“I’ve got a bump on my head and maybe a sprained wrist, but I’ll be okay,” Miranda said. “Hurts a bit, but you saved me from the crazies, so if you promise not to kill me, I promise not to hold a grudge.”
He smiled at that — a smile that reminded me of the kind, comforting fellow who’d offered a friendly ear on the staircase at the library a few days and a lifetime ago. Looking at me, he cocked his head at Miranda. “She’s good in a pinch. I’d trust her with me back any day.” He tossed the preacher’s pistol over the railing, and it plunked into the water somewhere in the vicinity of the femur I’d lobbed a few minutes before. “Can I trust you two to sit here quiet-like till you can’t hear me scooter any longer?” I nodded; he turned and looked at Miranda, and she nodded, too. “Fair enough. After that, you can scream bloody hell and sic the coppers on me. If they catch me, it means I’ve lost me knack.”
He walked to the stone box sitting ten feet away, farther out on the bridge, where Reverend Jonah had left it. Lifting the lid from where I’d leaned it against the railing, he fitted it into place, but not before taking a quick look inside. Then he squatted and lifted the box, giving his right shoulder a shrug to keep the gun sling from slipping off.
“Those bones have brought bad luck to everybody that’s tried to latch onto them,” I said. “Are you sure you want them?”
He shrugged, and the box bobbed slightly. “It’s not up to me, lad. I’ve got orders.” He drew even with us, and as he did, he turned toward us. “Good luck to you both. I’d keep wearing that medal, lad — it seems to be working for you.”
He turned away, and suddenly a bright mist of red sprayed from his back. Father Mike sank to his knees and set the ossuary down with a thud, as if taken by a sudden need to pray. Then he pitched forward across the top of it.
“Oh shit oh shit oh shit,” gasped Miranda. She ran to him and laid a hand on Father Mike’s shoulder as the life gurgled out of him. “Oh Jesus Mary and Joseph.”
A man stepped from behind the corner of the tower at the end of the bridge and walked slowly toward us. “Hello, Docteur,” he said. “Bonsoir, mademoiselle.” The man was Inspector René Descartes.
“Inspector? How long have you been here?”
“Five minutes, maybe.” He shrugged. “In time to see the preacher and the muscleman die.”
My mind was whirling, spun by a trinity of fear, sadness, and anger. “You didn’t need to shoot the priest, Inspector,” I said. “He wasn’t going to hurt us.”
“But I did,” he said.
I was confused. “Did what?”
“I did need to shoot him.”
“Why?”
“Because he was taking the bones.”
“You could have just told him to put them down. He had his hands full. He was no threat.”
“He was a big threat, Doctor. Or a big problem, at least. Just as you and mademoiselle are.”
“I don’t understand, Inspector.”
“Do you know how much a French police inspector earns, Doctor?”
“No. Not enough, probably.”
“Enough for a one-bedroom apartment and a ten-year-old car and one week at the beach every August,” he said. “Do you know how much I can sell these bones for? Three million U.S. dollars.”
“How? Who’s left to sell them to, Inspector? The crazy Protestant and the commando Catholic are both dead now. The religious market would seem to have dried up rather suddenly.”
“Ah, but you forget the art market,” he said. He smiled ironically. “It seems the art dealer, Madame Kensington, has a very eager and very rich client, one who is happy to have another chance at the bones. It’s a shame that you threw away one of them, but I think the blood on the box — along with the story of the crazy preacher and the soldier priest — will make up for the missing bone. A collector who will pay three million dollars for the bones of Christ is surely the kind of person who appreciates a good story. Imagine that you are a billionaire. Imagine that you have these bones, the most special bones in the world, and that you can take them out and show them off to your most trusted friends. Imagine how attentively they will listen as you tell how much money and how much blood it cost to get them. The story itself is worth a million, yes? Maybe I should raise the price, Doctor; what do you think?”
“I think you’ve forgotten something. A week ago you called Felicia Kensington a piece of shit.”
“Ah, oui, she is a piece of shit. But she’s a gold-plated piece of shit, filled with diamonds.”
“So you’re a faker, a forger, too,” I said. “A counterfeit cop. You just pretend to care about truth and justice.”
He shrugged, then wedged the toe of a boot under Father Mike’s body and tipped him off the top of the ossuary. “Okay, let’s go. My colleagues are slow, but even they will be arriving soon, after this many gunshots. Doctor, will you be so kind as to carry the bones?”
I squatted, then hoisted the box. “Father Mike was letting us go. Are you?”
“Ah, sorry, non, Doctor. The false priest gave you false hope. I give you the sad truth. La triste vérité. If you live, things will be very difficult for me. I wish I didn’t have to kill you, but I do. Don’t take it personally.”
“I take it very personally, Inspector.”
“Quel dommage. Too bad. But do as you wish.”
Just ahead, something bright and orange caught my eye: the safety mesh spanning the gap in the railing. We were almost to the gap, and a desperate idea formed in my mind.
“Inspector, I need to shift my grip; I’m about to drop this, and I doubt that your client will be happy if it gets broken. Let me just set it on the railing for a second.”
“Non. Not on the railing,” he said. “I saw how you balanced it on the railing to trick the preacher.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll set it on the ground,” I said, “but I need to do it now. It’s slipping.” Without waiting for him to give permission — or deny it — I squatted and set down the ossuary, with the thunk of stone on stone. “Whew,” I said, straightening up and bending backward to stretch. I interlaced my fingers, stretched my arms, and pushed my palms outward to crack my knuckles.
“That’s enough,” he said. “Come on.”
“Okay. I’m ready. That helped.” I squatted again and worked my fingers under the ends of the ossuary. “Miranda, can you give me a hand? Just till it’s up?”
“Why don’t you let me carry it awhile?” Miranda squatted on the other side of the box and wedged her fingers under as well. I felt her fingers graze mine on the underside of the box.
“No, I’ll be fine,” I said. “Just help me lift — that’s the hardest part. Remember, lift with your legs, not your back.” I tapped one of her fingers, a gesture I desperately hoped she’d interpret as a signal. Her eyes met mine, and when they did, I rolled mine upward as far as I could, raising my eyebrows at the same time. “Okay, on three,” I said. “One. Two. Three!”
With all the strength I had, I straightened my legs and flung myself backward, shouting “Push!” as I did. Miranda shoved hard on the box, accelerating my backward fall. With my momentum, Miranda’s push, and the ossuary’s weight, I slammed into Descartes with the force of a linebacker. He grunted heavily and tumbled backward, my weight driving us both toward the gap in the railing. I felt momentary resistance as the orange safety mesh snagged us and stretched; we hung like that, suspended over the water, for an agonizing instant — the detective’s arms windmilling for balance, grasping for anything solid — and then, with a crack as sharp as a gunshot, the plastic snapped and we felclass="underline" Descartes underneath, my body against his, and the stone box clutched to my chest. We did a backward flip in the air, and the centrifugal force of our spin sent pale bones cartwheeling into the black sky. We fell surrounded by them, as if we were inside some macabre snow globe of mortality.