The Rule of Sebastian

by Shelter Somerset

  Sebastian’s cheeks warmed. Hadn’t they all committed that sin before? “Perhaps he didn’t see you.”

  “Oh, he saw me. Looked right into my eyes. Didn’t even stop. An animal. Even in private, it’s a vile thing to do.”

  The old-fashioned monk took things personally, Sebastian gathered. JC hadn’t even professed an interest in joining the monastery. To hold him up to a staunch conviction seemed unfair. He hadn’t come to them for any purpose they understood. That mystery lay frozen inside him forever. But Sebastian refrained from telling Brother Giles that.

  “So I hadn’t imagined smelling something foul,” Brother Giles went on with a glower. “Disgusting habit. Smoking in his cell. That’s forbidden here. Where did he get cigarettes? That’s what I want to know.”

  Sebastian almost laughed aloud at his blunder. He’d assumed Brother Giles had caught JC in another act. “Did you notice the Virgin Mary figurine in his cell?” he asked, centering on the topic he was most interested in.

  Brother Giles wheeled round to Sebastian and seized his forearm with an uncanny strength, nearly knocking the tray from Sebastian’s hand. “Yes, as a matter of fact. I remember turning my eyes away from him and seeing the Virgin on the wall shelf. I tried to draw strength from her. What a sacrilege. Father Paolo shouldn’t have given it to him. He shouldn’t have. And to think he had dropped it so crassly without any care, chipping her lovely face. The clumsy oaf.” He released Sebastian’s arm and gazed at the floor. “The abbot probably gave him the cigarettes too.”

  An hour later, Sebastian waited for everyone to leave the kitchen with their lunch trays to speak alone with Brother Micah, who stayed behind to tidy up. “Did you find your fillet knife?” he asked him.

  Brother Micah wiped his hands on his scapular. “No, I haven’t.”

  “You thinking of ordering a new one once the winter passes?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll see about it.”

  Sebastian stepped closer to him while he scrubbed the last of the pots and pans. “It’s a shame. Those are valuable utensils. We have little here as it is.”

  “Do you wish for more?” Brother Micah said toward the sudsy water.

  “I’m content, aren’t you?”

  “You’ve known for a while there’s only one thing more that I want here.”

  Blood seared Sebastian’s cheeks. Desperate to deflect one of Brother Micah’s awkward and sudden innuendos, he asked, “How long had it gone missing?”

  “About two weeks.”

  “The Saturday before last?”

  “Maybe. Maybe before that.”

  “But I recall you telling me you’d used it before then.”

  Brother Micah kept his back to Sebastian. “I can’t remember exactly. Now that you mentioned it, I think I lost it later.”

  “Didn’t you say you used it to peel apples for your applesauce?”

  “What is this, the Inquisition?” Brother Micah snickered lightly and softened his voice. “What difference does it make? I searched. I couldn’t find it.”

  “You didn’t mention it to anyone?”

  “And why would I do that? Things get misplaced. I seemed to have lost a few dishtowels lately too. I didn’t think it warranted pulling the alarm.”

  “Did you notice the statuette Father Paolo gave JC is missing too?”

  Brother Micah pivoted his right shoulder to face him, his arms submerged in the soapy water. “He probably threw it away, knowing him. What does that have to do with my fillet knife?”

  “I’m not sure. Do you think there’s a connection?”

  He refocused back to the pots and pans, the lapping of water heavy in the ensuing silence. “I know how this awful ordeal has been trying for all of us,” he said at last. “Please, I’ll help find the killer anyway I can. I really will. You can trust me, Brother Sebastian.”

  Brother Micah unplugged the sink stopper, and Sebastian listened to the water gurgle down the drain. “That’s unselfish of you, Brother Micah. Thank you.”

  He had even less luck with Brother Eusebius. During the afternoon work period, he struck up a conversation with him in the sacristy, hoping to learn something. Brother Eusebius was more closemouthed than in previous times.

  “Have you ever heard of anyone succumbing to cabin fever in your twenty years here, Brother Eusebius?”

  “Cabin fever? No, never. We relish our solitude. That’s why we come.”

  Sebastian’s next direct question about who he suspected might have killed JC led the brother along a strange path, where he began to reflect on his own life and how he’d come to Mt. Ouray. Much of it Sebastian had already learned through the abbey hearsay, which Brother Hubert was the tiller of.

  “My father didn’t speak to me for years after I converted,” Brother Eusebius said toward his now inactive hands. “But after I graduated with my doctorate, he started to see me as someone… well, worthy as he. You know my father was a well-to-do man, once co-chair of the Southern Association of Black Entrepreneurs.”

  Sebastian knew this. Again, the abbey gossip mill had carried the information from mouth to ear. Brother Eusebius had come from a well-to-do African American family of Georgia, long entrenched in education and money, a legacy handed down from his great-great-grandfather, who’d made a fortune in the iron industry after the abolishment of slavery. One of the first black men to run for congress, his headstrong zeal matched Brother Eusebius’s.

  “My father presumed I’d forward the family name, along with its honor,” Brother Eusebius went on, dreamlike. “Before his death, he’d written me a long letter, hoping I might still. I’m his only son, you know.” He sniggered. “Would’ve been worse for him had I turned out homosexual, I suppose. Yet in the end, same result. A son without an heir.”

  And he ceased at the precise point where they’d ended their last in-depth conversation about JC and homosexuality in the Church. Brother Eusebius loathed the idea of it. At least within the confines of the Catholic Church. But he’d acclimated to its indelible presence. Or seemed to have.

  Brother Eusebius said no more. Sebastian refrained from asking him about the statuette. They returned to their beadwork, not another word shared between them until the following work period.

  To Sebastian’s surprise, Brother Jerome became the most combative.

  “Why are you asking all this?” he said in the bathroom, where he’d been brushing his teeth before Retire with slapdash movements. “Are you a detective with the Pinkerton Guards? Why are you harassing me?”

  “Doesn’t it puzzle you, Brother Jerome?” Sebastian stood before him by the sinks, face towel clenched in hand, looking at him in the mirror. Both wore their bathrobes. “Don’t you want closure?”

  “Not as much as you, apparently. I only want to get back to my normal life here. To live as a monk, the way I professed some fifteen years ago. All of you young people today. You cause so much trouble in the world.”

  “I didn’t mean to anger you, Brother Jerome. You know my inquisitiveness can get the best of me at times.”

  Facing Brother Jerome’s taciturn stubbornness, he asked if any of the brothers had come to him seeking medical attention for cuts or bruises following JC’s death. Brother Jerome shook his head.

  “Been quiet in the infirmary, other than… other than that god-awful medical exam you made me do.”

  Sebastian contemplated Brother Jerome’s lined features. JC’s murder had unnerved him and the others more than he would have guessed. The days since, knowing his body was locked in the freezer, had caused Brother Jerome agony, as if he were wrapped and stowed alongside the dead man.

  Brother Jerome gazed into the mirror, his eyes looking as if he saw something beyond their reflections, far from reach. “I’d lost my wife in the prime of our lives,” he said. “She died from cardiac arrest at age forty-three. I have only this place and my three sons, and I only get to see them once a year, at most. I hadn’t come to Mt. Ouray seeking more death.”

  “I�
�m sorry, Brother Jerome.”

  “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.” He gathered up his toiletries and said to Sebastian’s reflection, “This is the first time in many years I’ve wanted to leave here, and I hate that feeling.” And he left with tears billowing behind his eyeglasses.

  The next morning during breakfast, Brother George buried his face in his hands when Sebastian cornered him in the library, where he’d carried his tray, and asked for his thoughts on the murder. “I want it all to go away,” he said.

  “I’m trying to make it go away,” Sebastian reassured him.

  “No, you’re making things worse.” Sobbing, he ran off with his loaded tray before Sebastian had a chance to ask him more.

  The other brothers offered up even more scant information. Brother Hubert, Brother Lucien, Brother Rodel. Even Father Paolo knew nothing of the statuette’s whereabouts or of any other useful scoops.

  Yet he had one last long shot to interview.

  Chapter Fourteen

  SEBASTIAN knocked on the cell door out of protocol, but he knew the aged monk inside could not speak or probably even hear. He hadn’t uttered a word since Sebastian had lived under the abbey’s roof. Brother Jerome had once told him he’d stopped speaking about fifteen years ago. A series of strokes had stolen his speech, along with his ability to do much of anything for himself.

  He cracked open the door, peeked inside. Could be his own cell. Same white stucco walls, same cheap oak desk, same single window, same twin bed, same lonely shelves where most of the brothers placed the ceramic Virgin Mary and a host of other knickknacks. Brother Augustine sat in his wheelchair by the desk, his back to him. Sebastian heard his labored breathing, the only indication he lived. Sebastian announced himself and opened the door wider. He set the lunch tray on the desk and smiled at him, trying his best to do what Brother George had done for many years—provide Brother Augustine with the utmost humane treatment possible, although the abbey’s eldest brother had no more understanding of a smile than he did a frown, Sebastian supposed.

  Brother George had acted skeptical when Sebastian had offered to carry Brother Augustine’s lunch to him. A few minutes of convincing and he’d eventually assented. Brother George, an old-fashioned monk entrenched in tradition and with an instinct to serve and nurture, had looked lost when Sebastian had taken the tray from his chubby hands and left him staring at the kitchen’s tiled floor.

  More than a drive to serve his fellow brother compelled Sebastian to meet with Brother Augustine. He’d already interrogated the other monks in the monastery. Several days had passed since those failed attempts, and he’d finally rallied the gumption to try his last, vain hope.

  Glaucoma-riddled eyes stared at Sebastian while he tucked the napkin into the collar of his cowl. Frail and thin, Brother Augustine’s Trappist garment cloaked his body like a tarp over a toddler’s abandoned tricycle. Brother George still dressed him each morning (he’d found dressing him in the cowl easier than the more tight-fitting tunic and scapular), though few eyes ever saw the eighty-seven-year-old outside his cell.

  They’d stopped wheeling him to the chapel for the seven stations and Mass three summers ago, when they’d assumed he’d lost his sight and hearing. Father Paolo always made sure to bring him the sacraments each day. In warmer weather they’d sometimes leave him out front to enjoy the gentle breezes flowing off the surrounding mountains, bringing with them the scents of wild honeysuckle and roses. He seemed to luxuriate in the relentless summer sunshine, which radiated off his bone-white skin.

  On special occasions they’d wheel him into the chapel so that he might not be left out of the chanting or the infrequent solo concerts Father Paolo provided when he wished to play his cello for the brothers or retreat guests. Last Christmas Mass, Casey and Brother Eusebius had accompanied him on flute and their small spinet piano. They’d played “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “The First Noel,” and a few more holiday favorites. A special treat for their ears. None of them knew for sure if Brother Augustine could hear to appreciate it.

  After his first two strokes, the abbey had placed Brother Augustine in a nursing home for round-the-clock care. One or two of the brothers had visited their esteemed brother, bringing him flowers from their gardens to brighten his bedside. A few months later, they’d brought him back to Mt. Ouray when they’d concluded they might provide him better care than the nuns at the cash-strapped nursing home.

  Sebastian sat in the desk chair next to Brother Augustine and lifted a shaky spoon to his chapped lips. “Here you go. Take this now.” The brother instinctively slurped in the corn mash. Moist crumbs fell onto his lap. Unaccustomed to feeding anyone but himself, Sebastian scooped the crumbs into Brother Augustine’s mouth like he might feeding a baby.

  Brother George had opened the window blinds when he’d fed Brother Augustine breakfast, and Sebastian gazed out the window while Brother Augustine chewed and swallowed. Another blizzard raged onto Mt. Ouray as the gray sky shadowed the grounds. Winds stronger than those from the past few weeks shook the windowpane. The contracting air squeezed Sebastian’s head into a pressure cooker. He wondered if the storms ever bothered Brother Augustine.

  His mouth trembled, as if pleading for more of the fleshless food. Sebastian turned back to him with a spoonful of cheddar cheese crumbs, aged in their cellar. Next he lifted the mug of powdered milk to his mouth. The aged brother wrapped his dry lips around the straw, his head shaking with what doctors had diagnosed as vascular Parkinson’s. He took several pills per day, including levodopa, a drug Sebastian knew too well, since his grandfather had suffered from the same disease. White liquid barely filled the straw. Sebastian set the milk aside. He fed him more of the corn mash, cheese, and applesauce and wiped his mouth.

  He wished the old man might speak. What stories must he hoard about his fifty years at the abbey, almost as old as the abbey itself. Did he possess the secrets to a happy life? What was it like to be sealed tighter than a safe without the means to communicate? Had he experienced “the Dalakis Curse”? Did he ever transgress?

  In his younger days, had he come close to loving a fellow monk in the same way Sebastian imagined he did Casey?

  He peered to his right at the wall shelf where Brother Augustine’s Virgin Mary figurine sat. Father Paolo had started the tradition of gifting each of the monks with the statuette soon after his rise from prior to full abbot, according to Brother Hubert. Tall and solid, made in China, the icon exuded a celebrity-like fascination for men of the Church, often the sole female—representational or otherwise—in the lives of monks and priests. A mother figure for some. A lover for others. The perfect veneration of unsoiled purity. The Second Vatican Council hadn’t budged on that issue. Blessed Mary, leaving the Messiah without siblings, had lived and died a virgin.

  The statuette appeared to be winking at Sebastian. A small chip on the side of the face had taken out the right eye. The missing statuette from JC’s cell had something to do with his murder, Sebastian was sure. He’d asked everyone about it. They only knew that the father had given it to him, but hadn’t seen it since the last time they’d laid eyes on it at some point before his death. Each of them had expressed disapproval for the father’s actions. Had the statuette caused one of them enough angst that it had become a motive for murder?

  He rested his hands, allowed a moment for Brother Augustine to digest his food. Outside, the winds rumbled. He walked to the window, near forgetting Brother Augustine. He peered out to where the long stone walkway from the parking lot led to their front door, now buried under at least three feet of snow. He could still see the groove marks left in the snow where they’d partially dragged JC’s body to the barn after Terce.

  Father Paolo had demanded they store the body in the barn after the second botched autopsy that Sebastian had managed to wheedle out of the abbot—and Brother Jerome. Sebastian still smarted over the lack of evidence retrieved, especially since he’d butted heads with the abbot to take JC’s body fr
om the freezer and lay it out in the infirmary for another examination.

  The body, spread out on the plastic-covered cot, appeared dreamlike to him. Brother Jerome had shaken while they’d reexamined him. Sebastian had gotten used to the half-closed eyes. Despite the tissue damage (reticular epidermal burn as a result of hypovolemia) JC was still stunning, in a way. His skin had darkened. Preserved in everlasting, youthful beauty. But not even the smallest imbedded piece from the figurine showed up. Samples under a magnifying glass gave scant help.

  Then, to have to haul the corpse to the barn along with Brother Eusebius…. Sebastian had felt as if he were the one guilty of JC’s murder. The absurdity of it seemed to have grabbed him like the snow under their slogging boots. He relived the awkward moment when they’d dropped the body in the cumbersome snow and wind and had finally dragged it the remainder of the way to the barn.

  Worst still, he sensed Father Paolo wanted him to pull back on the investigation. “Intelligent men know when to quit,” he’d said right after they’d reported to him they had secured JC in the barn behind the sacks of grass seed, as the father had requested. The father was sounding more and more like Sebastian’s former police captain. “Let it stew,” his old supervisor would tell him under similar situations. But Sebastian didn’t feel like letting the investigation stew. He needed to uncover at least one concrete lead. Something to satiate his curiosity. For his sake as well as JC’s and the abbey’s.

  The windowpane revealed Sebastian’s knitted eyebrows. Behind him, Brother Augustine’s head slouched to one side as if he was napping. Was it possible? A few of the brothers, including Sebastian, had been studying lectio divina in their cells the day Casey had spied JC from the library window. None of them noticed anyone hiking up to the abbey the few times they’d glanced outside. What could we see in the snowstorm, anyway? Might Brother Augustine have seen anything? Was it possible he wasn’t blind after all? Perhaps he’d witnessed JC’s murder too?