15.
As soon as J.J. is gone, Janeen steps out of the van and lights her cigarette. She stands with her back to me, facing the street.
I open my door and perch on the side of the seat.
"Funny," I say. "You don't look that crazy."
Janeen cuts me a look over her shoulder. She blows smoke out the side of her mouth, allows herself a smile.
"Oh, believe me, I have my moments," she says.
"We all do. Matter of fact, I'm teetering on the brink of insanity right now myself."
She turns around, sizes me up.
"You seem to be holding it together fairly well. For a guy wearing a shirt that looks like it mopped up a butcher's shop. What's up with that?"
"Oh, let's just say I've got a couple million reasons for not getting into it. Besides, I'd rather hear about those two other murders you were talking about. Your uncle told me earlier that they were scuba divers."
Janeen takes a drag on her cigarette, flicks the ash.
"Not just your ordinary scuba divers," she says. "One of them, Martin Boyd, was a treasure salvor. A pretty famous one. He'd worked with that guy in Florida, Mel Something-or-Other, I forget ..."
"Mel Fisher. Discovered the Atocha down in the Keys."
"That's it. Anyway, Boyd had some successes of his own after that, mostly at sites in the Mediterranean. Which is where he met and eventually teamed up with Richard Peach."
"That the other dead guy?"
She nods.
"Ever heard of him?"
"No, can't say that I have."
"Neither had I, at least not until after I started working on the story. Since then, I've become something of an authority on Richard Peach. For all the good that's done me."
"Was he another treasure salvor?"
"No, Peach was an academician. Had dual doctorates in archaeology and biblical studies from Oxford. Used to be a professor there. Wrote a book called The Legend of the Lost Cross"
"The Lost Cross?"
"Yeah, also known as the True Cross. The one they used to crucify Jesus Christ."
She takes a drag on her cigarette, gauges my response. I don't really have one, not unless puzzlement counts.
"How good is your biblical history, Mr. Chasteen?"
"Pretty spotty. I was raised Episcopalian. Not exactly bible thumpers."
"Know anything about the True Cross?"
"Next to nothing," I say. "Except that it's one of those holy relics that people are always trying to find, like the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant. Then again, some folks might lump it in with searching for the Lost City of Atlantis. Or signs of aliens in the pyramids."
"You sound like a skeptic," she says.
"About most things."
"That include religion?"
"On most days," I say.
Janeen smiles.
"Let's leave religion out of it then."
"Always a good idea," I say.
"From a purely historical perspective, the whole Son of God thing aside, would you agree that someone named Jesus Christ really did exist and that he really was crucified on a wooden cross in Jerusalem, roughly in the year AD 33?"
"Yeah, I can go with that. I mean, it's been fairly well proven as historical fact."
"Ever wonder what happened to that cross?"
"No, not really. I mean, that was two thousand years ago. I'd guess it had long since disintegrated, turned to dust."
"Yeah, you'd think. Still, there are cathedrals all over Europe that claim to have pieces of the True Cross, tiny slivers of wood enshrined in jeweled cases for the faithful to worship. They had to come from somewhere, right?"
"The faithful tend to worship some pretty wild things," I say. "The image of the Virgin Mary in the windows of a bank. The face of Jesus on a piece of burnt toast. There's lots of bogus stuff out there."
Janeen laughs.
"No doubt about that," she says. "And there's reason to believe that many of those so-called pieces of the True Cross are bogus, too. Back during the Crusades era, plenty of pilgrims returned from the Holy Land with bagfuls of fake relics that they sold to unsuspecting believers. Chips off the rock that sealed the tomb of Jesus. Thorns from the crown of thorns. The early Christians, especially the rich ones, used to pay big money for that sort of thing."
"Buying their way into the kingdom of heaven, a noble tradition. Make your faith pledge now, brothers and sisters. Our operators are standing by."
A long look from Janeen.
"I take back what I said before," she says. "You're really more of a cynic than a skeptic, aren't you?"
"As far as I'm concerned, there's not a lot of difference between organized religion and organized crime. At least the Mafia is honest enough to admit that it's only in it for the money."
"I'd have to agree with you," she says. "And Richard Peach probably would have, too. He was a scholar, not a cleric. Yet, he was utterly convinced that the True Cross really did exist. And he believed that a sizable chunk of it had survived the ages."
"Exactly how sizable a chunk are we talking about?"
"Well, according to various sources that I've read, it was ten centimeters by sixteen centimeters and five centimeters thick."
"You mind doing that conversion for my nonmetric brain?"
Janeen smiles.
"Roughly four inches by six." She shapes it with her hands. "About the size of a paperback book, although not at all uniform. It was just a fragment, a piece that had broken off the original cross."
"What kind of wood?"
She shrugs.
"That's up for speculation. Some accounts say it was olive. Others cedar. And still others say it was gopherwood, probably a form of cypress, like Noah used to build the ark."
"You mean to tell me that a piece of wood like that survived two thousand years?"
"Hey, it's a piece of the True Cross. It has supernatural powers. It can survive anything." She smiles. "You know what a reliquary is?"
"I've heard of them. They're used to store holy relics, right? The hair of John the Baptist, the bones of St. Paul, stuff like that."
"Uh-huh. Something very elaborate, made out of silver and gold with all kinds of jewels adorning it. I've seen drawings of what it was purported to look like-shaped like a cross and maybe twice the size of the wood that was displayed inside it. It was the reliquary of all reliquaries-the Reliquarium de Fratres Crucis. The reliquary of the Brothers of the Cross."
"Brothers of the Cross?"
"One of those secret orders of Christians, like the Knights Templar, that started up around the time of the Crusades. From Portugal originally. They're said to have come into possession of the remains of the True Cross and commissioned the reliquary to hold it."
"So how did it wind up in Bermuda?"
"Long story," Janeen says. "Longer than you've got time to hear tonight."
She looks past me to the house. J.J. hurries out the front door, a blue blazer over an arm, a freshly pressed white shirt on a hanger.
"But Peach and Boyd ... they thought the reliquary was somewhere out there? On a wreck or something?"
Janeen nods.
"They thought they'd located it and were closing in on it."
"And that's what got them killed?"
"Apparently," Janeen says, flicking her cigarette to the ground, crunching it out with the toe of a shoe. "But then, what do I know? I'm crazy."
Janeen offers me her hand.
"A pleasure chatting with you, Mr. Chasteen. I need to get back to the Gazette office. I've got a story to file." She reaches into her purse, produces a business card. "If anything else comes up that you think would be helpful, then I'd appreciate it if you gave me a call."
16.
It's just past sunset when J.J. delivers me to the Mid Ocean Club. Aunt Trula scrutinizes me as I arrive at the table. She is swathed in something shiny and blue, mere backdrop for a white gold pendant with a whopper of a diamond brooch that rests just above her decolletage. A bit more decolletage than I would prefer to see, thank you very much, but hey, it's her show.
I'm expecting something catty from the old girl, especially since I'm so late. But she surprises me.
"You look quite nice," she says.
"Thanks. The jacket's a loaner. From J.J."
"The driver?"
"Yep. Shops were closed and he let me borrow something from his closet."
Aunt Trula forces a smile.
"Well, it shows off your shoulders nicely."
She's trying, I guess.
"And that's some necklace you're wearing," I say.
"Why, thank you." She puts a hand to a cheek, demure, as if she's ready to blush. "It was a gift."
I swoop in and give Barbara a peck on the cheek. She's wearing a simple black dress and the black pearl necklace I gave her for Christmas. I have yet to check out all the other women in the room, but I know she's the best looking one in it. She always is.
Boggy sits next to her. I'm pleased that Aunt Trula has seen fit to invite him, but more than a little startled by his outfit-a starched white shirt under a blue blazer with brass buttons and a gold crest on the jacket's pocket. It's no loaner. And no way it was wrapped up in his blanket-cum-suitcase.
Barbara reads my mind.
"We found something of Uncle Taylor's," she says. "It was a perfect fit."
Boggy gives no sign whether he's enjoying himself or just enduring his circumstances, like a cat being given a bath. He studies me, eyes furrowed.
He says, "Your afternoon, Zachary, did it go well?"
"Yeah, just dandy."
He can tell I'm lying. Barbara can, too. But no need to get into it here.
There's a fifth chair at our table, next to Aunt Trula, with a drink sitting in front of it. And now its occupant returns from visiting a group of people near the bar. He's an older gentleman-short, barrel-chested, with close-cropped white hair, a ruddy weatherworn face, and eyes of the palest blue.