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“So they say. So it seems.”

“Then how come his hair looks like it’s hanging straight down, the way it would if he were standing up?”

“Hmm, indeed,” Miranda echoed. “Good question.”

“And another thing,” I continued. “What’s with these bright red stains all over the body — the wrists, the feet, the side, the back, the forehead?”

“Duh. They’re the wounds of Christ, dummy. From the nails, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the spear in the side. Remember?”

“Duh yourself,” I retorted. “I do remember the wounds of Christ. But there shouldn’t be blood on them. He wouldn’t have kept bleeding after he was dead. Besides, he’s too perfect.”

“How do you mean, perfect? He’s a bloody mess, Dr. B.”

“Exactly. He’s the perfect bloody mess.” She looked at me as if I’d gone over the edge. “Take that trickle of blood on the head.” A red squiggle, three inches long by a half inch wide, meandered down the forehead from just below the hairline to the medial end of the right eyebrow. Along the way, it broadened in three spots, as if it had seeped into lines in the forehead.

Miranda knelt and scrutinized it. “From the crown of thorns. What about it?”

“According to the Bible, the crown of thorns was put on his head before he was crucified. Before he carried the cross through the streets of Jerusalem. Before he hung there for hours. In all that time and all that trauma, that neat little ribbon of blood doesn’t get smudged by a flood of sweat? Doesn’t get smeared as the body’s wrestled down from the cross and lugged to the tomb? Doesn’t get washed away as they’re cleaning the body for burial? They’re burying him with sweet-smelling spices and wrapping him in this fancy piece of linen, right? Why wouldn’t they bother to wipe the blood off the face while they were at it?”

“I take your point,” she conceded.

“And look at that foot,” I went on. “That nice bloody sole is flat against the cloth, the knee bent the way it is on every Jesus on every crucifix you ever saw. Think about all those dead guys on the ground at the Body Farm — does one knee bend artfully like that? No way — their feet flop out to the sides.”

Miranda nodded slowly. “It pains me to say it, but you might actually be right.” I smiled; she enjoyed the game of pretending I was slow-witted. “In fact, if you look at this forensically, the whole thing starts to seem totally staged — as if somebody was working from a checklist: Crown of thorns? Check. Spear wound? Check. Nail holes? Check. Scourge marks? Check.” Miranda was on a roll. But suddenly she clutched my arm and gasped. “Oh, my God.”

“What?!?”

“I just had an idea, Dr. B. A brilliant, awful idea. Millions of people believe the Shroud is a holy relic, right? But what if it’s exactly the opposite?”

“The opposite of a holy relic? What do you mean?”

She took a deep breath before heading down this new trail. “Let’s assume, for the moment, that those C-14 tests back in 1988 were right — that the Shroud is only seven centuries old. In that case, it’s a fake, right?” I nodded. “But what if it’s a fourteenth-century not-fake?”

“Huh?” I stared at her, utterly confused.

“What if it’s medieval but also genuine, Dr. B? What if all the bloodstains, all the wounds, are real?” She pointed at the image, moving her hand up and down as if she were doing a scan. “What if this piece of cloth documents actual trauma, but fourteenth-century trauma? Not the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus, but the scourging and crucifixion of a guy in Avignon — a guy killed specifically to create…this!” Her hand stopped scanning; her finger pointed accusingly at the face. “This could be the world’s first snuff film. A snuff Shroud. Created expressly, deliberately, in order to document the very murder it depicts.”

The idea was startling; stunning, even. Could she possibly be right? Could the Shroud depict a deliberately staged fourteenth-century murder? And could the bones of Avignon — our “zhondo,” as Elisabeth called him — be the bones of the victim?

I looked at the image again in this new light. Yes, it looked like our zhondo’s face. But not our zhondo’s stature. I had a tape measure in my overnight bag, but for starters, I lay down on the floor alongside the Shroud, side by side with the man’s image. “So, who’s taller?”

“He is. He’s got a couple inches on you, maybe more. How tall are you?”

“Five-ten.”

“So he’s a six-footer,” she said. “That’s pretty damn tall, whether he was first century or fourteenth. Most guys back then were, like, five feet, five five, right?”

She was right. During the twentieth century, the average stature of adult males had increased by six inches or more — in developed countries, though not in Third World countries — as a result of better diet and health care. “Yeah, little bitty guys,” I agreed. “I’ve seen suits of armor my twelve-year-old grandson couldn’t fit into.” My heart sank as I realized the implications. “Damn. It’s not our zhondo, is it, Miranda? Can’t be.”

“’Fraid not,” she said. “This guy’s half a head taller than our guy. Sorry, Dr. B; I know the facial reconstruction got you all excited about connecting the dots.”

“Oh well,” I said breezily. “It was an interesting possibility. But so’s your snuff-Shroud theory. Wouldn’t that be ironic, if somebody was killed to make a ‘holy’ relic? Anyhow, we’ve still got a medieval murder on our hands in Avignon, right?” I nodded at the Shroud. “And now maybe we’ve got two medieval murder cases. Twice the bodies, twice the fun, right?”

She didn’t find my little pep talk any more convincing than I did.

Slipping my shoes back on, I rolled up the Shroud and tucked it under my arm. “I’m pooped,” I said, heading for my room, which was at the end of the hall — right where the foot of the Shroud had been moments before. “Sorry I brought you on a wild-goose chase.” I stepped through the doorway.

“Dr. B?” I stopped and leaned my head back into the hallway, just far enough to see her smiling at me. “Just for the record? I love chasing wild geese. Good night, Dr. B. Sleep well.”

* * *

I had a dream, and in my dream, i went back to the chapel in Turin Cathedral; went back to make one final attempt to see the Shroud.

As I walked down the center aisle, I saw a man dressed as a high priest — a bishop or cardinal, perhaps even a pope — behind the chapel’s glass wall. The black curtain hiding the Shroud had been opened, and I hurried forward, eager to see the relic at last. But above the altar, behind the curtain, was nothing but a blank wall.

Astonished, I stared at the priest. Beside him, in the shadows, stood another man. This man, his face in shadow, was holding a small bundle, which I recognized as the Shroud, folded like a bedsheet. The man handed something to the priest; it was a thick bundle of money, I realized. The priest bowed, and the man disappeared through a dark doorway in the back of the chapel. Then the priest turned and saw me. He pointed a finger at me, and then reached for a golden cord hanging from the ceiling. He pulled the cord, and a heavy black drape slid shut, hiding not only the blank wall and the empty altar, but the entire chapel from my view.

CHAPTER 13

I awoke at daybreak, disturbed by the dream, and trudged back to the cathedral, where again I was confronted by the maddening curtain that shrouded the Shroud. Was it possible that my dream was actually true — that the wall behind the black drape was indeed blank? Could the Shroud be elsewhere — locked in an underground Vatican vault for safekeeping? Rented out to some devout billionaire who paid a fortune to possess it during the long intervals between public exhibitions?