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She showed me the screen “In his print, just above that double wrinkle in the neck, can you kinda-sorta see a potential ‘Giotto’?”

I was surprised by what I saw “Yeah, I kinda-sorta can It’s grainy, but I see so and a couple round bits that ht be o’s”

She stared at thefunny?”

“It’s really different I see blotches and splotches, but everything looks all vague and random”

“I think he’s cranked up the contrast a lot in his picture Not in the whole ie; just in that part of the neck Looks like he’s Photoshopped it to highlight what he wants us to see” Then she groaned loudly “Oh, good grief”

“Nohat?”

“Look On the actual Shroud, the forehead blood — the artful, crown-of-thorns trickle of blood — is above the right eye” Then she pointed to the iPad “But in this art-detective’s version, it’s above the left He’s flopped it, left to right” She growled in annoyance “No fair Shit, Dr B, if I played ie doctor for a day or two, I could probably make it say ‘Miranda rocks!’ so her head in disgust “Coyp”

“Too bad,” I said “I was hoping this Giotto story et the attention it deserves”

We hadn’t gone more than a few miles before Miranda si the early Middle Ages, there were supposedly dozens of ‘true shrouds’ rattling around — uy who’s researched this But none of those showed an ie of Jesus; they were just strips of cloth It wasn’t until…”—she paused to scroll—“…1203 that there was a record of a shroud with an ie But it just showed the face, not the whole bod”

“Where was it?”

“That one turned up in Constantinople,” she said, “which was the crossroads of the relics trade”

“How come?” I asked

“How come it turned up?”

“No, how come Constantinople was the crossroads of the relics trade?”

“Ah Because of Saint Helena”

“And what’s she the patron saint of?”

“Of relics, looks like Helena was the ave the seal of approval to Christianity She was quite the pack rat when it caht back a boatload of ’ee—”

“The Holy what?”

“Sponge The Holy Sponge A Roave Jesus a drink up on the cross Holy Nails”

“Wait, go back The sponge? Really? Jesus dies a horrible death, his friends and fa hioes, ‘Say, soldier, can I have that sponge?’”

“So the story goes Where was I? Oh, Holy Nails—lots of Holy Nails At least thirty Holy Nails, scattered all over Europe” She scrolled down the screen, then hooted “Wow The Holy Stairs: twenty-eightthis up — froovernor The steps Jesus stood on, supposedly, when Pilate washed his weaselly hands of the whole affair”

“So after the grieving disciples snag the Holy Sponge and pry out the Holy Nails, they swing by the governor’s palace and pinch an entire staircase?”

“I’ There’s more, so s of the Angel Gabriel, plucked or nant Vials of Mary’s breast milk”

“Gag”

“Six Holy Foreskins”

“Whose six Holy Foreskins?”

“Jesus’s, of course”

“He had six of them? Or was the One True Penis snipped six times?”

She shrugged “Maybe the rabbi was a rookie” She consulted the screen again “The body of Mary Magdalene — three Mary Magdalenes, actually, in three different places The tail of the donkey on which Jesus rode to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday A few heads of John the Baptist A tear Jesus shed”