“Yes.” Bitter.
“Why pony up the photo at Ferris’s autopsy?”
Kaplan shrugged one shoulder. “Just trying to help.”
Ryan went over it and over it. Kaplan grew restless, but stuck to his story. He knew Miriam through his former brother-in-law, and Ferris through Miriam. From time to time, he did some minor-league buying and selling of illegal goods. He’d agreed to unload the skeleton for Ferris. Before he got full background on the bones, Ferris was killed. He didn’t do it. His conscience told him to surrender the photo.
Kaplan’s version never changed.
That time.
27
AT HALF PAST TEN, RYAN ANDIRECLAIMED POSSESSION OF THEshroud and bones, then climbed into Friedman’s personal car, an ’84 Tempo with a duct tapeK on the right rear window. Friedman stayed with Kaplan.
“What’s his plan?” I asked
“Give the gentleman time to reconsider his tale.”
“And then?”
“Ask him to repeat it.”
“Repetition is good,” I said.
“Brings out inconsistencies.”
“And forgotten details.”
“Case in point, Mama Ferris,” Ryan said.
“Got us hooked into Yossi Lerner and Sylvain Morissonneau,” I agreed.
Beit Hanina is an Arab village with the timely good fortune to find itself within modern Jerusalem’s new municipal boundaries. It is now Beit Hanina Hadashah, or New Beit Hanina. Jake had kept a flat here for as long as I’d known him.
Jake’s directions sent us into territory that was Jordan from 1948 until 1967. Ten minutes after leaving the Russian Compound, we hit the Neve Yakov checkpoint on the Ramallah, formerly the Nablus, Road. Good timing. The queue only stretched a block and a half.
Ryan joined the line and we crept forward, car length by car length. On our trip to the Kidron, Jake had told me that the wall designed to cocoon Israel from the rest of the world would shoot down the center of the road we were on. I scanned the stores flanking each side.
Pizza parlors. Dry cleaners. Sweet shops. Florists. We could have been in St-Lambert. Scarsdale. Pontiac. Elmhurst.
But this was Israel. To my left lay the insiders, those whose businesses would prosper despite the wall. To my right lay the outsiders, those whose businesses would wither because of the wall. Sad, I thought. These, the common folk humping to feed their families, were the real winners and losers in this disputed land.
Without Friedman, Ryan and I had anticipated a grilling. Au contraire. The guard glanced at our passports and Ryan’s badge, bent for a look, and waved us through. Crossing into the West Bank, we made an immediate left, then another onto Jake’s street.
Jake rented the top floor of a small stucco home owned by an Italian archaeologist named Antonia Fiorelli. Jake lived up. Fiorelli lived down, with seven cats.
Ryan announced our arrival via a cracked speaker in the property wall. Seconds later Jake opened the gate, led us past a chicken-wire coop housing goats and rabbits, down a winding pebble walk, and up an outer staircase. By the second floor, we’d picked up a three-cat escort.
There are several feline types. The pet-me-I-adore-you-let-me-curl-in-your-lap calico. The feed-me-don’t- bug-me-I’ll-call-youSiamese. The I’m-watching-to-see-if-your-chest-is-still-moving-while-you-sleep feral tom.
This trio fit nicely into category three.
Most of Jake’s flat was taken up by a large central room with brown tile floor, white plaster walls, and brick trim arching the windows and doors. Wooden cabinets lined one end, and swooped around as an island to separate the kitchen from the living and dining areas.
Jake’s bedroom was the size of a broiler oven. It contained an untidy bed, a dresser, and a cardboard box for dirty laundry.
Everything else was “office.” A vestibule area had been converted to a computer and map room. An enclosed porch was used for artifact cleaning. A back bedroom was set up for cataloging, recording, and analysis.
Jake’s disposition had improved since our earlier phone conversation. He greeted us and inquired about our morning before asking for the shroud. He even said please. And smiled.
“This was the best I could do under the circum-”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Jake gave a come-on gesture with both hands.
Okay. The mood rally wasn’t complete.
I set Mrs. Hanani’s Tupperware on the counter. Jake opened and inspected the contents of the first tub.
“Oh my God.”
He pried the cover from the second tub.
“Oh my God.”
Ryan looked at me.
Jake moved to the shroud containers.
Oh my God, Ryan mouthed over Jake’s arched back. I crimped my eyes in a knock-it-off warning.
Wordlessly, Jake stared at the larger section of shroud.
“Oh. My. God.”
Jake disappeared into the back bedroom, returned with a magnifying lens, and inspected the larger remnant.
“I’ll take these to Esther Getz this afternoon,” he said.
Jake studied the shroud a full minute, then straightened.
“Getz is a textile expert at the Rockefeller Museum. Did you examine the bones?”
I shook my head. “There’s not much to examine.”
Jake set down the lens, stepped back, and made a sweeping gesture with one long arm. Ryan gave a trumpet flourish with his lips.
I moved to the counter, and gently poured the contents of each tub onto its lid.
“Do you have gloves?”
Jake started toward the back bedroom.
“And tweezers,” I said to his retreating back. “And a probe or dental pick.”
He got all three. As Jake and Ryan watched, I sorted, naming each fragment.
“Phalanx. Calcaneus.” Those were the easy ones. No other shard was larger than my earlobe. “Ulna, femur, pelvis, skull.”
“So what do you think?” Jake asked when I’d finished.
“I think there’s not much to examine.”
“Male or female?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Damn it, Tempe. This is serious.”
I inspected a chunk of occipital bone. The nuchal crest was prominent, but it wasn’t a record-setter. Ditto for the linea aspera on some splinters of femoral shaft. The only thing left of the pelvis was the thick, chunky part that had formed a joint with the sacrum. No gender-specific feature remained.
“The muscle attachments are robust. I’d give it a qualified ‘male,’ and that’s probably the best I’ll be able to do. Nothing’s complete enough for measurement.”
I picked up and rotated the heel bone. A small, circular defect caught my eye. Jake noticed my interest.
“What?”
