The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [127]
The camera focused on Winters’s computer. On one half of his computer monitor, Winters showed a photo of Anne Bartholomew from when her son was an infant; on the other half Winters showed a photo of Anne Cassidy from a few days earlier.
“As you can see,” Winters said, “the distance between the eyes of the two women is identical.”
Winters typed in a few keystrokes, and the two photos began to merge.
“As you can see when we overlap the two photos, in this case all the facial features in the two photos match almost perfectly.”
“What’s your conclusion?” Ferrar asked.
“My conclusion is that these two photos show the same woman,” Winters said, looking up from his computer monitor. “I believe I can say that with a ninety-nine-percent confidence level. In my years of working with this software, I can think of only two or three other cases where the faces have matched up so perfectly.”
“So there you have it,” Ferrar said to Dunaway as the scene returned to the New York studio. “We’re going to have to let you, the viewers, decide whether our recorded video documenting that Father Bartholomew and Anne Cassidy disappeared into the Shroud of Turin is a paranormal event that confirms Christ’s resurrection and the authenticity of the Shroud, or whether Father Bartholomew and Anne Cassidy are nothing more than top-notch charlatans who could show up any day with their next magic act.”
“I can’t wait to see your special,” Dunaway said. “When does it broadcast?”
“This Wednesday at eight P.M. Eastern Time,” Ferrar answered.
“Well, I will be sure to be watching,” Dunaway said, wrapping up the promo segment. “And I suspect I will be only one of the millions in your audience on the edge of their seats. What happened in front of our cameras in the Chapel of the Shroud in Turin, Italy, last Friday? A religious experience of the ages or an ingenious magic trick that was brilliantly pulled off? Watch this Wednesday at eight P.M. Eastern Time. Father Bartholomew and the Shroud of Turin: Miracle or Magic? We will present the evidence so you, the viewers, can decide for yourselves.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Monday evening
New York City, 8:00 P.M.
Day 33
Norman Rothschild reserved a private room for dinner with Stephen Castle at his favorite midtown steak house.
Comfortably settled at their table, the two psychiatrists each ordered a single-malt scotch, as Rothschild selected a fine bottle of vintage French Bordeaux to accompany their steak dinners. Castle knew that the wine Rothschild selected would probably cost twice as much as the steak dinners put together.
At seventy-five years old, Rothschild looked younger and more fit than he did more than two decades ago, when he first met Castle. The reduced patient schedule that came with semiretirement permitted Rothschild a lifestyle that included more time for himself. A medium height man at five feet, ten inches, Rothschild followed a daily routine of briskly walking five blocks to get his favorite espresso and croissant each morning, and five blocks back to his midtown Park Avenue apartment. With a full head of silver hair to set off his ocean blue eyes, Rothschild always looked distinguished, whether he was attired in his jeans and walking shoes in search of his daily morning coffee or in his tweed sport coat and tailored pants, as he was tonight for dinner.
When Castle changed careers to go into psychiatry, Rothschild had helped prepare him for the profession by serving as his analyst. Ever since, Rothschild remained Castle’s dedicated mentor, always ready to meet with Stephen to counsel him not only through difficult psychiatric cases, but also through the expected psychological challenges that confront all human beings in the course of life. Though he had sported a neatly trimmed beard when he was in his fifties, much