Elisha's Bones Part 17

I don't give him an answer because I'm not sure what to think of his a.s.sertion. The last five years would certainly seem to belie it but, considered through the filter of recent events, it sounds like a plausible hypothesis. I'm supposed to be back at Evanston soon, and I can't remember a time when a place seemed like such a distant idea. Except, of course, for my cactus, which I can see in my mind's eye withering on the windowsill beneath the winter sun.

Through the screen door I can hear Meredith and Esperanza moving about the kitchen. But except for a m.u.f.fled word or two, their conversation remains their own. I'm not at all surprised they are getting on well. They're cut from different parts of the same cloth.

"She's a lovely woman," Jim says.

The old professor remains sharp, his intuitive skill bordering on the eerie.

"I know," I say.

He turns silent for a few seconds and then gives a small harrumph harrumph before taking a puff from his pipe. From somewhere out over the pond I hear a single bird call. before taking a puff from his pipe. From somewhere out over the pond I hear a single bird call.

"You should have married her," he says.

I have no answer, except to suspect that he's probably right. He must sense that I'm not going to be baited, as if I were a grad student again and arguing some finer point of archaeological theory. He removes the pipe from his mouth and fixes warm and wise eyes on me.

"Are you going to tell me what you want?" When I don't respond right away, he adds, "I know you didn't come to the other side of the world just to sit on my porch."

"Technically, I was already on the other side of the world. So it was only a matter of a few hundred miles."

He shakes his head. "You were always saying something smart like that, as I recall. All right, have it your way. What is it that brings you a few hundred miles to here, Australia's premier vacationland?"

There's something inside me that doesn't care to broach the subject. I'm more at peace right now than I can remember feeling for quite some time, and forcing the conversation to the events of the last couple of weeks can only serve to dampen the mood. I let go a sigh that's louder than I intended, but Jim says nothing. He knows I'll tell him when I'm ready.

And I do. It's like some Jack Kerouac stream of consciousness that has me divulging everything that's happened since I took this job: the exhilarating finds, the mounting bodies, the flights from one continent to another. Through it all, Jim listens, and I'm not looking at him to gauge his reaction, even though the portion connecting my present circ.u.mstances with the events at KV65 must have hit him hard. My eyes stay on the calm water. I'm not sure how long I speak, or if my story makes any sense. Yet it doesn't really matter because it's another much-needed catharsis. If the trip out here proves to be nothing more than a visit to a comfortable confessional, it will have been worth it, even accepting the fact that I'm not Catholic.

After I've finished, when I've reached empty, Jim is quiet. I look over at him and see him mulling over everything I've said. The afternoon is beginning to cross into early evening, not noticeable so much by any change in the light as by a certain feel in the air.

"Do you believe the bones are real?"

"I don't know."

"It's an important detail. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer speaks volumes about where you go from here."

"You mean whether to continue the search or go home?"

"In a nutsh.e.l.l." He takes a long, thoughtful draw on his pipe. A moment later he pulls it away from his mouth and releases a cloud of gray smoke, then points the pipe at me. "If you don't believe the bones exist, then you're putting your own life-not to mention the lives of your loved ones-in jeopardy for no reason. If, on the other hand, you firmly believe they exist, and that they possess the power that Reese and the biblical record claim, then you're making a conscious decision to value this magnificent artifact above your own well-being."

I'm bothered by my friend's nutsh.e.l.l, because I'm not sure the Occam's razor principle works here. It's not an either/or, a belief or a rejection of belief. There's room for something else. Manheim's actions-and Reese's to a lesser extent-have woven me into the fabric of the unfinished narrative. I'm still here to dig into what was behind Will's death, and I want to see Manheim pay for what he did. For now, I can tell myself that the bones are incidental.

"What about Will?" I ask.

A cloud drops over Jim, and it's not something I'm happy about. I don't know what Jim has carried with him over the last five years, or what he's feeling now that I've told him what I know. He is quiet for a long time, until I'm not sure he's going to answer. But then his face gives way to a sad smile and he says, "I'm sorry I didn't do more to find out what happened to Will."

I start to protest but he waves me silent.

"I knew that what happened was no accident. Everyone knew it."

I'm gathered up in that sentence. I've always known, yet I ran away.

"I should have pressed for an investigation," Jim says. "Instead, I packed up and went home. And I let you do the same."

There's nothing I can say in response to this candid admission, except to be grateful that he's made the gesture. Sitting in silence with him is my forgiveness.

I ponder his words while whatever pa.s.ses for the Australian equivalent of an erne makes a dive toward the still water. There is the barest hint of a splash before the bird beats its wings furiously to rise back up into the air. I think its talons are empty, although I can't be sure.

"Dinner's ready," Meredith calls from the doorway.

I grind my cigar in the ashtray balanced on the arm of the chair until the glowing tip dies and then I slip it into my breast pocket. As Jim gets up and starts for the door, I gesture that I'll follow in a minute. Once the door swings shut behind him, I pull out my phone and, after a brief hesitation, dial the one number I haven't wanted to call.

"Jack."

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Reese."

Neither of us speaks for a time and I imagine it's because we both know how much water has pa.s.sed under the bridge.

He's the first to break the silence.

"Do you believe in them, Jack?"

I sigh, my eyes searching the sky. Finally I say, "Hardy's dead, Gordon."

"I know that."

"I didn't kill him."

Any answer he might give is forestalled by a coughing fit.

It's a bad episode; I can hear the man gasping for breath. I am unmoved. We're all dying. A full minute, maybe two, goes by before he can talk. When he does, he says the only thing that can shake me.

"She's nine, you know. My granddaughter. Her name's Sophie."

I say nothing.

"She'll be dead soon. Unless-"

"I would have given them to you, Gordon. But then you tried to have me killed."

I end the call there, not moving for a long time. At some point I hear someone come to the screen door, but whoever it is leaves without saying anything.

Jim leans back in his seat, his hand resting on his belly as if he would undo his belt.

"I don't eat that well unless there's company," he says.

"Then I'm glad I could help."

"Don't believe him, Jack," Meredith laughs. "A waistline like Jim's doesn't happen based on the few people who come to visit us."

Meredith Winfield is a woman with whom I will always be partially in love, and I don't feel at all guilty about it. Even now, when gray has claimed most of her hair color, when wrinkles have found purchase beneath her eyes and along her forehead, she is one of the most striking women I've ever met. She has the type of beauty that's independent of age-a conglomeration of perfect attributes. She holds doctorates in both philosophy and political science, has a razor-sharp wit, infinite patience, and a pair of eyes that tunnel into infinity. Like Homer's Helen, Meredith's eyes could launch a fleet of vessels helmed by desperate men.

Jim scowls at his wife, who smiles back at him as she begins removing the dirty plates from the table. Espy rises to help. Reaching for his pipe with a mottled hand, Jim locates the matches in his s.h.i.+rt pocket with the other and relights its contents. I think about doing the same with my half-spent cigar but let the inclination pa.s.s.

"What are you going to do?" Jim asks.

"I'm not sure." I shrug. "Allow entropy to run its course?"

He doesn't reply but instead puffs away at the pipe until a haze forms above him and spreads through the dining room. There's no eye contact. His are focused on some point between here and G.o.d, and mine are on the grease spots that stain the tan tablecloth. Without a word, he rights his chair and stands and, with the look of the professor-the look that used to send his students scurrying-he beckons me to follow.

Cutting through the living room, we enter Jim's office, or rather library, where he heads for his computer. He takes hold of the mouse, moves and clicks, and a search engine pops up. He steps back and gestures toward the machine.

"Know your enemy," he says.

It takes a while before I realize what he's talking about, but when understanding strikes, it all makes perfect sense. Jim knows I'm going to keep pursuing this, that there will be another meeting with Victor Manheim. So it makes sense that I learn all I can about the man.

Grinning, I take a seat and get to work. I begin by searching through a large volume of query results using a wide array of keywords. Before I know it, an hour has pa.s.sed. At some point Espy joins me. Together we go from site to site, doc.u.ment to doc.u.ment, looking for anything that would explain Manheim's involvement. Birth and death records, newspaper articles, press releases, business acquisitions-his is an impressive, influential family. What I'm not finding, though, is anything I can use against him.

When my eyes start to hurt, I take a break, and Esperanza slides into the driver's seat. It's as I start to walk away to peruse Jim's library, to relax a little, that Espy switches to an image search rather than the standard text. The first page that pops up features a bevy of people I've seen when digging through other sites. Victor has many entries; his mug has far too much presence in the cyber world. But he's in politics, so that is no surprise. Espy clicks to the next page. The images generate, hang there for seconds, and Espy is about to move on when something clicks in my brain and I tell her to stop.

I'm not sure how long I stare at it before the thing comes into focus, but it's like a shot to my nerves when I realize the meaning. My throat tightens until all I can utter are strangled noises.

It's there, right in front of me. A symbol I've carried with me for years, rubbed and photographed from the Quetzl-Quezo wall half a world away-the last in a line of strange glyphs that have defied translation. It's the Manheim family crest.

My eyes hurt. I blink several times in an attempt to lubricate them but can't seem to produce any moisture. I think this is nature's way of forcing sleep on someone too self-absorbed to understand what the body requires. Ever obstinate, I use both hands to ma.s.sage my eyeb.a.l.l.s, probably harder than I need to, and I convince myself they feel fresher, more alert as a result.

Esperanza is still in charge of the mouse, clicking on images, pausing for only a second or two, then flas.h.i.+ng through several more without so much as a blink. After the shock of discovering the first symbol, an idea formed, and Espy and I have spent much of the evening following up on that idea. I feel guilty for involving myself in something like this when I've only just arrived, but our hosts seem to understand our need to see things through. Meredith has been in once with coffee.

"Can you slow down a bit?" I say.

"Even at this speed, it will take us two days to get through all these hits. Suck it up and deal with it."

Search engines are remarkable tools, but they have one main flaw: there's no way a user can know the exact combination and sequence of words that will produce the desired result. Usually the search terms are too narrow, so one is forced to generalize the criteria in successive attempts until, suddenly, there are a million hits through which to sift. There's no happy middle ground, no matter how smart they make the application.

We're at the million-possibilities stage, which means that even if my fledgling theory proves correct, it's like looking for digital needles in an information haystack. I'm about to tell Esperanza to keep at it while I go stretch my legs when an image flashes on the screen, then disappears, and although I didn't see it clearly . . .

"Wait, go back."

She stops, s.h.i.+fts the mouse, and clicks.

It's a color photo of a wall-mounted s.h.i.+eld. On it is a picture of a thin-faced brown bear sitting on its haunches, holding a scale in one paw. Beneath it are three short lines, almost like a stunted paw swipe. The first thing to strike me is the fact that I'm seeing it in color. I don't have to guess what was in the mind of the artist who carved it into a limestone wall in the jungles of Venezuela. It's the most beautiful, oddly shaped bear I've ever seen.

Below the photo is a short description: DiPastina Coat of Arms, Verona, circa a.d. 1876. DiPastina Coat of Arms, Verona, circa a.d. 1876.

Espy takes her eyes off the screen, turns, and looks at me. She doesn't have to ask; she can see it on my face.

"All of them are crests, aren't they?"

"I'd bet everything I own on it."

Before Espy and I call a halt to our online search, and after we research the DiPastina clan back to the third century, we have another visit with good fortune when we're able to match a third Quetzl-Quezo carving to a line of Frank n.o.bility from the seventh century. It's with the discovery of this third one that the appearance of an identical icon in each of the crests-the oblong disc with the S S squiggle-earns avid interest. On the walls of Quetzl-Quezo, the symbol was an oddity. Incorporated into more than a dozen family crests stretching back more than a thousand years, the symbol is worth a great deal more study. squiggle-earns avid interest. On the walls of Quetzl-Quezo, the symbol was an oddity. Incorporated into more than a dozen family crests stretching back more than a thousand years, the symbol is worth a great deal more study.

Espy studies the screen. She sees it, too.

"How big is this thing?" she finally asks.

"Much bigger than us."

CHAPTER 19

My eyelids fly open, and the first thing I realize is that apprehension fills my stomach like a solid ball of undigested cheese. It's always a bit unnerving to wake in a strange place, even for an experienced traveler. There's that moment between sleep and wakefulness-when one's unconscious mind is feeding stimuli rapid-fire to the part of you fighting off cobwebs, when everything takes on added poignancy. Usually it's that the bed is different and the mattress doesn't cooperate in the way one is used to, or there's an odd smell coming from somewhere in the room, or someone else's cat is watching from the foot of the bed. It's one of the brain's remarkable defense mechanisms.

Right now the absolute darkness of a rural night without moon or stars greets me, along with the feeling that something is amiss. Much of my professional life has seen me catching short, unsatisfying naps in foreign and uncomfortable places: in a Bedouin tent, or sharing a campfire with Cree tribesmen, or wedged between two large men in a Chevy El Camino while a surprise snowstorm blankets the Chechen Mountains. So it's possible that my senses are a bit more focused than those of people used to the same bed in a familiar room. I lie still for a while but don't hear anything beyond the noise of the wind running alongside the house. The clock on the nightstand shows 1:29 a.m. in large red numbers. I take a few deep breaths in an effort to slow my heart rate, which is engaged in a befuddled fight-or-flight response.

I consider trying to fall back to sleep, yet I know myself well enough to realize that, warranted or not, I've been startled from a dreamless slumber and will end up tossing and turning for some time. When insomnia strikes me back home, I spend an hour or two with a drink and a book until I feel my bed calling me back. I guess it's fortunate, then, that Jim has both a well-stocked liquor cabinet and a library.

Jim's library is larger than mine but small compared to those of many academics. It takes an exceptional book to wind up in his collection. His tastes mirror mine, and as I peruse the book t.i.tles, I find myself becoming jealous. My fingers pa.s.s over the leather bindings of valuable first editions from renowned poets and essayists, storytellers and historians.

His liquor cabinet is stocked with equal care, holding a mix of imported and domestic spirits. I select an aged bourbon with a Melbourne imprint. Filling a tumbler with the dark liquid, I take a sip and allow the burn to coast down my throat.

Another bookcase stands to the right of the liquor cabinet and I give the nestled tomes a once-over, looking to find something that will both earn my interest and propel me back to drowsiness. As I scan the shelves, I almost miss it. With a smile I pull the book from its shelf and turn it to see the front cover. Story as a Conveyance of Culture in Mezzo-America Story as a Conveyance of Culture in Mezzo-America. I almost laugh, because I'm torn between competing thoughts. The first is that I'm honored that my favorite professor has included my work in his collection. The second is to recall that the book isn't very good, nor does it deserve a place here among such prestigious company.

I flip the book over to see the back cover and the head shot. It's not a flattering photo. I shake my head and slide it back into its slot on the shelf. Next, I select a book about the Industrial Revolution and then settle into a comfortable chair by the inactive fireplace. I'm three sips and two pages into the book when I hear a sound-a single thud, m.u.f.fled by distance and the closed library door. I lower the book and listen; the house has settled again into silence. Had I not woken up edgy, I might let the mystery pa.s.s by without rising from my chair, but the feeling I had earlier has now returned.

I set the book and the drink down on the carpet, stand up and cross to the door. I'm about to open it when I decide to flip off the light, plunging the library into darkness. I crack the door enough so I can see out, through the living room and into the hall beyond. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, but it's not long before I can make out shapes, indistinct and gray. Beyond that, all I register is silence.

Then, before I can take another step, I hear sounds that seem to come from somewhere near the kitchen-a rapid succession of m.u.f.fled pops. At some point I hear another thud, then the pops taper off, and then nothing.

I start forward, toward the sounds. I don't know why except that to head into something-even unprepared as I am-is better than waiting and letting that thing come to me when I'm in my nightclothes. I quickly tiptoe through the living room and peek around a corner, just in time to see a man emerging from the master bedroom-only he's moving with the stealth and strength of someone much younger than Jim. I fight the impulse to jerk my head back, knowing the darkness is my friend but that I have a better chance of remaining un.o.bserved if I hold still.

A sick feeling washes over me as I watch this person pause and, apparently, get his bearings. I can only imagine what he's left in the room behind him. I hope that I'm wrong.

The intruder turns and I see his silhouette in profile, the gun in his hand. It's not until he starts for the stairs, toward Esperanza, that I feel a white-hot anger building inside me.

Then it hits me: I don't have a weapon. All I have is the element of surprise.

So I launch myself from around the corner, intent on tackling this person and wresting away the gun, but I haven't counted on the combination of hardwood floor and bare feet. My right foot slides forward on the floor and I feel my knee give, bending in a way for which it was never designed. Sensations of heat and tearing race through my leg, and for a terrifying second I can't see anything. But the immediacy of the pain recedes and I recover just as the man turns toward me. Mustering the remains of my balance and my anger, I lunge at him, reaching for his gun hand.