“Ah. In French, we say plein de cran. ‘Full of guts.’”
“Oh, yes, gutsy. Miranda is very gutsy.”
“Do you trust her, this gutsy assistant?”
“Miranda? Completely. I’d trust her with my life.”
Descartes flipped back through his notes, twirling his pen between his fingers. He had just looked up to ask another question when his cell phone rang. Excusing himself, he stood up and walked toward the mouth of the passageway to take the call. He was gone for several minutes. When he returned, he sat, looked me square in the eyes, and said, “Your assistant — what was her relationship with Monsieur Beauvoir?”
The question caught me off guard, and Descartes would have to have been blind not to notice. “Fine, I think. He asked her to come help with this excavation, so he clearly thought well of her. She came, so I assume she thought well of him, too.”
“Do you know why they thought so well of one another? And for how long a time?” Crap, I thought, not this.
“I think they met six or eight years ago. When she was an undergraduate student. Miranda was on a dig in Guatemala that Stefan organized.”
He chewed absentmindedly on the end of a fingernail, still eyeing me closely. “Did you know that they were lovers?”
There, the shoe had dropped; I had known that question was coming. “It wasn’t any of my business if they had a personal relationship.”
He shrugged. “But did you know?”
“Yes. She told me shortly after I got here. She felt awkward about it.”
“Awkward about telling you? Or awkward about being lovers with him?”
“Both, I guess. But it was very brief, and it happened a long time ago, Inspector. I think lovers is too strong a word. It was a quick fling at a field school. It happens all the time.”
“All the time?” He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head slightly.
I flushed at the innuendo. “Not all the time, but it happens. It doesn’t necessarily mean very much. I thought the French were very tolerant about casual love affairs.”
“Sometimes. Not when one of the lovers ends up crucified. Tell me, was she angry with Monsieur Beauvoir? Resentful?”
“Resentful? About what?”
“About anything. About what happened in Guatemala. About what happened — or what didn’t happen — in Avignon.” Good God, did he actually think Miranda might have nailed Stefan to that beam?
“Look, Inspector, Miranda and I have worked together for six years. I never heard her mention this guy until she told me she was coming here. If she were burning with rage for years — or longing for love — I think I’d have heard about it.”
He shrugged again, and I found the gesture annoying; it might simply mean “Who knows?” but it might also mean “What the hell do you know?” “Do you know where Mademoiselle Lovelady was last night?”
I returned the shrug. “I assume she was in her hotel room.”
“And do you know where Monsieur Beauvoir was last night?”
I flung up my hands in exasperation. “Well, if I were guessing,” I said sarcastically, “which is all I can do, I’d guess that for the first part of the night, he was in his apartment, and for the rest of the night, he was here in the chapel dying.”
He smiled slightly, ironically. “Actually, he was in Mademoiselle Lovelady’s hotel room until almost midnight.” His words felt like a punch in the gut. He studied my reaction. “You seem surprised.”
“I…Yes. I’m surprised. But as I said, whatever personal relationship they might have had — or might not have had — it’s none of my business.”
“I disagree, Dr. Brockton. Normally, no. But now — with Monsieur Beauvoir hanging there in the chapel — I think it is very much your business. You are involved, in some way, with a murder. You are swept up in the tide of events. You do not have the luxury of detachment.”
His words were confirmed by a sinking feeling in my gut. Somehow, for reasons I could not begin to fathom, I had turned a fateful corner in t
he labyrinthine streets of Avignon, and I wasn’t at all sure I could find my way out of the maze again.
“Excuse me? Dr. Brockton?” His voice sounded faraway; I felt as if I were swimming up from deep water to reach it, and I had the impression he’d called my name more than once.
“I’m sorry. Yes?”
“Dr. Brockton, where were you last night?”
“Me?” I stared at him in astonishment. He nodded. “I was in my hotel room.”
“The same hotel as mademoiselle?”
“No. A different one. A little inn near the ramparts. It’s called Lumani.”
“Ah, oui, Lumani. You found a beautiful place to stay.”
“Actually, Stefan found it for me. I think he knows the owners. Knew the owners.”
“Docteur, were you angry with Monsieur Beauvoir?”
“Why on earth would I be angry with him?”
“Perhaps you were jealous of his attentions to your assistant.”
“Oh, please,” I said. “I wasn’t. But even if I was, I certainly wouldn’t kill anyone over something like that. Besides, I didn’t even know that he went to see Miranda last night until you told me just now.”
“Perhaps you were angry that he tricked you into coming to Avignon. That was very manipulative, non?”
“It was, and I didn’t like it. But once I found out the reason for the trick, I understood.”
“And what, exactly, was the reason for this trick?”
“Didn’t Miranda explain it to you?”
“She did give me her explanation. Now I’m asking for your explanation.”
“She and Stefan had uncovered some very old bones in the Palace of the Popes,” I said. “The ossuary — the bone box — was engraved with an inscription that might cause big news.” He said nothing; simply waited. “The inscription claimed that the ossuary contained the bones of Jesus Christ. If that inscription proves to be true, this is the most sensational find of the past two thousand years.”
He stopped writing. “But how can you prove whether they are real or fake? You can’t use DNA testing, I think. Because you don’t have DNA from Jesus to compare.”