The Testament of James (Case Files of Matthew Hunter and Chantal Stevens) by Vin Suprynowicz

Mr. al-Adar is selling, I’ll make sure your offer is conveyed to him fairly and accurately. That service I will perform, even though I must regretfully reject this gift. It’s simply too much, on a first date. Flowers would have sufficed.”
    “As you wish, Mr. Hunter.” Penitente pulled the book back toward himself. “But the book will be a small bonus if you make sure our offer is fairly heard, that we are allowed the opportunity to top any other legitimate bid, regardless of the outcome. Have you, by any chance, heard from the owner, Mr. al-Adar? Has he telephoned you, perhaps?”
    “No. There was a letter, delivered by courier. I’ve shown the letter to Rashid al-Adar’s brother, Hakim, who arrived in town last evening, as you may know. I’m afraid you just missed him. Hakim believes the mark, the signature, is indeed his brother’s, though as to the instructions, he deems them obviously composed by someone else, since Rashid lacks the skill to construct such a letter in English.”
    He had to give Brother Dominic credit, the lanky guy remained cool and raised no protest.
    “I’m afraid I’ll still have to wait to speak to the owner,” Matthew continued. “Though at least the letter is a good sign that the brother is still alive.”
    “Yes, that’s happy news, indeed. But I understood the manuscript was a family possession. Perhaps this brother, Hakim, could authorize the sale?”
    “I’ll ask him for you, if the book appears, though I believe his first priority is to find his brother, which would solve both problems.”
    “Of course.”
    “Assuming the Testament really exists, of course.”
    “Let me be clear, Mr. Hunter,” confided the monk Penitente, leaning forward. And given his size and the deep voice, it was intimidating when he leaned down toward you, whether he meant it to be or not. The guy could actually appear larger than life — the Darth Vader effect. Matthew resisted the urge to slide his own chair backwards.
    “The book is an obvious forgery, an amusing assemblage of mismatched libels. It appears it was first cobbled together by frustrated Egyptian heretics in the fourth or fifth century, misguided hermits who were upset when the church fathers standardized the books to be allowed in our Christian Bible, rejecting many of the fanciful Coptic texts as non-historical. Seeking revenge, one of these desert monks concocted this fictitious testament, supposedly from the pen of the half-brother of Jesus, claiming to expose the Saviour as a charlatan who had faked his miracles, a Jewish drug dealer of all things, pretending to reveal the secrets of how he had fooled both the Sanhedrin and the Romans and survived the crucifixion. It was meant to provoke outrage and division, nothing more.
    “No, there is no thought that the book is authentic. My sponsors merely wish the book for study, especially if it appears to be an early copy, so its contents can be properly evaluated and explained by legitimate scholars, placed in their proper context. In such studies, you understand, older copies can be quite valuable to trace how the lies, the fantastic claims of these heretics have been altered and adapted, down through the years.”
    “At which point you would publish.”
    “Of course. With the addition of appropriate analysis and commentaries, of course.”
    “Yet you’ve never done that with any of the other copies you’ve acquired.”
    “I’m unfamiliar with these ‘other copies’ you speak of.”
    “Brother Dominic.” The Dominican took no exception to Matthew’s mode of address, obviously finding it natural. “Humor me for a moment. Womankind has long been charged with dragging man down into sin. What was the original sin?”
    “Eating of the forbidden fruit in paradise, as you know.”
    “The fruit of knowledge.”
    “Yes.”
    “From the blissful ignorance of the Garden, mankind now faces trials and tribulations because he has gained knowledge of other things: shame at his