Free Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs Page B

anything I wil cal .” Again, the widened eyes. “I real y do want Avram’s kil er brought to justice.”

    “Have a nice day,” Ryan said.

    “Shabbat shalom,”I said.

    As we turned to go, Miriam reached out and laid a hand on Ryan’s arm.

    “Regardless of what you think, Detective, I did love my husband.” There was a chil ing bleakness to her voice.

    Ryan and I didn’t speak until we were back in his car.

    “Wel ?” Ryan asked.

    “I don’t know,” I said.

    We both thought about that.

    “Chet?”Ryan asked.

    “Kind of like sin,” I said.

    “The lady’s not into the power of sisterhood,” Ryan said.

    “She acted like I wasn’t there,” I agreed.

    “You were,” Ryan said.

    “I thought so,” I said.

    “She’s definitely not one of Purviance’s fans.”

    “No.”

    Ryan started the engine and pul ed from the curb.

    “I’d say I’m pretty good at character analysis,” he said.

    “I’d say that’s a fair assessment,” I agreed.

    “But I can’t figure Miriam. One moment she’s bereaved. The next she’s broadcasting this fuck-you attitude. Protecting something?”

    “She was perspiring,” I said

    “On a cold day,” Ryan said.

    We rol ed to a stop at the corner.

    “Now what?” Ryan asked.

    “You’re the detective,” I said.

    “The gun was an orphan. Can’t trace it. My canvass of Ferris’s neighbors in the industrial park turned up zip. Ditto for statements by family and business associates. I’m stil waiting for tax records and a phone dump on the warehouse. I’ve got a Kessler query into every synagogue in town.”

    “Sounds like you’ve been doing some serious detecting.”

    “I’ve been detecting my ass off, but progress is halting,” Ryan said.

    “What now?”

    “SIJ’s stil working the scene. Purviance is stil checking to see if anything was stolen. That leaves lunch.”

    I’d barely settled with my Whopper when my cel phone warbled. It was Jake Drum. This time the connection was clear.

    “You actual y diverted to Paris?” I asked, then mouthed the name Jake Drum to Ryan.

    “No big deal. Instead of driving to Toronto and catching a flight to Tel Aviv, I’m connecting through Charles de Gaul e.”

    “The skeleton’s that important?”

    “It could be huge.”

    “What have you learned?”

    Ryan partial y unwrapped my burger and handed it to me. I took a one-handed bite.

    “My hunch was right,” Jake said. “A Masada skeleton arrived at the Musée de l’Homme in November of 1963. I located a specimen file and an accession number.”

    “Go on.”

    “What are you eating?”

    “Whopper.”

    “Fast food is sacrilege in a city like Montreal.”

    “It’s fast.”

    “The gastronomic slippery slope.”

    I compounded the blasphemy with a sip of Diet Coke.

    “Are the bones stil there?”

    “No.” Jake sounded frustrated.

    “No?”

    I went for more Whopper. Ketchup dribbled my chin. Ryan blotted it with a napkin.

    “I found a woman named Marie-Nicole Varin who helped inventory col ections in the early seventies. Varin recal s coming across a Masada skeleton. But it’s not at the museum now. We searched everywhere.”

    “No one’s seen it since the seventies?”

    “No.”

    “Aren’t records kept on the movement of every specimen?”

    “Should be. The rest of that file’s missing.”

    “What’s the museum’s explanation?”

    “C’est la vie.Few of the current staff were here back then. Varin did the inventory with a graduate student named Yossi Lerner. She thinks Lerner may stil be in Paris. And here’s an interesting twist. Varin thinks Lerner’s either American or Canadian.”

    That stopped the Whopper midway to my mouth.

    “I’m trying to track him down.”

    “Bonne chance,”I said.

    “I’l need more than luck.”

    I told Ryan what Jake had said.

    He listened without comment.

    We finished our fries.

    Back on Van Horne, we watched a man in a long black coat, black hat,