Part 51 (1/2)
”Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.
31.
”ALLAHUU-UUU-AKBAAAAR-”
Recorded prayer exploded outside my window.
I opened one eye.
Dawn was seeping around the things in my room. One of them was Ryan.
”You awake?”
”Hamdulillah.” Ryan's voice was thick and fuzzy. Ryan's voice was thick and fuzzy.
”Um hmm,” I said.
”Praise the Lord.” Mumbled translation.
”Whose?” I asked.
”Too deep for five A.M. A.M.”
It was was a deep question. One I'd considered long after Ryan fell asleep. a deep question. One I'd considered long after Ryan fell asleep.
”I'm convinced it's Max.”
”The muezzin?”
I hit Ryan with a pillow. He rolled over.
”Someone wanted Max so badly they were willing to kill for him.”
”Ferris?”
”For one.”
”I'm listening.” Ryan's eyes were blue and sleepy.
”Jake's right. This goes beyond the Hevrat Kadisha.”
”I thought the HK boys wanted everyone.”
I shook my head. ”This isn't about the generic Jewish dead, Ryan. It's about Max.”
”So who is he?”
”Who was was he.” My voice was taut with self-recrimination. he.” My voice was taut with self-recrimination.
”It's not your fault.”
”I lost him.”
”What could you have done?”
”Delivered him directly to the IAA. Not hauled him with me to the Kidron. Or, at least taken steps to keep him secure.”
”Shouldn't have left the Uzi behind in the Bradley.”
I clocked Ryan again. He confiscated the pillow, scooted up, and propped it behind his head. I nestled beside him.
”Facts, ma'am,” Ryan said.
It was a game we played when stumped. I started the time line.
”In the first century C.E. C.E., people died and were buried in a cave at Masada, probably during the seven-year occupation of the summit by Jewish zealots. In 1963, Yigael Yadin and his team excavated that cave but failed to report on bones found there. Nicu Haas, the physical anthropologist detailed with a.n.a.lyzing those bones, stated verbally to Yadin and his staff that the remains represented twenty-four to twenty-six commingled individuals. Haas made no mention of one isolated, articulated, and complete skeleton, later described to Jake Drum by a volunteer excavator who'd helped clear the cave.”
Ryan picked up the thread.
”That isolated, articulated, and complete skeleton, hereinafter to be referred to as Max, ended up at the Musee de l'Homme in Paris. Sender, unknown.”
”In 1973, Yossi Lerner stole Max from the museum and gave him to Avram Ferris,” I said.
”Ferris spirited Max to Canada, later entrusted him to Father Sylvain Morissonneau at l'Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges,” Ryan said.
”On February twenty-sixth, Morissonneau gave Max to Brennan. Days later Morissonneau turned up dead.”
”You're jumping ahead,” Ryan said.
”True.” I thought about dates. ”On February fifteenth, Avram Ferris was found shot to death in Montreal.”
”On February sixteenth, a man named Kessler handed Brennan a photo of a skeleton that turned out to be Max.” Ryan.
”Hirsch Kessler turned out to be Hershel Kaplan, a small-time hustler and dealer in illegal antiquities.”
”Kaplan fled Canada and was arrested in Israel.” Ryan. ”Said flight took place just days before Father Morissonneau's death on March second.”
”On March ninth, Ryan and Brennan arrived in Israel. The next day Drum took Brennan on a tomb crawl, and Max was stolen by the Hevrat Kadisha. Presumably. Also that same day, Brennan's room was ransacked,” I added.
”The next day, March eleventh, under skilled interrogation”-Ryan grinned his humblest of grins-”Kaplan admitted that Ferris had asked him to sell Max. Kaplan claimed he floated word of the skeleton's availability in early to mid January.”
”That same day, Brennan was followed by men who appeared to be Muslim. Oh, and we forgot about Jamal Hasan Abu-Jarur and Muhammed Hazman Shalaideh.” Ryan.
”The men parked outside l'Abbaye Sainte-Marie-des-Neiges,” I said.
”'Tourists.'” Ryan hooked quote marks around the word.