Cross Bones (34 page)

“But my daughters would have their mother’s mitochondrial DNA, not mine.”

“Exactly.”

“Let me put this into the perspective of our tomb, since that’s what interests me. With ancient and degraded bone, you’re more likely to get mitochondrial than nuclear DNA.”

“Yes.”

“Both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA can be used to compare unknowns to knowns. Like tying a suspect to a crime scene, or nailing Daddy in a paternity suit. Both can be used to show family relationships, though in different ways. But nuclear DNA can now be used to predict individual traits.”

“To a very limited extent,” I said. “Sex, and some indicators of racial background.”

“Okay. On to the tomb.”

I picked up the lab report. “Not al your samples produced results. But the nuclear DNA tel s us you’ve got four women and three men. Keep in mind that’s not gospel.”

“Bad pun. Explain.”

“Your standard CODIS set includes amelogenin markers forX andY. Greatly oversimplifying, if you see both markers in a sample, it’s a boy. NoY marker, it’s a girl.

“However, things are always more complicated with ancient bone. In degraded samples, al eles, or genes, that are actual y present may fail to show a signature. But if you repeat the test again and again, and repeatedly get onlyX ’s, it’s pretty safe to assume your sample is from a female.”

“What else?” Jake glanced over his shoulder at the door. My eyes fol owed, as though control ed by his movement.

“At least six of the tomb individuals are related,” I said.

“Oh?” Jake drew closer, throwing a shadow onto the printout.

“But that’s exactly what you’d expect in a family tomb. The surprising thing is th—”

“Which six?” Jake’s levity had vanished.

“I don’t know. Your individuals are reported only by sample numbers.”

Jake cupped a hand on his mouth for a second or two. Then he snatched the printouts, shot to his feet, and crossed the room in three lanky strides.

“Jake. That’s not the most significant thing.”

I was addressing empty air.

Forget the tomb bones. I wanted to talk about Max.That was important. Then I remembered the tooth report.

No, I told myself. It was al important now.

I found Jake in the back bedroom arranging prints on a worktable. Joining him, I could see they were the ossuary photos Ryan and I had viewed.

As I watched, Jake wrote a name on the lower border of each print. Beside each name, he added the DNA lab’s reference number.

Handing me the printouts, Jake cal ed out the first sample number. I checked the nuclear DNA report.

“Female,” I read.

“Marya,” he said. Mary.

Jake drew a female symbol on the Marya ossuary photo, then flipped through a set of stapled pages.

“The physical anthropologist estimated this gal was old, sixty-five plus.” He jotted the figure, then read the next lab number.

“Female,” I said.

“Mariameme. The one cal ed Mary.”

Jake checked the physical anthropologist’s report. “Older adult.” He marked the photo, then read the third number.

“Male,” I said.

“Yehuda, son of Jeshua.”

Jude, son of Jesus, I translated in my mind.

“Twenty-five to forty years.” Jake read the next number.

“Female,” I said.

“Salome. Older adult.”

One by one, we worked our way through the remains that had been associated with inscribed ossuaries. Mary. Mary. Joseph. Matthew. Jude. Salome.

Jesus. In each case, the inscription fit the gender predicted by the nuclear DNA. Or vice versa.

Two sets of remains from the tomb floor were determined to be those of a male and a female.

Amplification of nuclear DNA was unsuccessful for Jesus and Matthew, and for the other samples recovered from the tomb floor. No results. No information on those individuals.

Jake and I looked at each other. It was like waiting out a no-hitter. Neither of us put it into words. But even with the gaps, it al fit. The Jesus family.

“So who’s related to who?” Jake asked.

“Whom.” Nervous reflex. I switched from the nuclear- to the mitochondrial-DNA report.

“Remember, these results show links, or lack of links, through female lines. Mother-daughter, mother-son, siblings sharing the same mother, cousins whose mothers had the same mother, and so on. Okay. Here goes. Mariameme and Salome are related.” I spoke aloud as I matched sample numbers to names. “So is Marya, the older Mary.”

Jake made notations on the three prints.

“Yose is part of the lineage. So is Jude.”

More notations.

“The male from the tomb floor is related.”

“Meaning he shows the same mitochondrial-DNA sequencing as Mariameme, Salome, Marya, Yose, and Jude.”

“Yes,” I said. “The female from the tomb floor is unique. That’s no big deal. She may have married into the family from outside. As a relative only by marriage, not blood, she, and her children, if she had any, would have had the mitochondrial DNA of her mother’s line.”

“Nothing from Daddy.”

“Mitochondrial DNA does not recombine. The whole shooting match comes from Mom.”

I continued with the printout.

“Matthew is also unique. But again, if his mother was from another family, he would haveher mitochondrial DNA, not that of her husband.”

“He could be a cousin.”

“Yes. The offspring of a brother and his wife.”

I looked up.

“The Jesus material was too degraded for amplification. Sequencing wasn’t possible.”

Jake began sketching a family tree, hand darting like a hummingbird.

“Everything tal ies. The older Mary is the mother.” Jake drew a circle, named it Mary, and sent spokes shooting downward from it. “Salome. Mary.

Joseph. Jesus. According to scripture, those are four of Mary’s seven kids.”

The inscription.Yehuda, son of Yeshua. Jude, son of Jesus.

Donovan Joyce’s crazy theory. Jesus survived the crucifixion, married, and fathered a child. Were we back to that?

My mind wouldn’t accept it.

The hel with the no-hitter. I jumped into the commentary.

“How does Jude fit in?” I asked.

Jake raised both brows and dipped his chin. Need I say the obvious?

“Jesus with siblings, living on, and becoming a daddy? You’re talking about the three fundamental doctrines of the Catholic Church—virgin birth, resurrection, and celibacy.”

Jake raised both shoulders. He was so agitated the move came across more spasm than shrug.

“No, Jake. What you’re inferring can’t be. This Jude has DNA that links him to the other women in your tomb, to the older Mary, Salome, and Mariameme. If Jesus had fathered a son, that child would have the mitochondrial DNA of its mother’s family, not its father’s family.”

“Fine. Jude could be a nephew of Jesus. A grandson of Mary.” Jake added a circle at the end of one spoke, and sent another spoke shooting downward from it. “One of the sisters could have married another man named Jesus and had a son named Jude.”

“Donovan Joyce claimed he’d seen a scrol written by someone named Jesus, son of James,” I offered, almost against my wil .

“That couldn’t have been James of the ossuary, Jesus’ brother. James’s wife would have been unrelated, and James’s son would have had his mother’s mitochondrial DNA, not his grandmother’s, right?”

“Yes.”

Thoughts were whipsawing in my head. “Jake, there’s someth—”

Again he cut me off.

“The female from the tomb floor is unrelated. She could be—” Jake stopped as the thought struck him. “Holy hel , Tempe. Donovan Joyce thought Jesus married Mary Magdalene. Others have suggested the same thing. That female could be Mary Magdalene.”

Jake was barely taking time to breathe.

“But it real y isn’t important who she is. And Matthew’s unrelated, right? He could be one of the disciples who, for whatever reason, ended up buried in the tomb. Or a son of one of the brothers, another nephew.”

“Lot of mights. Lot of maybes.” I resisted the pul of Jake’s exhilaration.

Jake ignored that.

“James is missing because his ossuary was stolen. And Simon died decades later. Hot damn, Tempe, it’s practical y the whole family.”

The same thought crossed our minds simultaneously. Jake voiced it.

“So who’s the crucified man in the shroud?”

“Maybecrucified,” I cautioned.

“Okay. The Jesus from the ossuary could be another nephew. Damn! Why couldn’t that lab sequence him?”

Abruptly, Jake strode to the ossuary cabinet. Disengaging the padlock, he peered in. Satisfied, he closed and resecured the door.

Jesus alive and with offspring? Jesus dead and remaining shrouded in a tomb? Each scenario seemed worse than the next.

“It’s al speculation,” I said.

When Jake turned, his eyes bored into mine. “Not if I can prove the James ossuary came from that tomb.”

I picked up the mitochondrial-DNA report. Marya, Mariameme, Salome, Yose, Yehuda, and the unknown male were members of a single matrilineage.

Matthew had come from another lineage, and the unknown female from the tomb floor had come from yet another. The bones from the ossuary inscribedYeshua, son of Yehosef were too degraded to yield DNA.

Jesus, son of Joseph. But what Jesus? What Joseph?

Had Jake real y found the tomb of the Holy Family? If so, who was the shrouded man I’d found in the hidden loculus?

“There’s something else, Jake.”

“What?”

I started to speak, but Jake’s phone stopped me.

“Miracle of miracles. Could that be the Hevrat Kadisha, actual y returning my cal about Max?” he said, loping to the office.

In Jake’s absence I reread the reports on Max and his tooth.

The nuclear DNA told me Max was male. No biggie. I knew that from the bones. Same for the odd molar stuck in Max’s jaw. Male.

The mitochondrial DNA told me Max was not a member of the matrilineage in the Kidron tomb. His sequencing was unique. If this real y was the Jesus family, Max was an outsider. Or at least not a descendant of one of those females.

The mitochondrial DNA also told me the odd molar in Max’s jaw belonged to someone other than Max. Okay. Bergeron said that. He was certain it came from a younger individual.

It was the next statement that made no sense. I was on my third reread when Jake returned.

“Assho—”

“Hevrat Kadisha?”

Tight nod.

“What did they say?”

“Baruch Dayan ha-emet.”

I curled my fingers in a come-on gesture.

“Blessed is the one true Judge.”

“What else?”

“We are the spawn of Satan. They are fol owing the greatestmitzvah. Now the self-righteous little wankers plan to put the screws to my Talpiot site.”

“You’ve unearthed skeletal remains at a first-century synagogue?”

“Of course not. I told him that, but he didn’t believe me. Said he and his storm troopers would be landing today in ful force.”

“Did you ask if they took Max?”

“The good rabbi refused to discuss it.”

Jake hesitated. “But he also said something weird.”

I waited.

“He wanted al the harassing phone cal s to stop.”

“And?”

“I’ve only contacted the Hevrat Kadisha twice.”

“So who’s doing al the phoning?”

“Apparently the rabbi doesn’t know.”

A strange silence fol owed. I broke it.

“You were right, Jake.” I held up the mitochondrial DNA reports on Max and his tooth. “This could be bigger than either of us imagined.”

“Lay it on me.”

I did.

Now Jake looked like the doe in the headlights.

35

I’D REPEATED IT TWICE. JAKE WAS STILL NOT GETTING IT.

“The tooth and the skeleton show different mitochondrial-DNA sequencing. That means the tooth came from a different person than the skeleton. But we already knew that. The dentist affiliated with my Montreal lab already told us that. The tooth came from someone younger than Max.

“And Max’s mitochondrial DNA is unique, different from both the tooth person and the members of the tomb matrilineage. If Max was a member of that family, his mother was an outsider.”

“A female who married in.”

“Possibly. But the real shocker is that the mitochondrial DNA in the molar is identical to the mitochondrial DNA in the Kidron tomb family.”

“DNA ties the tooth, but not the skeleton, to the Mary lineage?”

“Sequencing links the odd tooth from Max to the matrilineal y linked individuals in your tomb.”

“The tooth that was reinserted into Max’s jaw?”

“Yes, Jake. It means the owner of the tooth was related to the people in your tomb. He was a member of that family, a maternal relative.”

“But the tooth didn’t belong in that jaw. How did it get there?”

“My guess is the transfer was a simple mistake. The tooth probably slipped from the jaw of one of the individuals in the commingled remains, and became erroneously incorporated with the bones of the articulated skeleton. Maybe during recovery. Maybe during transport. It couldn’t have happened at Haas’s lab. We now know Haas never saw Max.”

“So at least one person in Cave 2001 was unquestionably related to the people in the Kidron tomb. What the hel was a member of that family doing up on Masada?”

Jake walked to the window, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked down. I waited while he wandered through thoughts of his own.

“Yadin’s reticence to discuss the cave burials. Haas’s failure to report on them.” Jake’s voice was hushed. “Of course. Those weren’t zealots. A group of Nazarenes was living in that cave.”

Though Jake wasn’t real y speaking to me, his hold on my attention was complete.

“What the hel have we stumbled onto? Who was this Max? Why was that one skeleton not given to Haas? Who was hidden in the loculus in the Kidron tomb? Why weren’t those bones ever col ected and placed in an ossuary?”

It came out sounding like the middle of a thought.

“Jesus fol owers on Masada, one of them with biological ties to the tomb in the Kidron. One of them a member of the Holy Family. And to prove that I’ve got to prove the James ossuary came from that tomb.”