Enter by the Narrow Gate

by David Carlson

  “Your community’s problems aren’t ours,” the old monk grunted.

  “I disagree. Monasteries all over the world have quite a bit in common.”

  A bony finger shot up toward heaven. “Wrong! We’re not two different baseball teams,” Brother Elias snapped back. “There’s our church and yours.”

  So that was it, Father Fortis thought. The librarian despised him because he wasn’t Catholic.

  “You scholars are all the same,” Elias said in disgust. “It’s not good enough being a monk. You think your precious articles and books can change the past. Ha!” The monk’s face was a battlefield, columns of skin moving angrily from neck to forehead as he spoke.

  “You mean the gulf between our two churches? I believe there’s always hope—”

  “Ha, and another big fat ha! A thousand years of heresy isn’t putty in your hands. An old chant isn’t going to resurrect what’s dead and gone. What does it matter that Holy Mother church and your church once chanted the same words? What matters is that you rejected the authority of the Pope, an authority given to St. Peter by Christ Himself!”

  The old monk pointed outside his window. “See the cliff out there, the one with the cross on top?”

  Father Fortis nodded.

  “Ever notice those boulders lying at the bottom of the cliff? All good for nothing. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church.’ The cross is still planted in the rock. But you Orthodox chose to split off, go your own way. Then it was the Protestants. Now it’s the cults. All useless rubble. You think your chants and fancy monographs can mend damage like that?”

  Father Fortis knew he was being baited, but he hadn’t come for that fight. “To quote something I received recently, it sounds like I’m not wanted here, and I’m not needed here.”

  Brother Elias’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he snapped his fingers at the cat, which jumped into his lap.

  “I bet Sister Anna received a similar message,” Father Fortis said.

  The cat purred and closed its eyes in meditation as the monk scratched his neck.

  “Well, Boniface, it looks like our special guest is on to us,” Brother Elias replied. “She didn’t belong here, as everyone now knows.”

  “I’m guessing you did more than send her a note. You shared your opinion with Abbot Timothy, didn’t you?”

  “Of course, more than once.”

  “And Brother Andrew? Did you send him notes as well?”

  “No. That stupid boy,” Brother Elias said with disdain.

  “Why ‘stupid’? Because he had normal feelings for a woman?”

  The old monk’s face turned crimson. The cat yawned up at Father Fortis, showing its teeth. “The boy spent a year in our novitiate, and yet the first skirt he sees, he drools like a dog on the prowl. Disgusting.”

  Father Fortis thought again how wrong outsiders could be about monks. Guests tended to throw all monks into a narrow category—so holy that they were beyond carnal urges. But monks were as varied as any other group. At one end of the spectrum were dried-up old prunes like Elias, who’d forgotten what the appendage that hung down between their legs was for. At the other end were Brother Andrew and maybe Father Bernard, still dealing painfully with the fact that they were men.

  The old monk glared up at him. “For the third time, I’m busy.”

  “Then I won’t keep you. Tell me about St. Mary’s enemies.”

  “I just said I was busy.” Elias gave him a sly smile. “As they say on the Internet, you’d better narrow your search.”

  “Okay. Tell me about the groups who’ve harassed St. Mary’s recently. Say, since Sister Anna came.”

  Lifting the cat off his lap, the old monk pecked nimbly on the keyboard. “You’ll see nothing from over there,” he muttered.

  Father Fortis brought his chair around to the other side of the table.

  “The Southwest is full of fanatics,” Elias began. He moved his hand on the finger pad and brought a screen up for viewing. “This one insists that Pope John Paul, being Polish, was a Communist spy.” He tapped the finger pad again and brought up a second screen. “This one says the church is smuggling Mexicans and Central Americans across the border so she can destroy the English language in America.”

  Brother Elias tapped the finger pad again, and the screen changed. “None of those had anything to say about our dead nun, but this one did,” he said, pointing to the screen.

  Father Fortis squinted to see a flag waving behind the words “Fight the Beast.” Below the logo was a grainy photograph of St. Mary’s, followed by a photocopy of a February article from the Santa Fe Herald. Father Fortis scanned the article’s description of current building projects at the monastery, especially the architectural plans for the proposed library.

  In a caption written below were the words “Celibacy is a demonic and pious charade of Roman Papists to cover immoral practices. A whore is living with the queers at this place.”

  Brother Elias was right. This wasn’t funny. “Do the police know about this?” he asked.

  “Of course, but since this site is from Missouri, they said it was too far away to matter. They said the group probably found the story on the newspaper’s website.”

  “But somebody from out here must have alerted them to it. Groups like these tend to network,” Father Fortis said.

  The old monk’s eyebrows jumped, and he looked at Father Fortis with what might have passed for respect. “Harrumph.”

  Could whoever had sent the article to the group in Missouri have been responsible, even indirectly, for vandalizing the moradas and killing Sister Anna? Such a wacko group would have motive, but how would they know enough about santos to mark the nun’s body?

  “You talked about other groups,” Father Fortis said. “How many are there?”

  The old monk leaned forward, his face alight. “Enough for me to put them into categories. Most just love to hate us.” He looked out at the rock face again. “Without us, they’d have nothing to attack.”

  Father Fortis pondered the comment. “It reminds me of that story from Brazil, the one about that TV evangelist who took a hammer to the statue of the Blessed Virgin.”

  “That’s one type. But there are also renegade Mormon groups, the polygamist types who talk big on their websites. We’re hated by all sorts.”

  Father Fortis thought about the wounds left on Sister Anna. It hardly seemed likely that radical Mormons would know about death carts and santos.

  “Have any groups trespassed on your property?”

  Elias shook his head. “Nothing serious. There was a group of New Agers a few years back. On our property, but not dangerous.”

  Father Fortis agreed. Why would New Agers mutilate a nun’s body?

  “One more question, Brother Elias,” he asked. “Lieutenant Choi mentioned a group that I can’t say I know much about. What was it he called them?”

  “The Penitentes,” Elias replied.

  “That’s right. The Penitentes. Could they hate St. Mary’s for some reason, enough to kill Sister Anna?”

  Brother Elias made a kissing sound and caught the cat as it jumped into his lap. “The Penitentes are just a bunch of old fools. Like Linus.” Brother Elias nuzzled the head of the cat. “I saw one of their processions once. It was supposed to scare me. Ha! Just an embarrassment. That’s what I think of the so-called Brotherhood. Ask Bernard if you don’t believe me.”

  It was hardly the name that Father Fortis expected to hear. “Why Father Bernard?”

  “Well, I do overhear things here. I heard him tell Brother Andrew just a few days ago that the Penitentes would be gone in twenty years. I personally think that’s a generous estimate.”

  “So Andrew is a Penitente, then.”

  Brother Elias nodded knowingly. “Oh, yes. One of the few younger ones, I suspect.”

  Puzzled, Father Fortis thought back over the past two days. Father Bernard had mentioned nothing about Brother Andrew
being connected with the secretive group. Then again, neither had Father Linus. But what most troubled Father Fortis was this: why had Father Linus suggested Father Bernard was sympathetic to the Brotherhood while Elias had clearly overheard the opposite?

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I thought I’d have to hitchhike back to St. Mary’s,” Worthy said, trying to lighten the mood as Sera sped along toward St. Mary’s. The two-lane road winding out of Española toward the monastery could have come straight out of a TV commercial, the kind where a beautiful woman smiled as her man mastered bridges and mountain passes. This woman wasn’t smiling as she spun the wheel first one way, then the other.

  What could Worthy do except state the obvious to explain why he’d taken over the interview? She’d been in the room when Alonzo confirmed how crazy Victor sounded when he came home. Did she really think Alonzo was like Victor’s mother at Acoma, simply waiting for the right cue to tell them everything he knew? Of course Sera hated his methods. He hated his methods. Couldn’t she at least concede their effectiveness?

  But the set of her jaw and the way her hands squeezed the steering wheel said it all. He wanted to find a way to break the silence, to thank her for bringing him to the art room where all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. He wanted to give her credit for helping him understand the santos and the wooden blocks. But his partner clearly didn’t want to be thanked.

  “Look, Sera, I work homicide. We see guys like Alonzo all the time. What other options did he give us?”

  “But this isn’t homicide. We’re looking for a missing college girl.”

  Oh, it’s homicide, all right, he thought.

  The tires squealed around a tight turn. “And what did you get with all that tough guy stuff?” she asked. “Let me tell you, Victor being a Penitente explains nothing.”

  He felt his face burn. “And yet you already knew. So much for being partners.”

  “Don’t lecture me about being partners! ‘Sera, get the hell out of the room’? Some partner. Look, I didn’t tell you about Victor and the Brotherhood because you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Wouldn’t understand? Victor being a Penitente is the single most important piece of the puzzle,” he shot back.

  “Look, you couldn’t even handle the dirt at Chimayó. Believe me, that’s nothing compared to understanding the Brotherhood. Besides, your friend said the same thing.”

  He twisted in the passenger seat. “Nick? You asked Nick?”

  “Settle down.” She paused a moment. “Yes, we talked about it, and we were right. You say Victor coming from a Penitente family explains everything? Tell me one way that it helps us find Ellie.”

  Where to begin? He took a deep breath. “It doesn’t help us find her. It just explains why we’re not going to find her alive.”

  Sera took her foot off the accelerator and eased onto the shoulder. The car came to a stop at the top of a hill. Below them, children ran in a dirt yard in front of a few trailers.

  “You’re saying she’s dead?” Sera asked, staring at him.

  He didn’t answer but waited for her to take the next step.

  “Good Lord, I should have believed you back at Acoma. You are flaky. The next thing you’re going to tell me is that Victor killed her.”

  He looked out the window and didn’t respond.

  “Oh, no. Are you serious?”

  “Sera, I wish I was wrong. I honestly do. Will you let me explain?”

  Sera stared straight ahead. “My God, you don’t even have the decency to doubt yourself, do you?”

  “Just give me twenty minutes.”

  She pulled the car back onto the road. “Less, if I get to the monastery before that.”

  The car gathered speed as it shot down the hill toward the tiny village.

  “You heard Alonzo,” he said. “Victor was crazy, looking for some place to be nailed to a cross.”

  Sera slammed her hand on the steering wheel. “They don’t use nails anymore.”

  “Maybe not, but Alonzo said that Victor was looking for a serious morada, not the bullshit kind. Why did Victor feel he needed to be on a cross? That’s the important question we have to answer, Sera.”

  “You seem to know all the answers. You tell me.”

  “Okay, and no, I’m not certain. But I think Victor wanted that because of what happened back in Detroit. Remember what I faxed you about the Pakistani boy? Victor couldn’t deal with that, and I’m absolutely sure he didn’t get comfort from anybody at the college. So I’m picturing him overwhelmed by guilt. It was too much to live with, but what could he do?”

  “I just work with runaways. I’m too stupid to follow any of this.”

  Despite her words, he noticed that she had slowed down.

  “Here’s this kid who used to make fun of the Penitentes, but in November, after the Pakistani boy got killed in Detroit, he started drawing pictures of himself holding one of their crosses. Then he came home and lived with his mother before trying his uncle. And by the way, don’t pretend you don’t know that his uncle is a Penitente. Why else would Victor stay with him every year during Lent? Do you honestly think the two of them were playing cards?”

  They drove over a narrow bridge. Worthy looked down to where a tiny trickle of water was spilling over the rocks, as if hurrying to escape something.

  Sera glanced over at him. “Being a Penitente doesn’t make a person crazy, Chris.”

  Worthy considered the point and realized there was nothing to be gained by arguing. “Okay, but remember what else we know. Victor told Alonzo that a devil was chasing him in Detroit. After leaving his uncle’s place, he ran off to Colorado where he claimed he met an angel. Does that sound like your average normal kid?”

  “All it proves is that Victor was having a hard time sorting things out.”

  “My God, Sera, he was hallucinating!”

  “You don’t know that. You’re taking what Alonzo thought he heard and twisting it.”

  He stared at her. “I’m twisting it?” He ran his hand through his hair and stared at the road ahead. Victor’s father had been a Penitente; his uncle was a Penitente. Why couldn’t she see the obvious?

  Sera spoke in a controlled voice. “Victor knew someone back in Detroit who was killed, and yes, he felt guilty. And okay, I grant you that it would have helped if he’d talked to a counselor. I won’t even fight you about his wanting to play Christo in one of the old-style Brotherhoods. But how do you get from that to him being a killer?”

  Worthy leaned back on the headrest. He thought of Jack Nicholson’s line from one of the videos in his apartment—You can’t handle the truth!

  “Maybe I should shut up,” he said. “We can go over this tomorrow.”

  “No, now.”

  “But if I tell you the rest, you’re only going to hate me.”

  Sera turned toward him, color rising in her cheeks as she searched his face. “My father and grandfather were Penitentes, Chris.”

  He stared at her, open-mouthed. Of course. How had he missed that? “Believe me, Sera, I’m not saying that I understand this group. And I’m not, despite what you think, simply out to blame them for what happened.”

  “Then help me, Chris. I honestly don’t see how you get from Victor being messed up after Detroit to killing Ellie. We don’t even know that the two ever met up, and here you have her dead.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “What?” Sera stared over at him. “We’re talking about murder and you’re hungry?”

  “I’m in homicide. We deal with murder all the time, and we also get hungry.” Besides, he thought, I need more than ten minutes to explain the rest of this.

  “If you need Anglo food, McDonald’s or Bob Evans, you’re out of luck on this road. But if you don’t mind—”

  Worthy laughed. “Believe it or not, we have Mexican food in Detroit.”

  “I’m not talking about Taco Bell, and I’m not talking about Mexican food. I’m talking about authentic New Me
xican food.”

  In the next town, Sera pulled into a roadside diner. They sat outside under a string of lamps, close enough to the highway to feel the trucks lumbering by. The canyon around them was turning a deep blue in the evening light, like a lake slowing filling up. A teenage girl, her hair as black as Sera’s, came to take their order.

  Worthy sipped on his beer and looked across at Sera as she ordered for both of them. From where he sat, her face was framed on one side by a road sign in Spanish, advertising what Worthy thought was flour, on the other, a tin church steeple from farther down the road. This is her world, he thought, a tiny town where Anglos like me race by in their cars.

  “Okay, you got me to stop for food. So stop stalling,” she whispered. “Why are you so certain Ellie is dead? How do we know that she isn’t hiding in Santa Fe? For all we know, she really did send that letter to her parents last week.” She drew her sweater closer around her and crossed her arms.

  “No, she didn’t. I wish that were true, but we both know it isn’t.”

  She rubbed her arms. “But why are you sure she’s dead?”

  “Reason number one: she disappeared too quickly. She walks away from a city she doesn’t know, without the medicine she desperately needs to even remember her name in the morning, and she leaves no clue?”

  “That’s it?” Sera asked. “Victor must have killed her because we failed to find her? I wouldn’t try that theory out on Cortini. Just in case you haven’t noticed, New Mexico’s a big state. I prefer to believe that Ellie did find Victor, and they’re still hiding out. Victor’s grandmother said Ellie’s mother was doping her with medication. Maybe Victor thinks he’s saving her.” Her gaze bore into Worthy. “And for all we know, maybe he is.”

  “No.”

  “But why? You said that was your number one reason for thinking she’s dead. You have another?”

  Worthy started to answer when a semi roaring through town cut him off. The candle on the table shook, its flame flickering. A toddler at the next table scooted off her chair and ran to bury her head in her mother’s lap.