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“I thought the carbon-14 testing would destroy the sample,” Descartes said. “How can they send the whole tooth back?”
“Apparently they only used one of the teeth. We sent two,” I said. I tipped the tooth out of the Ziploc bag and into my palm. “A molar, and this canine.” I held it up for him to see, and suddenly an electric jolt shot through me. “My God,” I breathed. “Not this canine.”
“What do you mean?” Descartes leaned closer to inspect the tooth.
“This isn’t the canine we sent.” I raised my palm closer to his face. “At least, it’s not the canine that I pulled from the skull.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because when I pulled the tooth, it broke. The root snapped off in the jaw. Look — this one’s perfect.”
He plucked the tooth from my hand gently, as if it were a gem, or a ripe raspberry he didn’t want to bruise. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, he turned it, scrutinizing it from every angle. “You are sure of this?”
“Absolutely.”
“You think there is some mistake at this laboratory? A mix-up?”
“No,” I said slowly, an idea dawning in my mind. An idea whose brilliance was matched only by its wickedness. “I think Stefan swapped the samples,” I said. “I think he traded the teeth I pulled for teeth from another skull. A skull he knew was two thousand years old.”
“But how is this possible? Where would he get such teeth?”
“Hell, he was an archaeologist,” I said. “He could have gotten them anywhere. A dig in Greece or the Middle East — a site he knew dated from the first century. The catacombs of Rome, where there are thousands and thousands of skeletons that age. Maybe even the Museum of Natural History in Paris; there’s a whole building there filled with fossils and bones.” I snapped my fingers. “I just remembered — the first night I was here, we were talking about C-14 dating. He mentioned something about Turkish goat bones from the first century. He might have teeth from that same site.”
“So he faked it? Merde, every case I get now involves a faker or a forger. Do you think he planned this tout entièr—the whole thing — a long time in advance?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but I found myself shaking my head no. “No, actually I think it was a spur-of-the-moment idea,” I said. “I think he really did find the bones in the palace — the wall collapsed first, Stefan was called second. I think the only thing he faked was the C-14 test, once he found that ossuary. I think the inscription — the cross and the lamb — put the idea into his head.” A realization struck me: If Stefan had rigged the C-14 test, maybe the skeleton was medieval after all…and maybe the Shroud of Turin really was created in Avignon. “The skeleton Stefan found is significant,” I added. “But he wanted it to be the most important — and most valuable — skeleton in the world. Unfortunately, his plan worked too well, and it backfired on him.”
Descartes was staring off into space. I wasn’t sure he was following me, or even hearing me. “Inspector?”
“Excuse me for one minute, please.” He took out his cell phone and made a call. The only words I caught for sure were “cherchez” and “appartement.” Descartes listened a long while, then murmured, “Ah, oui? C’est bon.” When he hung up, his face was a mask, but his eyes were gleaming. “As you were talking, I remembered. In his apartment were some small glass jars containing bits of metal, pieces of pottery, small bones. And — this is what I called to ask them to look for just now — two teeth. A dent de sagesse, the tooth of wisdom”—he pointed at one of his third molars—“and a dogtooth, a canine, broken at the root, exactement as you describe.” He caught my gaze and held it. “Okay, I’m leaving now. We should finish with a small fight.” He jabbed a finger in my chest. “You are not telling me everything, Docteur,” he said loudly. “I think you know where are these bones. I am watching you. And I can make things very bad for you if you give me a reason.”
He spun on his heel and walked toward the street. “Descartes,” I called after him. He stopped and looked back at me. “We saved your butts in World War Two,” I shouted. “If not for America, you’d be goose-stepping and eating sauerkraut.”
He resumed walking, and he raised both arms, his middle fingers extended. Unless it had a radically different meaning in France, the gesture needed no translation.
And the man claimed to be a lousy actor.
CHAPTER 25
When Miranda and I left the library an hour later, we persuaded Philippe to let us out a back door. We took a long, meandering way back to her hotel, detouring through the Rue des Teinturiers — the street of the tinters, the dyers. For centuries this was Avignon’s textile district, where the wools and silks for tapestries, vestments, courtiers’ cloaks, and ladies’ gowns took on hues of red, orange, gold, green, blue, violet, indigo. A small canal paralleled the street, and the buildings lining that side all had small bridges leading to their entrances. A smattering of ancient waterwheels, some still turning, offered picturesque reminders of the importance of waterpower to medieval industries. Miranda stopped to snap a waterwheel photo with her iPhone, then climbed the steps onto the small bridge beside it. Leaning on the stone balustrade, she peered down at the water. “Fancy a dip?” I called.
She shook her head. “Remember what Stefan said about the pollution in the Rhône? This looks a lot worse. The water’s opaque.”
“Urban runoff,” I said. “Brake fluid, mop water, dog crap — not great for the water quality.”
“Imagine, though, what this must have looked like in 1350. If all these buildings were dyers’ shops? This water probably changed color every time somebody emptied a dye vat. Wouldn’t that be fun? The canal running fuchsia one minute, burnt orange the next? Like something out of The Wizard of Oz.”
“That’s a pretty image,” I said. “And Avignon did play the part of the Emerald City for most of a century.”
“We’re not in Kansas anymore, that’s for sure.”
A few blocks later, we wandered past the historic marker that mentioned the poet Petrarch and his unrequited love, Laura. Pointing it out to Miranda, I asked, “Do you know their story?”
“Petrarch and Laura? A little. He saw her at church and fell instantly in love. But it was doomed — she was married to someone else, I think — so he spent the rest of his life worshiping her from afar.”
“They were never together?”
“Only in his dreams. Well, and his poems.”
* * *
“Do you know the story of Petrarch?” Elisabeth and Jean looked up from their wineglasses and nodded in unison.
I’d dropped Miranda at her hotel after an early dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant near the clock tower — couscous, grape leaves, hummus, and eggplant; not my favorite fare, but Miranda liked it. The last of the daylight was fading as I entered the sanctuary of Lumani’s garden, and Elisabeth and Jean were sharing a bottle of red wine. A candle burned on the small table between them, and the wine in their glasses glowed like liquid rubies.
“Petrarch, oui,” she exclaimed. “A famous poet pastoral.”
“Pastoral? Like a pastor, a priest?”
Her brow furrowed, then brightened. “Ah, non. Like sheeps. Shepherds and maidens. Petrarch loved the countryside.”
“And Laura? What do you know about his lady love?”
“She was very young,” said Jean, “and very beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Elisabeth.” She reached out and laid a hand on his cheek. “She was married to a French nobleman. Petrarch loved her, but could not have her.”
“Une tragédie,” said Elisabeth. “For him. But very lucky for us. He wrote many poems about her. He invented the sonnet, the love poem, just for her.” She pursed her lips, thinking, then held up a finger. “Ah! Wait here. I will come back.” She hurried across the courtyard to their house; a moment later she returned, holding a small book aloft as if it were a prize. “I have a book of Petrarch’s sonnets. A gift from Jean years ago.” She leaned down and kissed th
e top of his balding head — a simple gesture that spoke volumes about the easy, entwined intimacy of their lives.
She flipped pages in the book; some, I noticed, were dog-eared, including the page where she stopped. “Listen. This is the poem he wrote when Laura died. He had loved her for twenty years by this time. He wrote in Italian; this is in French, which I will try to put into English for you — sorry if the translation is not good.” She scanned the page, mentally trying out a word here, a phrase there, then held up a hand theatrically and began to read.
The eyes I used to speak about with words of fire, the arms and hands and feet and beautiful face that took me away from myself for so long and set me apart from other men; the waving hair of pure gold that shone, the smile that beamed with angel rays that made this earth a paradise — now they are only a bit of dust, and all her feeling is gone. Yet I live on, with grief and disdain, left behind, here in darkness, where the light I cherished no longer ever shows, in my fragile little boat on the tempestuous sea. Here let my loving song come to its end. The vein of my art has run dry, and my song has turned at last to tears.
She stopped, then wiped a tear from each eye. “Such sweetness, and such sadness.”
“You say he loved her for twenty years?”
“More than that. He loved her for twenty years while she was alive. But then she died, during the Black Death. Still he loved her, after she died. He kept loving her, and writing about her, for the rest of his life — twenty-five, thirty more years.”
“But he never got to be with her?”
“Non, never. She was married. She refused all his advances. We don’t even know if they ever talked together.”
“That seems foolish,” I said. “He wasted his life sighing for a woman he could never have instead of looking for a love that he could have.” I gestured at the two of them. “Like you and Jean.”
“But he was pledged to the church,” she pointed out. “He was not supposed to have any woman.”
