“I understand, Inspector. I’ll see you here.”
“Meet me in the library courtyard. Without mademoiselle. Oh, and Docteur? Don’t look happy to see me.” Only after he hung up did I realize what he meant: One of the fish might be watching.
There were no parking places beside the library, but Descartes didn’t let that stop him. He pulled his car — a white Police Nationale sedan with lights and markings — onto the narrow sidewalk, practically scraping the passenger side against the wall of the adjoining building. It was the parking technique of choice — or necessity — in many of Avignon’s narrow streets.
I’d been waiting for him on a bench in the library’s courtyard. When he approached, I stood; I was about to stretch out my hand when I remembered his sign-off, so instead of a handshake, I offered him a scowl. “What do you want now, Inspector?” He raised his eyebrows, as if to tell me I’d gone a bit overboard, so I backed off. “What’s up?”
“This arrived at Beauvoir’s apartment a little while ago,” he said in a voice I felt sure could not be overheard. “Take a look.” He handed me a padded FedEx envelope. The lettering on the airbill was faint and smudged; it was easy to tell that it had come from the United States but hard to tell much more than that. Finally I deciphered “Miami,” and then — above that — two smeared words that looked like “Be Anal”: words, I realized with a start, that were probably “Beta Analytic.” The envelope was almost flat, but not quite, and I gave it an exploratory squeeze. Through the envelope’s built-in padding, I felt something small and hard, like a pebble. Opening the envelope, I found, as the size and shape had suggested I would, a human tooth — a canine — its ancient enamel a dull grayish brown.
“I thought the carbon-14 testing would destroy the sample,” Descartes said. “How can they send the whole tooth back?”
“Apparently they only used one of the teeth. We sent two,” I said. I tipped the tooth out of the Ziploc bag and into my palm. “A molar, and this canine.” I held it up for him to see, and suddenly an electric jolt shot through me. “My God,” I breathed. “Not this canine.”
“What do you mean?” Descartes leaned closer to inspect the tooth.
“This isn’t the canine we sent.” I raised my palm closer to his face. “At least, it’s not the canine that I pulled from the skull.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because when I pulled the tooth, it broke. The root snapped off in the jaw. Look — this one’s perfect.”
He plucked the tooth from my hand gently, as if it were a gem, or a ripe raspberry he didn’t want to bruise. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, he turned it, scrutinizing it from every angle. “You are sure of this?”
“Absolutely.”
“You think there is some mistake at this laboratory? A mix-up?”
“No,” I said slowly, an idea dawning in my mind. An idea whose brilliance was matched only by its wickedness. “I think Stefan swapped the samples,” I said. “I think he traded the teeth I pulled for teeth from another skull. A skull he knew was two thousand years old.”
“But how is this possible? Where would he get such teeth?”
“Hell, he was an archaeologist,” I said. “He could have gotten them anywhere. A dig in Greece or the Middle East — a site he knew dated from the first century. The catacombs of Rome, where there are thousands and thousands of skeletons that age. Maybe even the Museum of Natural History in Paris; there’s a whole building there filled with fossils and bones.” I snapped my fingers. “I just remembered — the first night I was here, we were talking about C-14 dating. He mentioned something about Turkish goat bones from the first century. He might have teeth from that same site.”
“So he faked it? Merde, every case I get now involves a faker or a forger. Do you think he planned this tout entièr—the whole thing — a long time in advance?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but I found myself shaking my head no. “No, actually I think it was a spur-of-the-moment idea,” I said. “I think he really did find the bones in the palace — the wall collapsed first, Stefan was called second. I think the only thing he faked was the C-14 test, once he found that ossuary. I think the inscription — the cross and the lamb — put the idea into his head.” A realization struck me: If Stefan had rigged the C-14 test, maybe the skeleton was medieval after all…and maybe the Shroud of Turin really was created in Avignon. “The skeleton Stefan found is significant,” I added. “But he wanted it to be the most important — and most valuable — skeleton in the world. Unfortunately, his plan worked too well, and it backfired on him.”
Descartes was staring off into space. I wasn’t sure he was following me, or even hearing me. “Inspector?”
“Excuse me for one minute, please.” He took out his cell phone and made a call. The only words I caught for sure were “cherchez” and “appartement.” Descartes listened a long while, then murmured, “Ah, oui? C’est bon.” When he hung up, his face was a mask, but his eyes were gleaming. “As you were talking, I remembered. In his apartment were some small glass jars containing bits of metal, pieces of pottery, small bones. And — this is what I called to ask them to look for just now — two teeth. A dent de sagesse, the tooth of wisdom”—he pointed at one of his third molars—“and a dogtooth, a canine, broken at the root, exactement as you describe.” He caught my gaze and held it. “Okay, I’m leaving now. We should finish with a small fight.” He jabbed a finger in my chest. “You are not telling me everything, Docteur,” he said loudly. “I think you know where are these bones. I am watching you. And I can make things very bad for you if you give me a reason.”
He spun on his heel and walked toward the street. “Descartes,” I called after him. He stopped and looked back at me. “We saved your butts in World War Two,” I shouted. “If not for America, you’d be goose-stepping and eating sauerkraut.”
He resumed walking, and he raised both arms, his middle fingers extended. Unless it had a radically different meaning in France, the gesture needed no translation.
And the man claimed to be a lousy actor.
CHAPTER 25
When Miranda and I left the library an hour later, we persuaded Philippe to let us out a back door. We took a long, meandering way back to her hotel, detouring through the Rue des Teinturiers — the street of the tinters, the dyers. For centuries this was Avignon’s textile district, where the wools and silks for tapestries, vestments, courtiers’ cloaks, and ladies’ gowns took on hues of red, orange, gold, green, blue, violet, indigo. A small canal paralleled the street, and the buildings lining that side all had small bridges leading to their entrances. A smattering of ancient waterwheels, some still turning, offered picturesque reminders of the importance of waterpower to medieval industries. Miranda stopped to snap a waterwheel photo with her iPhone, then climbed the steps onto the small bridge beside it. Leaning on the stone balustrade, she peered down at the water. “Fancy a dip?” I called.
She shook her head. “Remember what Stefan said about the pollution in the Rhône? This looks a lot worse. The water’s opaque.”
“Urban runoff,” I said. “Brake fluid, mop water, dog crap — not great for the water quality.”
“Imagine, though, what this must have looked like in 1350. If all these buildings were dyers’ shops? This water probably changed color every time somebody emptied a dye vat. Wouldn’t that be fun? The canal running fuchsia one minute, burnt orange the next? Like something out of The Wizard of Oz.”