His Eminent Excellency, hoping soon to be wearer of the Fisherman’s Ring? Let me talk to that pudgy bum!”
James cringed and considered hanging up, but his curiosity prevented him.
“Hey, brother!” Shawn said blithely, coming on the line. “We hit gold!”
“Oh?” James questioned with feigned disinterest. “What did you find?”
“Not one scroll but three, and the biggest says in Greek on the outside: GOSPEL
ACCORDING TO SIMON. We have the gospel of Simon Magus. Isn’t that a gas?”
“Was that all that was in the ossuary?” James asked, with a glimmer of hope appearing on the distant horizon.
“No, that was not all, but I’ll give you back to Jack for that. Talk to you soon.” A moment later Jack came back on the line. “He is one happy archaeologist,” Jack explained. “I’m certain he doesn’t mean to be disrespectful if you heard what he’d said before he got the phone away from me.”
“Just tell me, were there bones in the ossuary?” James asked. At the moment, he was uninterested in manners.
“There were,” Jack admitted. “To me, it looks like a complete skeleton, including a skull that’s in reasonably good shape. It could be more than one skeleton, but there’s only one skull.”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” James murmured, more to himself than to Jack. “Can you tell if the remains are human?”
“That would be my guess.”
“How about the sex?”
“That’s harder to say. The pelvis is in pieces, which is the way I’d try to tell. But as soon as I saw the bones when we got the top off the ossuary, I called Alex Jaszek, the head of the OCME department of anthropology, told him what we were doing in a very general way, and asked him if he’d like to come over. He’s on his way.”
“You didn’t mention anything about the Virgin Mary, did you?”
“Of course not. I just said we opened a first-century ossuary.”
“Good,” James said, trying to think of what he should do. He was tempted to go over to the city DNA building himself to view the relics, but to do so would require changing again, lest his visit appear on the cover of tomorrow’s
“James, Shawn wants to talk with you again. Is it okay if I hand him the phone?”
“Yes, it’s okay,” James said warily. He assumed Shawn wanted to hit him a few more times while he was down for the count.
“Hey!” Shawn said, coming on the line. “I just remembered it’s your birthday! Happy birthday, Your Eminent Excellency.”
“Thank you,” James said. It took him by surprise. As upset as he was over the ossuary and its potential ramifications, he’d totally forgotten his own birthday. He also wondered why his staff had not said anything, even though he’d never been a stickler for such things. “My title is Your Eminence or Your Excellency,” James said in partial rebuke.
“But from you I would prefer James.”
“Right you are,” Shawn said with indifference. “I have a suggestion. How about we throw a party tonight, provided you don’t have to dine with some country leader or other muckety-muck. We’ll celebrate your birthday and our breakthrough find together. What do you say? The simultaneity is a bit ironic, of course, but life is like that.” James’s first reaction was to say absolutely, categorically, no. He didn’t want to listen to Shawn bragging about how he was going to shock the world with his revelations. But as James quickly thought about the invitation, the more he began to believe it might be a good idea to bear the burden. He needed to be part of the investigation from the beginning so that he could keep a healthy amount of skepticism alive in the minds of all concerned, if he was to have any hope of ultimately talking Shawn out of publishing anything about the Virgin Mary. Perhaps it was a long shot, but for the moment it was the only strategy James could imagine beyond prayer.
“I’m thinking about picking up some steaks, salad makings, and some terrific red wine on the way home,” Shawn went on when James didn’t respond. “We can grill the steaks on the back porch. What do you say?”
What made James continue to hesitate was the worry of Shawn being insufferable and riding him the whole evening. James doubted he could endure such an evening on so little sleep.
“Instead of staying in we could always go out,” Shawn persisted in the face of James’s silence. “I just thought you don’t like to go out.”
“Only with you,” James said. “We always get into an argument over dinner. I’m not blaming you, I’m just as guilty, and even if I go as a civilian, someone always recognizes me. I don’t need that type of publicity. Let me talk again with Jack!”
“He wants to talk with you,” Shawn said, with frustration.
“What is it?” Jack asked with a tired voice. He had a premonition of what was coming, meaning the refereeing was already beginning.
“Jack, Shawn’s planning a celebration dinner tonight at their home. You’ve got to be there.”
“I haven’t actually been officially asked, and besides, I have to get home to help Laurie with JJ, our son.”
“Jack, I need your help, as I made clear yesterday. If you’ll come to this impromptu dinner party, I’ll do the same, but I’m going to need a buffer with Shawn, especially with the current high he is on. I need to know more about what he’s found and what he’s thinking, but you know it’ll be torture.”
“So I’ll play referee once again,” Jack said grudgingly. He’d never liked the role.
“Jack, please!”
“All right, if it’s not going to be late.”
“It won’t be late. I have to say Mass in the cathedral early in the morning. On top of that I slept poorly last night. Believe me, it is not going to be a late night. Listen, I’ll bring my car, and I’ll drive you home.”
“Okay, I’ll come,” Jack said, “but I have to check with Laurie.”
“Fair enough,” James said. “Put Shawn back on.”
James told Shawn what had been decided and asked what time.
Shawn shrugged. “Let’s say seven. I think I’d be speaking for Sana if I say we’ll want to get an early start in the lab tomorrow. We’ll want to break up on the early side.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
22
10:40 A.M., SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2008
NEW YORK CITY
Only a little more than ten minutes after the conversation with James, Alex Jaszek, the anthropologist, arrived. During the brief interim Shawn and Sana continued to whisper epithets back and forth. Despite their earlier joy over their discovery, they had begun arguing about the evening’s plans until Sana, in disgust, had disappeared into the laboratory to check out the equipment.
Alex looked young for a seasoned Ph.D., with a skimpy beard on his youthful face. He was built like the quintessential high-school football player, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He wore khaki pants and an old-fashioned flannel shirt.
“Is this the way the bones looked when you got the top off?” Alex asked, peering into the ossuary.
“Pretty much,” Jack said. He was looking in as well. “The three scrolls were inside as well. Shawn carefully lifted them out. The thigh bone might have moved a tiny bit when he did so, but we took plenty of photos.”
“It looks like quite a complete skeleton.”
“That was our guess as well,” Shawn said.
“You could have lifted the bones out,” Alex said. “The position is not going to tell us anything, since this was, as I’m sure you know, a reburial. When ossuaries were in use, the body was first left to decompose, then the bones were gathered up and put into the ossuary in no particular order. So let’s go ahead and lift them out one by one and arrange them on the table in their general anatomical position.” Sana emerged and joined them around the table, and Jack made introductions. Sana made a big show of shaking Alex’s hand while expressing unctuous gratitude that he’d sacrificed part of his Saturday to lend them his extraordinary expertise.
Jack could sense that Sana’s over-the-top performance was to irritate Shawn, which seemed to be working. So, while Sana was helping Alex in the gowning room, Jack leaned over and quietly asked, “Are we still on for
