of the room stood a yellowed wooden packing crate whose metal straps had been cut but were still in place. Again motioning for Jack to follow him, James walked to the crate and bent the cut metal straps back to expose the top, which clearly had been opened and then put back.
“This is what has started the dilemma,” James said. Then he sighed. “Notice it is addressed to me. Also notice I am supposedly the sender, and also notice it says that it contains personal items.”
“Did Shawn send this to you?”
“He did indeed, the clever guy. He also phoned me to tell me it was coming. He said it was a surprise, and he knows I like surprises. Actually, foolish me thought it was something for my upcoming birthday, which I now know it isn’t, but it is a surprise that has turned out to be a much bigger one than I could have imagined.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack said, his face brightening. “Your birthday is coming up. In fact it’s tomorrow, the sixth of December, right?”
“He hasn’t given me a present since I don’t know when,” James said, ignoring Jack’s question. “Why I let myself believe he was going to give me one this year, I truly don’t know. But since Shawn is both a biblical scholar and archaeologist, I thought it might be some wonderful early Christian relic. Little did I know.”
“Is it?” Jack asked.
“Let me finish,” James said. “I want you to understand why I am in such a difficult situation.”
Jack nodded, his curiosity building. The crate probably did contain an antiquity. Something unusual, judging from James’s reaction.
“Sending this crate to me from the Vatican saying it contained my personal effects meant it wasn’t stopped by customs, either in Italy or here in New York. It came overnight by air freight, delivered here directly from JFK. Since I thought it was a birthday present, I had it placed in here with the rest of my personal items. As he promised, Shawn showed up yesterday right from JFK, shortly after the crate arrived. He was in a very strange mood, kind of tense with excitement. He was very impatient to open the box, as was I, to see if the contents had arrived safely. So we came down here and cut the metal strips and unscrewed the top of the wooden crate. Initially, all we saw was foam board, as the object had been extremely well packed. When the top piece of foam board was removed as I will do now, this is what I saw.” James insinuated his fingers between the rough wood and the packing material and lifted the latter.
Jack leaned forward. The light in the basement was not the best, but he could plainly see a tarnished, rectangular stone with a flat, scratch-covered surface. He wasn’t impressed. He’d expected something eye-catching like a gilded cup, or a statue, or maybe a heavy gold box. “What is it?” Jack asked.
“It’s an ossuary. Around the time of Christ, give or take a hundred years, Jewish burial practices in Palestine involved putting corpses in cavelike tombs for a year or longer to permit the body to decay. After that the family would return, collect the bones, and place them in a limestone box of varying size and decoration, depending how wealthy the family was. The box is called an ossuary.”
“Wasn’t there a controversy recently about an ossuary that supposedly had an inscription saying James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”
“Absolutely. In fact, there were some recently discovered ossuaries with inscriptions claiming they contained the remains of
Jesus Christ and his immediate family. Of course, the whole troublesome incident was proved to be pure chicanery by some unscrupulous forgers. Thousands of first-century ossuaries have been found over the last twenty years as a result of the building boom in Jerusalem. It’s hard not to find ossuaries when you dig in that city. I am confident this ossuary here will turn out to be a similar fake, as to whose relics, if any, are supposed to be inside.”
“Whose remains are supposedly involved?” Jack asked curiously.
“Holy Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of God, Mother of the Church, second only to Jesus himself, the most holy person to have walked this earth,” James said, finding it difficult to get it all out.
For almost a full minute Jack and James stared at each other. Jack’s disappointment concerning the contents of the box edged upward. He wasn’t interested in a box of bones; treasure held more allure for him than historical objects. James, on the other hand, was overwhelmed. Simply talking about the supposed contents only made him more desperate to find a solution.
“Okay,” Jack said at length. He broke off staring at James and his brimming eyes and looked back down at the lid of the ossuary. He’d expected James to continue, but the man was too distraught to speak.
“I must be missing something here. If there are lots of ossuaries and lots of forgers, which it seems there are, what’s the problem?”
James had his lips pressed together, and a single tear fell in a rivulet down his right cheek. Without speaking, his eyes momentarily closed, he raised his palms toward Jack and gently waved them in a narrow arc. He shook his head, as if apologizing for not being able to explain his feelings. A moment later, he gestured for Jack to follow him.
Upstairs, as they passed back though the kitchen, Mrs. Steinbrenner took one look at His Eminence and instantly recognized his emotional state. Although she didn’t say anything, she glared at Jack, whom she suspected was the source of her boss’s tears.
James took the seat at the head of the dining table and gestured for Jack to take the one to his right. Between them was the vegetable platter. The moment they pulled themselves to the table Mrs. Steinbrenner appeared with a large tureen in her hands. While the intimidating woman ladled out the soup, an excellent eggplant bisque, Jack kept his eyes focused on his bowl.
