James led the way out of the study, down a long hall, and past a formal dining room, where there were two place settings at a table for twelve, and into a large kitchen with modern appliances but old-fashioned soapstone countertops and sinks. A woman was at the sink washing a head of lettuce. She was a big woman, about four inches taller than James, with her dark hair pulled back in a severe bun. James introduced her as Mrs. Steinbrenner, the housekeeper, and the absolute ruler of the residence. Her response was to shoo James out of what she called her kitchen and to feign anger when he stole a carrot stick from a carefully arranged vegetable platter.
“That is your lunch,” she scolded with a heavy German accent, slapping James’s hand. Pretending to be intimidated, James motioned for Jack to follow him down the cellar steps.
“She pretends to be Brunhild,” James explained, “but she is a lamb. I could not do without her. She does all the cooking, except for large parties, keeps the place spotless, and keeps everyone, myself included, in line. Now, where is the light switch?”
They had reached the concrete basement, which was divided into rooms by rough, white-stained lumber. James flicked a switch, revealing a central corridor lined with padlocked doors on either side.
“I really, really appreciate your coming over on such short notice,” James said as he stopped in front of one of the doors. He took out a key, opened the lock, and pulled open the hasp. The door’s hinges squeaked as the door opened outward. He fumbled again to get the lights before proceeding into the room and motioning for Jack to follow.
It was a rectangular room about twenty feet long and ten feet wide with a nearly twelve-foot ceiling. The end wall was made of exposed, roughly dressed granite blocks that also served as the building’s foundation. Shelving ran down the walls, supporting carefully labeled cardboard moving boxes. Down at the end of the room stood a yellowed wooden packing crate whose metal straps had been cut but were still in place. Again motioning for Jack to follow him, James walked to the crate and bent the cut metal straps back to expose the top, which clearly had been opened and then put back.
“This is what has started the dilemma,” James said. Then he sighed. “Notice it is addressed to me. Also notice I am supposedly the sender, and also notice it says that it contains personal items.”
“Did Shawn send this to you?”
“He did indeed, the clever guy. He also phoned me to tell me it was coming. He said it was a surprise, and he knows I like surprises. Actually, foolish me thought it was something for my upcoming birthday, which I now know it isn’t, but it is a surprise that has turned out to be a much bigger one than I could have imagined.”
“Oh, yeah,” Jack said, his face brightening. “Your birthday is coming up. In fact it’s tomorrow, the sixth of December, right?”
“He hasn’t given me a present since I don’t know when,” James said, ignoring Jack’s question. “Why I let myself believe he was going to give me one this year, I truly don’t know. But since Shawn is both a biblical scholar and archaeologist, I thought it might be some wonderful early Christian relic. Little did I know.”
“Is it?” Jack asked.
“Let me finish,” James said. “I want you to understand why I am in such a difficult situation.”
Jack nodded, his curiosity building. The crate probably did contain an antiquity. Something unusual, judging from James’s reaction.
“Sending this crate to me from the Vatican saying it contained my personal effects meant it wasn’t stopped by customs, either in Italy or here in New York. It came overnight by air freight, delivered here directly from JFK. Since I thought it was a birthday present, I had it placed in here with the rest of my personal items. As he promised, Shawn showed up yesterday right from JFK, shortly after the crate arrived. He was in a very strange mood, kind of tense with excitement. He was very impatient to open the box, as was I, to see if the contents had arrived safely. So we came down here and cut the metal strips and unscrewed the top of the wooden crate. Initially, all we saw was foam board, as the object had been extremely well packed. When the top piece of foam board was removed as I will do now, this is what I saw.” James insinuated his fingers between the rough wood and the packing material and lifted the latter.
Jack leaned forward. The light in the basement was not the best, but he could plainly see a tarnished, rectangular stone with a flat, scratch-covered surface. He wasn’t impressed. He’d expected something eye-catching like a gilded cup, or a statue, or maybe a heavy gold box. “What is it?” Jack asked.
“It’s an ossuary. Around the time of Christ, give or take a hundred years, Jewish burial practices in Palestine involved putting corpses in cavelike tombs for a year or longer to permit the body to decay. After that the family would return, collect the bones, and place them in a limestone box of varying size and decoration, depending how wealthy the family was. The box is called an ossuary.”
“Wasn’t there a controversy recently about an ossuary that supposedly had an inscription saying James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.”
“Absolutely. In fact, there were some recently discovered ossuaries with inscriptions claiming they contained the remains of Jesus Christ and his immediate family. Of course, the whole troublesome incident was proved to be pure chicanery by some unscrupulous forgers. Thousands of first-century ossuaries have been found over the last twenty years as a result of the building boom in Jerusalem. It’s hard not to find ossuaries when you dig in that city. I am confident this ossuary here will turn out to be a similar fake, as to whose relics, if any, are supposed to be inside.”
“Whose remains are supposedly involved?” Jack asked curiously.
“Holy Mary, Mother of Christ, Mother of God, Mother of the Church, second only to Jesus himself, the most holy person to have walked this earth,” James said, finding it difficult to get it all out.
For almost a full minute Jack and James stared at each other. Jack’s disappointment concerning the contents of the box edged upward. He wasn’t interested in a box of bones; treasure held more allure for him than historical objects. James, on the other hand, was overwhelmed. Simply talking about the supposed contents only made him more desperate to find a solution.
“Okay,” Jack said at length. He broke off staring at James and his brimming eyes and looked back down at the lid of the ossuary. He’d expected James to continue, but the man was too distraught to speak.
“I must be missing something here. If there are lots of ossuaries and lots of forgers, which it seems there are, what’s the problem?”
James had his lips pressed together, and a single tear fell in a rivulet down his right cheek. Without speaking, his eyes momentarily closed, he raised his palms toward Jack and gently waved them in a narrow arc. He shook his head, as if apologizing for not being able to explain his feelings. A moment later, he gestured for Jack to follow him.
Upstairs, as they passed back though the kitchen, Mrs. Steinbrenner took one look at His Eminence and instantly recognized his emotional state. Although she didn’t say anything, she glared at Jack, whom she suspected was the source of her boss’s tears.
James took the seat at the head of the dining table and gestured for Jack to take the one to his right. Between them was the vegetable platter. The moment they pulled themselves to the table Mrs. Steinbrenner appeared with a large tureen in her hands. While the intimidating woman ladled out the soup, an excellent eggplant bisque, Jack kept his eyes focused on his bowl.