I slathered cherry preserves on a croissant and took a bite; for some reason, I’d started imitating Descartes, who seemed unable to string together more than three sentences without refueling. “So what do you know about the third fish, the one in Charlotte? Is it the Institute for Biblical Science, the place that contacted me?”
“No, that is not the place, but maybe there is some connection. This is a church.”
“Catholic?” He shook his head. “Protestant? Why would a Protestant church in North Carolina want to buy the bones of Jesus?”
“It’s not typical Protestant, I think. It’s called the Church of Dominion and Prophecy. A church gigantesque—a megachurch, oui?—with twenty thousand people. Also radio and television stations. The preacher is named Jonah Ezekiel. Not his original name; he changed it. He calls himself ‘Reverend Jonah, Apostle and Prophet of the Apocalypse.’ He’s—how do you say it?—on the fluffy edge of crazy.”
“Lunatic fringe?”
“Exactement, lunatic fringe.”
“Why do you say that, Inspector?”
“He thinks the world will end soon.”
“I hate to say it, Inspector, but millions of Americans—like, forty percent—think the world is about to end. Almost half of Americans believe that the Second Coming of Christ and the end of the world will happen by the year 2050.”
He held up a finger. “Ah, but this preacher—he says he knows exactement when these things will happen. God brought him to Heaven, he says, and gave him a special preview.” I had to admit, this was starting to sound fringy. “Two years ago, he tells everyone, ‘The Rapture happens in six months.’ So his followers quit their jobs to help him warn everyone. When the Rapture does not happen, does he say, ‘Sorry, I was wrong, I am an idiot’? Non! He says, ‘God gave me more time to save souls, so give me more money.’” He spat out a strawberry cap. “Morceau de merde.”
It was the same phrase—“piece of shit”—that he’d used about Felicia Kensington, the black-market art dealer.
“That isn’t all. He wants the world to end. Look, I’ll show you.” He pulled several folded pages from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed me the top one. It was a printout from the church’s Web site, advertising a series of upcoming sermons by Reverend Jonah titled “Signs of the End Times.” Most of the page was filled by an illustration in vivid color. The illustration was captioned by a quotation from the Gospel of Mark: “Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down…and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrows…For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time…” At the center of the picture was an immense, shining cross rising from the smoldering ruins of shattered skyscrapers. In the smoky sky, winged angels hovered beneath the gates of Heaven, welcoming a handful of white-robed, haloed people streaming upward from the ruins. Underground, naked bodies writhed amid the flames of Hell; some were being tortured, and others were engaged in sexual acts that were graphic, degrading, and grotesque.
I handed the page back. “I don’t know which is more disturbing,” I said, “his eagerness for the world to end, or his fascination with pain and perversion.”
“He isn’t just waiting for the Apocalypse. He’s trying to speed it up.”
“Speed it up? How?”
Descartes took a sip of coffee. “For one thing, by creating red cows for Israel.”
I paused, my own cup halfway to my lips. “Red cows for Israel?”
“Oui, exactement. Red cows. For Israel.”
“I don’t understand, Inspector. What on earth do red cows have to do with the end of time?”
“I don’t understand it, either,” he said. “It’s very complicated. But some of these end-of-the-world people—not just this preacher, but also some fringe Jews, Messianic Jews—believe that Jesus, or the Messiah, will come again after the temple in Jerusalem is rebuilt.”
“Rebuilt by red cows?”
“Oui, special cows, trained in architecture and construction.” He laughed. “Non, of course not. Here is how the red cow fits in. Somebody important a long time ago—Moses or Solomon or God, whoever—said that the best way to clean up sins is to sacrifice a red cow. Pure red, with not one hair of any other color—no brown, no black, no white—anywhere on its body. Also, not just a cow, but a génisse. I don’t know the word in English, but it means a female cow, one that is young. A virgin cow, you know?”