The Shroud Codex Part 10

"Maybe yes and maybe no," Castle answered. "Not to be flip, but I don't want us jumping to conclusions. First off, we don't know that your brother's wounds are going to match what we are seeing here exactly, not at least until I compare the hospital photos of his wounds to the wounds we are seeing on the Shroud. But most important, I don't want anybody jumping to the conclusion that Bartholomew is suffering a repeat of Christ's pa.s.sion, not even if the wounds are identical. I'm a psychiatrist and I'm interested in what's going on in Father Bartholomew's mind. For me, his body manifests his mental reality, possibly his religious beliefs. That's as far as I'm prepared to go right now."

"We all understand," Archbishop Duncan said, making sure everyone in the room knew he was not disagreeing with Dr. Castle's a.n.a.lysis by insisting on any different interpretation, at least not right now. "I understand your point about the subconscious. We don't want to jump to any conclusions here."

While they were talking, Middagh found and displayed another image from the Shroud, this time a detailed close-up of a group of scourge wounds on the upper back of the man in the Shroud. The close-up clearly showed the dumbbell nature of the wounds.

"The ancient Romans typically scourged a man before they crucified him, both to further punish him as a criminal and to weaken him so he would put up less resistance when they ultimately fixed him to the cross," Middagh said. "The Romans could also control how long a man would survive the crucifixion by how severely they beat a condemned man. The more vicious the scourging, the shorter the time a crucified man would live on the [image]

cross. Judging from the beating the man in the Shroud received, the Roman executioners wanted him to die pretty fast. Jesus went up to Jerusalem at the time of his death to celebrate Pa.s.sover. Traditionally, the Last Supper is interpreted as a Pa.s.sover meal. From the beating the man of the Shroud received, the Romans may have wanted Jesus to die fast, so he could be buried before sundown on the Sabbath."

Castle listened to the historical explanation but his mind was focused on the wounds themselves. The dumbbell nature of the wounds from the Shroud seen in close-up looked exactly like the wounds he observed on Bartholomew.

Middagh picked up on this exact point. "As you can see here in the close-up of the scourge wounds on the upper back, each wound shows the dumbbell-shaped weights the Romans fixed into the ends of the leather straps of their whips. Typically, the Romans used a handheld whip, or flagrum, a short handle with two or three leather thongs attached. Sometimes, instead of a dumbbell piece of metal, the Romans just fixed two small metal b.a.l.l.s on the ends of the leather thongs, a configuration that caused the wounds to look like dumbbell wounds just the same."

Anne could not believe what she was seeing. "How could Father Bartholomew be beaten like that and survive?" she asked Castle in disbelief.

"Right now, we are not sure how your brother was injured," Castle answered, irritated that hospitals were notorious rumor mills. All Anne had to do was ask a few questions and the nurses and orderlies would probably have filled her in on all the gossip about her brother. Immediately, Castle's mind flashed on the television reporter who accosted him leaving the hospital last night and on the crowd of silent believers who held vigil outside the hospital with their lit candles in the darkness. How much additional information did Fernando Ferrar have by now to broadcast on television?

Reluctantly, Castle realized this was going to be an impossible story to contain, even if he gave no press conferences. He suspected Anne was already concluding her brother was replicating the pa.s.sion of Christ. He was certain that in no time at all the story that Father Bartholomew had been mysteriously scourged by unseen a.s.sailants would be circulating throughout New York City, possibly around the world, now with the added detail that the scourge wounds he manifested were exactly like the scourge wounds on the Shroud of Turin, wound for wound, blow for blow.

Just then Castle's cell phone rang. It was the hospital. Bartholomew was coming out of sedation. The nurse on duty was calling him as instructed, so he could be there to examine the priest as soon as he was once again conscious.

"I'm sorry," Castle told the group in his conference room. "But we're going to have to resume this at another time. The hospital just called and Father Bartholomew is coming around. I've got to get there immediately."

"I want to come with you," Anne said urgently.

Morelli chimed in: "I'd like to go as well."

"No," Castle said politely but firmly. "Neither one of you has any medical training as far as I know. I'm sure there will be an appropriate time for you to visit with him, but now I need to examine my patient alone."

"I'd like some time to speak with you privately," Anne said. "Can we arrange a time to get together?"

Thinking quickly, Castle realized he could use the drive time questioning Anne, to find out exactly how she fit into Father Bartholomew's life and why n.o.body seemed to know anything about her, until now. Asking to meet with him privately, Anne must have seen the same need to explain her background in more detail, Castle guessed.

"Okay, you can ride with me in the car to the hospital," Castle said. "That will give us a few minutes to get started."

"Thank you," Anne said appreciatively. "When we get to the hospital, I promise I will stay out of your way."

"Father Morelli, you join Anne in the waiting room of the ICU at Beth Israel, if you want, this afternoon," Castle instructed. "If everything goes well, you and Anne should be able to visit with Father Bartholomew for a few minutes later today, after I examine him."

"I'll do that," Morelli said appreciatively.

Next, Castle turned to apologize to Archbishop Duncan for having to leave the meeting so abruptly. "You will excuse me, your Eminence, but I have to leave immediately," he explained. Castle wanted to be sure he was properly respectful, especially with Fathers Morelli and Middagh, two representatives of the Vatican, in the room. "I'm sure you will understand, but I want to be the first to talk with Father Bartholomew when he regains consciousness."

"Certainly," Archbishop Duncan said graciously, as Castle gathered up his papers to leave. "We are available to you on a twenty-four-hour basis. The pope has made it clear that right now nothing is more important to the Catholic Church than Father Bartholomew and the Shroud of Turin."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Thursday noon Return to Beth Israel Hospital Day 15 Castle sat with Anne in the back of the limo headed downtown. He estimated the ride would take about twenty minutes, depending on traffic, and he instructed the driver to get to the hospital as fast as possible.

Riding with Anne, Castle felt conflicted. He had to admit he was physically attracted to Anne, yet he was uncomfortable not knowing who exactly she was and how she fit into the puzzle.

"You'll have to excuse me," he began, "but I'm still not sure how your family history fits together. You said your father separated from your mother shortly after you were born."

"That's right," Anne said. She folded her hands quietly in her lap, resolved to tell Dr. Castle the story. "My mother and Jonathan Bartholomew, the man who was Paul's father, had been high school sweethearts. That was over forty years ago, when the Vietnam War was reaching its height under President Nixon. Jonathan got drafted in the 1970 lottery and was sent off to Vietnam. A few months later, my mother heard he had been killed in combat. She mourned his loss. After that, she met my father. They got married and I was born."

"So why did Paul tell me he had no siblings?" Castle asked.

"A few months after I was born, Paul's father-to-be unexpectedly came walking out of the Vietnam bush. Everybody was shocked. Jonathan Bartholomew was treated as a hero. It turns out he had been captured by the Viet Cong and he escaped. But when he came back to the United States, my mother was already married to my father and she was pregnant with me."

"Okay," Castle said patiently, used to hearing complicated life stories from his patients. "What happened then?"

"My mother was always in love with Jonathan. When he came home, she began seeing him, even more in love with him than ever. She tried to hide the relationship from my father, Matthew Ca.s.sidy, but it didn't work. When my father found out, he gave my mother a choice."

"Is that when they got divorced?"

"Not immediately," Anne said. "My mother said she would try to stay in the marriage. But when I was about one year old, my mother announced she wanted a divorce. My father took it very hard, but granted her the divorce, on the condition that she would agree to give him sole custody over me. My mother agreed. Once the court decree was final, my father moved to Canada with me as an infant. My father never saw my mother again. After that, my mother married Jonathan Bartholomew and Paul was born about a year later."

"Did you ever reconcile with your mother?"

"No, I didn't. My father told me my mother had died giving birth to me. When I found out the truth, I learned I had a brother I never knew about. But I didn't attempt to contact Paul, out of respect for my father."

"How did you find out the truth?"

"My father died a year ago, of cancer. When I was going through his papers to settle his estate, I found the divorce papers. That's when I discovered who my mother really was. I did some research and found out the true story, including that Paul was my brother."

"What happened to Paul's father?" Castle asked.

"I'm not sure," she answered, "but from the research I did, it seems Paul's father was killed tragically in a work-related accident, about three months before Paul was born. As best I can find out, Paul never knew his father, just like he never knew anything about me."

Anne's information about Paul's father fit what Bartholomew had told Castle, that he never knew his father because his father had been killed before he was born. Castle felt sure that when Bartholomew had insisted he was an only child, the priest's mother had never told him anything about having a different husband and a daughter born prior to her marriage with his father. Father Bartholomew was certainly in for a surprise.

"What was your mother's name?" Castle asked.

"Anne, just like me," she answered. "As I explained, my father was Matthew Ca.s.sidy and Paul's father was Jonathan Bartholomew."

"Did you try to see your mother after you found out about her?"

"No," Anne said quietly. "It was too late. She had died a few years earlier."

"And you say you never met your brother until now?"

"No, we've never even spoken."

Still, Castle wanted to make sure he understood how the pieces fit together. "But when I saw you in the hospital, you said you came from Montreal to be with your brother. What I guess I didn't fully appreciate was that you had never seen him before. What you are telling me now is that Paul still does not know you exist."

"That's right," Anne said. "It's all happened so fast since my father died. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do about meeting my brother. But then, when I read on the Internet about Paul suffering the stigmata, I realized I had to come here and be with him."

"So, in the last year or so, you knew you had a brother, but you never made any effort to contact him. I want to make sure I have that right."

"That's right," she said. "Like I said, I'm still not sure Paul knows anything about me, just like I knew nothing about him until after my father died. I'm not sure how much our mother, Anne, told Paul about her true family history before she died."

Castle listened carefully to her story, determined to watch how Bartholomew greeted his sister once they were introduced at the hospital.

"What do you do in Montreal?" Castle asked.

"I'm an accountant, a numbers person. I work for a Canadian export firm. We export wood products to the United States."

"And you never married?"

"No, I guess I never found the right person."

There were parts of the story that made sense to Castle. He could understand why Anne never married. He himself had not found another woman he felt was capable of replacing Elizabeth in his life. Finding the right person was hard, especially as he got older. He enjoyed his relationships with women, but typically they were casual-a dinner date, or a theater date. Women friends were easy, but living with a woman seemed to involve a lot of compromises in a lifestyle he was pretty happy to not change at all, especially the older he got.

Still, he had to admit, he wasn't sure he accepted as true everything about her story as she told it. "Just out of curiosity," he said, "I would like to see those divorce papers. It might help me better understand Paul's relationship with his mother." Castle knew seeing the divorce papers would provide confirmation for Anne's story.

"The only problem," Anne said, "is that I left all my papers in Canada. About all I have with me is my Canadian pa.s.sport." She reached in her purse and retrieved it. "You're free to take a look at this, if you want."

Castle looked through the pa.s.sport. She was identified as Anne Ca.s.sidy, and the date of birth worked. Her residence was listed as a street address in Montreal. The pa.s.sport photo was clearly Anne. It was rea.s.suring to Castle that the pa.s.sport information confirmed her story.

Still, as a professional psychiatrist, he suspected there were many more levels to the story that Anne wasn't telling him, at least not right away. Almost certainly there were psychological implications to her birth and the separation of her parents that Anne had not fully appreciated herself, especially since she had learned the truth so recently. How had she felt when she learned her mother abandoned her and that her father had lied to her all these years? Unless Castle placed Anne in a.n.a.lysis, he was not sure this question would ever be fully answered. Still, Castle felt confident that when Anne met her brother, she was certain to confront aspects of herself and her brother's birth story that were impacting deep levels of her subconscious right now, even if Anne could not yet perceive the impact consciously.

Castle also appreciated there were serious implications of this birth story for Bartholomew. If Bartholomew did not know about his mother's first marriage, how would he react when he learned his mother had hidden the truth from him that his father was not her first husband? Would he resent not being told he had a half sister living in Canada? A half sister he had never known existed? The questions raced through Castle's mind as he listened to Anne tell her life story in the limo.

The situation was complicated for Castle. Being truthful, he had to admit he continued to feel attracted to Anne, just as he had been the first moment he saw her. The thought pa.s.sed through his mind that even though she was not in her twenties, Anne could probably have attracted a suitable man to marry her anytime she wanted, including now. Sitting with her in the backseat, he couldn't help admiring how her nicely sculpted legs looked in her sheer nylon stockings, especially as her dress rode up above her knees.

"Did you find a hotel room easily last night?" he asked her.

"I found a cheap room near the hospital," Anne said. "The hotel is okay and it's close to the hospital."

Despite the physical attraction he felt, Castle would never cross the line to act on those impulses with a patient or a member of a patient's family. Castle reminded himself that his concerns with Anne had to remain professional. Now that she had surfaced, she was certain to fit into his a.n.a.lysis of Father Bartholomew. Castle's instinct was to make sure Anne stayed more directly in his sight. Her story had too many psychological implications to be ignored. "It sounds like this may be your first time in New York?" Castle guessed.

"It is," Anne affirmed.

"Let me take care of the hotel room for you," Castle said. "You're in New York now and this is my city." Without waiting for her to respond, he reached for his cell phone in the pocket of his sport jacket and began dialing a number.

Listening, Anne realized he was calling the manager's office at the Waldorf Towers to reserve a one-bedroom corner suite on one of the upper floors for her, subtly making sure the suite was one of the larger and more elegant ones in the hotel.

From Castle's conversation with the manager, Anne could tell he was no stranger either to the Waldorf Towers or to the staff that ran the hotel. Castle asked for specific room details and appeared to know what the suite would look like simply by its room number.

"I don't know whether I can afford that level of luxury," Anne objected.

Castle smiled softly, pleased at her concern for expenses. "I'm not asking you to pay," he explained. "The Catholic Church is compensating me handsomely for taking your brother on as a patient and your accommodations at the Waldorf will be part of my expenses. I want to make sure you have a comfortable place to stay."

"Under those conditions, I accept," Anne said, feeling genuine appreciation for his concern over her.

As the limo approached the hospital, Castle could see that the crowd outside had swelled considerably. Hundreds more people were standing outside now and lit candles could be seen everywhere. A crowd had gathered in the open park across from the hospital main entrance. It was not standing silently, like before. This time there seemed to be a commotion going on. Observing closely, Castle was surprised to see people pointing up to the hospital rooms above.

Fernando Ferrar and his mobile video truck were on the scene, with Ferrar standing in front of the hospital giving what looked like a live remote broadcast from the scene. Ferrar's attention also seemed focused on one of the hospital rooms above.

Castle ordered the driver to take the limo to the private staff entrance underground.

As they entered the hospital, Castle made sure Anne was comfortable in the ICU waiting room. Going down the hall to Father Bartholomew's room, Castle could see there was also a lot of commotion on the hospital floor.

"I've been dialing your cell phone," the chief nurse on duty said with relief as she saw Dr. Castle coming down the hall. "I'm glad you're finally here."

"We got here as quickly as we could," Castle responded. "What's the problem?"

"It's Father Bartholomew," she answered. "He's taken off all his bandages and he's standing at the windows without his hospital gown on. The nurses are trying to get him back into bed."

Entering the room, Castle could see Father Bartholomew standing at the window fully naked. His arms were outstretched as if he were being crucified and his head hung down on his chest as if he were still in his coma. Two nurses were trying to put a robe on him and get him back to bed, but Father Bartholomew wasn't cooperating. Castle was relieved to note the window came up to his waist, so that all Fernando Ferrar's television crew would get was a view of Father Bartholomew's chest and arms. But that was enough. No doubt Ferrar got what he needed for a national scoop.

On that point, Castle was precisely correct. Various hospital workers had tipped off Ferrar privately. He had been told that Father Bartholomew suffered the scourge wounds in addition to the stigmata on his wrists. Now he had visual proof for the world to see.

Dr. Castle took charge as he moved quickly to the priest at the window. He took a robe from one of the nurses and he began inserting Bartholomew's outstretched right arms into it. The nurse got the idea and she took over with the robe from there, determined to put the robe on Father Bartholomew whether he cooperated or not.

Speaking softly, Dr. Castle instructed Father Bartholomew to move away from the window, which he did. Step by step, Castle coached Bartholomew back to bed. He took the priest's blood pressure and he checked his pulse. Both were only slightly elevated. Looking at Bartholomew's chart, he could tell the priest had slept until about an hour earlier, when Castle got the call in his office that the priest had regained consciousness.

Seeing the priest naked, Castle was astonished to realize how remarkably Bartholomew's scourge wounds had healed. Gone were the open bleeding wounds, now covered in scabs and scars. He wanted to see Dr. Lin as soon as possible to see if the results Castle observed reflected internal healing of Father Bartholomew's wounds as well.

Once he was convinced Father Bartholomew was resting quietly and the nurses were back in control, Castle returned to the waiting room to tell Anne what had happened.

"I gave him a sedative and he's asleep again, resting quietly in bed," Castle explained to her. "The upset is over, for the time being, but I'm afraid you're going to have to wait here for a while longer. I have to meet one of the other doctors in the hospital to check up on the tests I had run on Father Bartholomew. After that, I will return here to examine Father Bartholomew."

"When will I be able to see him?" Anne asked.

"I'll check him again when I return and I will let you know then," Castle answered. "Meanwhile, please just rest comfortably here until I get back. Father Morelli will probably join you here shortly."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

Thursday, early afternoon Dr. Lin's office, Beth Israel Hospital Day 15 Looking at the results of the previous day's tests in Dr. Lin's office, Castle was astonished to see what she had found.

She recounted the facts. "Father Bartholomew came to the ER with you on Sunday night. He had suffered what looked like wounds from a severe whip beating all over his body, front and back. The wounds were so severe that you had him admitted to the burn unit for treatment. This is Thursday afternoon, not quite four days later, and his wounds, as you can see, are nearly healed."

Castle took a close look at the CT scans and the MRIs. He could see that Dr. Lin was right.

"I don't understand it," Dr. Lin said. "I have never seen any case where wounds as severe as this patient suffered have healed so quickly."