“Does ‘perhaps’ mean ‘definitely’?”
“You can say no, of course.”
“You think someone killed Stefan for the bones?”
“Unless someone killed him for screwing your assistant.”
I hadn’t expected that. I felt the blood rush to my face, and I realized that I might have just stepped into a trap. Did Descartes still consider me a suspect? If so, had my reaction just raised his suspicions, made me look guilty? I was too angry to care. “Look, Inspector, I know what you think — Miranda’s personal life is fair game. Fine; you do your job. But if you want me to help you dig up dirt on Miranda, the answer’s no; you’re on your own.”
He seemed surprised by my reaction. “No, pas du tout—not at all. I was being ironic. I forgot you were sensitive about that.” Was he being sincere? There was no way to tell. “Of course the murder is about the bones. Immediately after he gets this report”—with his right index finger he pointed to the paper in my hands—“he faxes it to three people.” He held up the finger. “A few hours after that, he’s dead.” He held up his other index finger, then brought the two fingers together. “They are connected. How?” He tapped his temple. “I think he tries to sell the bones. I think he has three potential buyers — three fishes on the line. And one of the fishes kills him.”
“So, cherchez le squelette,” I reminded him. “Find the skeleton, you’ll find the killer.”
“Maybe.” He drained his cup and studied the sludge in the bottom. “Yes, maybe he takes the bones to a rendezvous at the chapel, and the buyer kills him and takes the bones.” I nodded; that was my guess about what had happened. “But I think not.” I looked at him in surprise. “Kill him, yes; shoot him—bang! — and take the bones, sure, it makes sense. But crucify him? Why? Why kill him in a way that’s risky to get caught? A way that’s slow and painful? Maybe to try to get information from him. Torture him into talking. You see?” I nodded; there was logic to that. He held up the finger yet again. “Also, why search his apartment, if you already have what you want?”
“Maybe to make sure there’s no evidence at the apartment, no paper trail for the police to follow?”
“Non,” he scoffed. “Whoever searched that apartment wasn’t looking for a piece of paper. He was looking for the bones. Of this I feel certain.”
“So what do you do now, Inspector?”
“I ask you to contact the three fishes.”
“Me? Why?”
“To offer the bones for sale.”
“But I don’t have the bones,” I pointed out.
“A minor complication,” he said, smiling. “You pretend to have them.” Suddenly the “dangerous” part of his request was becoming clear.
“Why don’t you pretend to have them, Inspector?”
He laughed. “Ah, oui. I will send this fax to the three fishes: ‘Bonjour, monsieur, if you still want the bones of Jesus, bring ten thousand euros to my office at the police station tomorrow morning.’ Like that?”
“No, not like that. Go undercover. Cops do it all the time.”
“I would make a terrible undercover officer,” he said. “I cannot act. My acting smells like shit. Besides, perhaps the killer has seen me already, at the chapel yesterday.”
“If so, he’s seen me, too — I got there before you did, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Ah, oui, but you were there as a witness, not an investigator. In fact, it’s good if he saw you there. You would be the logical person to have the bones, since Beauvoir no longer does. You, or perhaps Mademoiselle Lovelady.”
“No!” I practically shouted. “Not Miranda. I can’t let you put Miranda at risk.” He raised his sunglasses and squinted at me. “I’m responsible for her.”
“Pourquoi? She is an adult, yes? Twenty-five years? Thirty years?”
“Of course she’s an adult. But she’s my assistant. That makes me responsible.”
“But didn’t she come to Avignon to work for Beauvoir?”
He had me there. “Okay, technically, you’re right. But most of the time, I’m her boss. Keep Miranda out of it. Please.”
He shrugged. “I can try. But as I said yesterday, you are both involved. Perhaps you and I are not the only ones who have an interest in her.”
My cell phone rang; the call was from Miranda. She was talking even before I finished saying hello. “Slow down,” I said. “I can’t understand you. Are you crying? What’s wrong?”
“I’ve been robbed,” she sobbed.
“What? Just now? On the street? Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt. It must have happened last night. My room — somebody broke into my room while I was sleeping there with you.” She drew a few shuddering breaths. “When I got up this morning, I went for a long walk. Then I ate breakfast. I just got back to the hotel five minutes ago. My room had been trashed. They took my computer. My passport. My money. I’m scared, Dr. B.”
Twenty minutes later — spurred on by my fear for Miranda and my hope that if I did what Descartes asked, I could deflect danger from her to me — I signed my name to the message I would fax to each of Stefan’s three fish. The wording Descartes and I had finally settled on was meant to be both tantalizing and threatening: I am Stefan’s partner. I know about your dealings with him. Now you must deal with me. Contact me within 24 hours, or I will go to the police. Brockton.
Descartes reread the note and grunted his approval. “Okay,” he said, “if they don’t already have the bones, this will make them think that you have them. If they do have the bones, they will think you are blackmailing them. It might work. What do you think, Docteur?”
“I think it might get me killed,” I said. “If they think I’m blackmailing them, what’s to stop them from just shooting me—bang! — or crucifying me?”
“We’ll be watching you,” he said. “Besides, I don’t think they have the bones. If they did, why break into mademoiselle’s room?”
“And what do I do when they call our bluff and want me to deliver the bones — the bones I don’t actually have?”
“Simple. You set the hameçon—the fishhook — and I reel in the line. You meet them, and we arrest them.”
“Before or after they shoot me?”
He laughed. “Trust me, Docteur.”
We took the note inside to Lumani’s office, a tiny alcove just off the dining room — nothing more than a desk built into a recess in the wall. After Jean had made sure the machine would not transmit the inn’s name or phone number, we sent the note to the three fax numbers.
Now, we waited for the fish to strike. To strike me.
“Lately I feel like a time traveler,” I said to Miranda. “Or like there are two of me. One me is here now, in the present, trying to help Descartes find Stefan’s killer. The other me is somewhere back in the thirteen hundreds, trying to figure out how that box of bones ended up in the wall of the palace. And how in bloody hell the Shroud of Turin and this painter Simone Martini are connected to it.”
We were back at the library again, once more on the trail of Martini and the Shroud. I nodded toward the immense reading room that had once been a vast banquet hall. Computers and steel shelves and halogen lights surrounded by frescoed walls and leaded windows and a coffered ceiling. “I feel as schizophrenic as this library.” From somewhere below, an annoyed sshh floated up at me.