“Dozens of people,” he fretted as he reached through the gate and fumbled to open the padlock. “Maintenance workers. Tour guides. Docents. But it’s dark and dirty down here, so everybody avoids it.” Finally I heard the lock click open.
“Almost everybody,” I corrected. “So who knows what’s in the treasure room?”
He shook his head, then pushed the iron grille open. “Nobody, really. Just the three of us. My boss—a petty bureaucrat—knows I found some bones, but he has no idea how important they are. And he’s not inquisitive.”
“Well, somebody’s inquisitive,” I pointed out. “Maybe we need a security camera to find out who. Or maybe we should move the bones someplace more secure.” He frowned, and didn’t reply; instead, he heaved the gate shut with a clang, then snapped the lock back into place.
We’d left the treasure chamber only minutes after we’d heard the furtive sounds above us. Stefan was clearly jumpy, and I was exhausted, so we’d decided to stop for the day and resume in the morning.
“Let me play devil’s advocate about the bones,” I said as we recrossed the cavernous cellar, or dungeon, or whatever it was, by flashlight. “How could that possibly be the skeleton of Jesus?”
“Sshh,” cautioned Stefan.
I lowered my voice to a murmur. “First off, Jesus died at thirty-three,” I went on. “This guy’s way older than that. Come on, you saw the arthritic changes in the vertebrae, Miranda.” We reached the bigger staircase, which would restore us to the world of light and air.
“Maybe he just put a lot of wear and tear on his spine,” she countered. “A carpenter? Back in the days before Black and Decker? That’s heavy lifting, man. Bad for the back. Remember the skeleton from that slave cemetery in Memphis? We know the guy died at forty, plus or minus, but his spine looked sixty.”
“But his cranial sutures didn’t,” I pointed out. “They were still very rugged. This guy’s look like they’ve been sealed and spackled. He’s older than I am; I’d bet my belt sander on it.”
She laughed, but there was no time for a retort because by then we’d reached the top of the staircase, stepped around the velvet cordon, and rejoined the tourists. The maneuver made me feel like one of the costumed characters at Disney World, who cross the Magic Kingdom in underground tunnels, then pop out of concealed openings in the shrubbery when it’s time to work the crowd.
Leaving the palace, we crossed the plaza and headed back through the tunnel to the parking garage. Except for us, the corridor was empty, so I renewed the debate. “Call me Doubting Thomas,” I persisted, “but what about the Resurrection? If these are the bones of Jesus, he didn’t rise from the dead.”
“Ha,” chuckled Stefan. “That would make things interesting for the Church, wouldn’t it? They would have to change the story a little bit.” He sounded gleeful at the prospect. “Maybe the pope hid the bones so he wouldn’t have to explain them.”
“Why not just destroy them?” I asked. “Get rid of the evidence altogether? That’d be a lot safer.”
“Too powerful,” he said. “Imagine, if you are the pope, having the bones of Christ. What a secret to possess! The ultimate knowledge, the ultimate forbidden fruit, you see?” He pressed the button of his keyless remote, and the Fiat beeped a few slots away, its lights flashing in the gloom of the garage.
“I don’t see why the bones of Jesus would pose a huge problem,” Miranda mused. “You could argue that he rose from the dead, lived another twenty or thirty years, and then died of natural causes, right? That still allows for the Resurrection.”
“Could be,” I conceded grudgingly as I folded into the tiny backseat. “But there’s that whole ‘ascended into heaven’ bit, too—isn’t that like the Resurrection, Part B?”
“Hairsplitting,” she said, with a definitive slam of the door. “How many bones can dance on the head of a pin? Come on, let’s get you settled at Lumani, then grab some grub.”