The Inquisitor's Key (Body Farm 7)

“What?” I looked down, expecting to see blood, but there was none. Then I remembered. “Oh, the vest.” The gift Hugh Berryman had sent to accompany the Arikara Indian skeleton was a vest — a Kevlar vest, a bulletproof vest — and the Bible verse Hugh had referenced, Ephesians 6:11, admonished, “Put on the full armour of God.” I’d recognized the vest right away; Hugh wore it whenever he worked a death scene, and I’d often teased him about it. But now I owed my life to it, and I vowed never to make fun of it again.

Before I could explain, Miranda reached to my chest, then held up the medallion Father Mike had given me to wear. The image of Saint Christopher had been obliterated; lodged in its place, at the center of the medallion, was a flattened lead slug. “My God,” Miranda breathed. “Incredible. Absolutely incredible. What are the odds? So you’re not even hurt?”

“Easy for you to say,” I grunted. “Feels like I’ve been kicked by a mule.” But even as I said it, the pain was beginning to ease.

“You’ll have a nasty bruise, I’m thinking,” said Father Mike. “Maybe even a cracked sternum. But all things considered, you’re one mighty lucky fella.” He leaned closer, noticing the vest, inspecting it. “Takin’ no chances, were you, Bill Brockton?” He smiled slightly. “This vest, by the by — it wouldn’t have stopped that slug, lad. It’ll stop a 9-millimeter, but not a .45, which is what the good reverend baptized you with.”

Miranda stared at Father Mike, then looked again at the shattered medallion, turning it this way and that in the faint light. Jutting from one edge of the crater was a splintered bit of something green and gold, an incongruously synthetic material. “This thing has a circuit board in it,” she said slowly. “Is this a tracking device? Have you been following Dr. Brockton?”

He shrugged. “Even Saint Anthony can use a bit of help.”

She eyed him warily. “So who are you, really? You’re clearly not a small-town Irish priest.”

Other things began to crystallize in my mind. “It wasn’t just coincidence that I met you that day in the library, was it? You’d been watching me, looking for an opening.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence, lad. It’s true, I’d had my eye on you.”

“That was you with the binoculars and camera,” Miranda accused. “Watching us, taking pictures, the day we were up here on this bridge? You’ve been after the bones all along.”

“And that whole story about the IRA and your brother,” I added. “That was total bullshit.”

“No, not total. I did lose a brother in the Troubles, but it wasn’t the Brits killed him, it was me. A bomb I was rigging went off prematurely. So the penance part is true — I’ll be doing penance for Jimmy till the day I die.”

“But you’re not really a priest.”

He shrugged. “A priest, no. And if you ask the Holy Father about me, he’ll say he’s never heard of me. But I serve the church. I like to think of meself as a modern-day Knight Templar.”

“So why do you want the bones?” Miranda asked. “Or why does the pope, or whoever the hell is your boss?”

“To cover the church’s arse, Miss. If these are the bones of Christ, it buggers the story about the Resurrection and the ascension into Heaven. You can see the difficulty, can’t you?”

“But they’re not the bones of Christ,” I said. “They’re the bones of Meister Eckhart, a fourteenth-century theologian and preacher. I already told you that.”

“Aye, so you did. You also told me that Eckhart was murdered — crucified, no less — by a cardinal who later became pope.

And that Eckhart, not Christ, is the man on the Holy Shroud. Can’t you see how that would bugger the Holy Father if word got around?”

I felt like such a fool. It was obvious — in the way he carried himself, in the ease with which he handled the weapon — that he was a soldier or cop. Was he one of the pope’s Swiss Guards? Or part of some more secret agency — a Vatican version of the CIA? How could I have mistaken him for a simple village priest?

The rifle was slung loosely over his shoulder. It had a collapsible stock and a large-diameter scope that was designed either for low light or night vision. On top of the scope was a thin, cylindrical gadget that I guessed to be a targeting laser.

I felt an insane urge to laugh at the irony: Miranda and I had just escaped death at the hands of a Protestant fanatic, and now we were about to die at the hands of a Catholic assassin. I looked up at her, expecting to see sadness and fear in her face. Instead I saw stealth, cunning, and concentration. Almost imperceptibly she was edging behind Father Mike, edging toward the gun that had flown from my hand when Reverend Jonah’s bullet had slammed into my chest. She was three feet from it, then two feet from it, and then she was there, directly behind him. I needed to distract Father Mike, or whoever this guy was. “So will you do penance for killing Miranda and me, too? What sort of penance will our deaths require?”

As I asked the question, Miranda reached for the gun. Without even looking, Father Mike swept a leg in a wide, swift arc, knocking her feet out from under her. She landed hard, with a thud and a grunt. She kept trying, though, going for the gun and managing to get a hand on it just as Father Mike’s foot came down on her wrist. She cried out sharply in pain, and I struggled up to lunge for him. I was stopped short by the barrel of the rifle, jabbing into my throat two inches above the top of the Kevlar vest.

“I probably should kill you, lad, but I won’t. If I wanted you dead, I’d’ve let the reverend do the bloody bit. I don’t feel bad about shooting him and his ape — no penance needed for them two — but I don’t need more innocent blood on my hands. It’s asking for trouble, but I’ll be letting you go. I hope you don’t mind if I take a little souvenir with me, though.” He took the pistol from Miranda’s hand, then lifted his boot off her wrist. “Sorry to hurt you, miss. You strike me as a strong-headed lass, so I didn’t figure you’d listen if I just said, ‘Stop.’ I hope I’ve not done any serious harm.”

“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 towe

r 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.”