The Rule of Sebastian

by Shelter Somerset

  When the father finished talking and dropped his eyes on him with an odd leer, Casey sat numb. Speechless. Holding his breath. He feared moving even his fingers, which still gripped the fabric-covered armrests, for that would mean that he wasn’t trapped in a horrible nightmare. One move, one miniscule flinch, the release of a single breath, and that would prove he was wide awake, and everything the abbot had uttered was real.

  Father Paolo excused him. Somehow Casey managed to pull himself from the chair and nod a salutation to the abbot. Outside the private office, he scurried past Brother Lucien, who he could sense stared after him. He headed directly for his cell without wanting to notice any of the brothers shuffling through the corridors. He even brushed off Sebastian’s reaching out to hold him back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  SEBASTIAN sat on his bed, pondering. Regardless of Father Paolo’s latest order to end the investigation, JC’s murder continued to stump him. Weak agglomerations of events and suspicions led him nowhere closer to the truth than that first night when Delores had sniffed out JC’s body inside the walk-in freezer. Sebastian deduced the attack hadn’t stemmed from an intimate rage. If that were so, the killer would have bludgeoned JC numerous times, rather than once. Unlikely that JC had become lovers with any of the brothers, although he was unsure how far his relationship with Father Paolo had gone. Whoever had struck JC had done so in a singular flash of fury. An anger mounted from fear, envy, and perhaps delusions.

  Puerto Rico. He realized JC most likely was Puerto Rican, or at least partly. During their interviews, JC had used several Spanish slang words known within the Puerto Rican community, and his manner was familiar to Sebastian. Many people from the Caribbean island lived in his former Philadelphia neighborhood and had worked by his side at the PPD. In fact, Philadelphia comprised the second largest Puerto Rican community in the continental United States after New York City, reaffirming what Sebastian had suspected when he’d first listened to JC speak after he’d awakened from unconsciousness. JC and he came from the same city.

  Strange coincidence. But Philadelphia had a large exodus rate. He’d run into ex-Philadelphians often, of every ethnicity and race. Even a few cottage guests the past few years had once called Philadelphia home.

  But how did any of that factor into JC’s death?

  Sebastian examined the two mysterious objects in his palms: the buckle and zipper he’d found nestled among the debris in the incinerator. The zipper, gnarled and brittle to his touch, nearly crumbled in his hand. He laid that aside and turned over the buckle, hoping different angles might reveal its secrets.

  He shook his head and returned the objects to the plastic bag where he stored them in his chest. Worthless. Without proper forensic tools, he could gain little knowledge from them. But his instincts told him they had once belonged to JC’s knapsack and coat.

  More than ever he wanted to tear apart each of the brother’s cells, dig and dig until he unearthed the missing link. The one shred of evidence that would crack the riddle. Who cared if the courts declared whatever he found inadmissible as evidence? At least he’d know. How was he to get a search warrant nine thousand feet in the Rockies in the dead of winter, anyway? Especially on top of the abbot’s latest stubbornness?

  They were at lectio divina. Eerie silence penetrated the corridors. His toes edged toward the threshold to JC’s former cell. His room had offered up no clues other than the missing Virgin Mary statuette. It was the other cells he wanted to turn upside down.

  He peered into the one cell with the door left open. Brother Jerome sat at his desk, reading Scripture. He hadn’t noticed Sebastian peering in. Or he no longer worried if he did. A chilled calm had descended over the abbey the past week. Rumors must have already circulated about the father’s directive, bringing with it a tacit acceptance that the investigation into JC’s slaying had run its course. Case closed.

  But not for Sebastian. Apart from the father’s demands or Brother Rodel’s cryptic warning, he intended to see the case to the end. He refused to sit on a cold case for what might be the remainder of his life.

  Frustrated, he found himself standing inside the administrative office. It lay empty, silent. Father Paolo and Brother Lucien were straightening up the chapter house for the dignitaries scheduled to visit the abbey soon after the final snowmelt. A wash of nostalgia for his old twenty-fifth district sucked breath out of him. He could almost hear the ding of computers, the relentless phone ringing, the incessant chatter, followed by the cry for political favors and cover-ups and the inability to accomplish anything due to the barrage of external and internal pressures.

  Years ago, police work had turned into a kaleidoscope of appearances. He’d sensed its dismal evolution as a rookie. The dictates that flowed from a power base that exuded tentacles wider than a man-of-war’s. From the mayor, trickled down to the district captains, underlined by a media obsessed with self-styled vendettas and a gullible public hungry for suffering. And now even Washington inserted its will in local policing. Politics saturated them.

  The last decree had ended Sebastian’s career. Once the local media had unleashed the headlines and sound bites, there was no turning back. In a world of instant information, culpability superseded innocence. A sacrificial lamb offered for the communal guilt trip, too tasty to pass up.

  He’d fought for his reputation, but he knew from the first round he was a goner.

  Sebastian still could see the whites of the man’s eyes, rain saturating them while he stood over him, staring in disbelief. He hadn’t meant to do it. But the entrenched power structure cared little about truth.

  No one could beat the forces behind a power that literally razed cities, stirred riots, lost or won wars, caused suicides, and even led people to murder.

  It took on a reality of its own. A cult-like presence that people had given up questioning generations ago. A powerless submission to image, manipulation, and a perplexing world encapsulated into bite-sized morsels. The hunger for a vague social justice that left men’s brains battered. And the public opened its mouth like chicks waiting for their mothers to regurgitate into their throats.

  Sebastian had been one of the meals.

  Served up for ratings, sales, emotionalism, and radical ideology that had transformed into a new religion, complete with sensational dragons to slay and glorious iconoclasts to worship.

  The Pilgrims, fleeing from the Catholic Church’s clutch on Europe, had traveled five thousand miles on rickety ships to reach a world they’d never stepped foot on, full of fears, sickness, and uncertainty. Five hundred years later, Sebastian had escaped the Church’s modern equivalent. Leviticus in the hands of secular tyrants greedy for contemporary witch hunts. He had hoped to find his refuge high in the Rocky Mountains behind the walls of Mt. Ouray.

  In a way, he’d succeeded. Casey brought him a newfound joy he’d assumed he’d never find again. And despite JC’s murder, even that, from an investigative end, thrilled Sebastian. He could not deny his instincts to uncover and sniff and dig. The detective lurked inside him, possessed his spirit. No priest could exorcise that demon. But the abbey’s bureaucratic power structure proved almost as elaborate as the one he’d left behind.

  Inside the abbey, Sebastian’s desire to find JC’s killer stemmed from love as much as hatred. Indeed, Sebastian had grown to love his fellow monks—even Father Paolo, in a way. They lived closer than any family. They prayed together, worked together, took their dinners together. They recognized each other’s scents. Finding out who had murdered JC was as much for them as it was for him. Underneath it all, Sebastian held the potential to save a man’s soul.

  The light on the abbey phone’s answering machine blinked red. Spring had already fallen over most of the country. People were stirring. Interested postulants and guests were filling the machine with inquiries into reservations and vocations.

  Sebastian’s heart thumped with a dizzying urgency. He needed to solve the crime. One way or the other. He refused to l
et the powers—whether they lingered inside or outside the abbey—control him. He sensed the investigation slipping from his hands. He must hold onto it, grapple with it until each speck and crumb lined up in a semblance of order.

  He considered for a moment telephoning the police. Not to report the crime—he couldn’t have that. This was his case. But to fish around for general information on missing persons or psychotics known to pose as clergy. Perhaps contact his old cronies in Philadelphia. Someone who might understand his predicament. But who?

  He’d left Philadelphia like a shamed hound, his tail between his legs. Even his best friends from the force had refused eye contact with him his last day, siding instead with caution. The old saying, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” never resonated louder than inside police departments.

  One colleague had found the courage to speak to him in the parking lot while Sebastian carried the last of his belongings to his van. Bart had gestured for him to step behind a pickup truck. “We can’t fight it,” he’d stated after ensuring no one saw them. “It’s at the point we can’t even speak our minds in private anymore. The other night at the dinner table I found myself whispering to my wife about everything that’s been going on. That’s how terrified they have us.” Bart’s words, barely audible above the chilly breeze coming off Lighthouse Field across the street, had left goose pimples on Sebastian’s arms.

  With a long sigh, he left the administrative office determined to solve JC’s murder. During the Eucharist and Terce, Sebastian watched his brothers more intently. They had fallen back into their old postures. JC’s death was fading from their perceptions. Soon, he feared, the events would connote nothing more real than the absurd Dalakis Curse.

  He rested his eyes on Casey. He sat two brothers away, not next to him as usual. He was avoiding him again. Averting his eyes, which seemed moist and red most of the time, as if Casey spent his alone time crying. The one time Sebastian had tried to reach out to him and ask what ailed him, he’d wrenched from his hand and rushed off without a glance back.

  Had Sebastian done or said something to disturb him?

  Casey’s red eyes fixed on his psalmody, and his voice rose stronger, with an angry energy. Even Brother Jerome beside him must have taken notice. He’d flashed him a quizzical glare, turned up his nose, and tweaked his shoulders.

  Throughout the day Sebastian tried to find him alone, but whenever they had the chance, Casey chose to wrap himself in frivolous work or stand among the brothers so that they couldn’t speak freely.

  Resolved to reach the bottom of something, at least, Sebastian cornered Casey in his cell after Vespers. He entered without knocking.

  Casey, lounging on top of his bed, raised his eyes from the pages of a book. “Sebastian….”

  “How are you, Casey?”

  “I… I was just reading Alban Butler.”

  “Lives of the Saints. Good book.”

  Casey closed the cover and sat upright. “How is the investigating going? Are you getting any closer to solving it?”

  A heavy sigh escaped Sebastian’s mouth. “I’m more concerned with another matter at the moment.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m curious why you’ve been so evasive and despondent.”

  Casey looked contemplatively at the floor. “It’s nothing, really.”

  His downcast eyes suggested something more. Sebastian pressed him. Finally, Casey returned his gaze.

  “What would you do if I left the abbey?” Casey said.

  Sebastian remained silent. Difficult to imagine life at Mt. Ouray without Casey. But then, it was difficult to imagine life at the abbey with him. They were supposed to be celibate. How might he imagine taking a vow of celibacy with Casey always so near? Both of them, young and vital, harbored an earthy practicality that oftentimes demanded a sexual release.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Life has changed here a lot the past few months. I’m unsure what I want or what I’d do. Why do you ask such a thing?”

  “Sebastian,” he whispered, “Father Paolo is sending me away.”

  “What?”

  “As soon as the forest service opens the road, at the end of April.”

  “That’s only a month away. Where to? What were his reasons?”

  “There’s a monastery in Vermont. Father Paolo said the Church requested a shuffling of younger novices there. The average age of the monks there is over sixty. They need healthier novices to care for the elders and run the facility. It’s dying.”

  “And what did you say?”

  “Nothing. I was stunned. I sat and listened. He said that it was out of his hands.”

  Sebastian grew indignant. “That’s not fair. Why not take Brother Rodel?” He hated saying those last words the second he caught the shock in Casey’s brown eyes. Then it faded into a gentle glint from the overhead light, and a shadow of a smile appeared. He’d stated what he’d meant, and Casey did not judge him. Perhaps he admired Sebastian all the more.

  “He thinks I did it, doesn’t he?” Casey said to Sebastian. “He thinks I killed JC.”

  “That couldn’t be the reason. Why would you say such a thing? Don’t worry over something so silly.”

  “What if I’m right? That’s why he wants you to stop the investigation at the same time he’s sending me off.”

  “How does the abbot know any of us didn’t do it? Me even?”

  “He asked you to investigate. Besides, you liked JC. You wanted to help him. We all noticed. Everyone could tell I didn’t like him.”

  “All the brothers found fault with JC.”

  “Brother Micah might have hated him more than me,” Casey said almost to himself, “but he was the only one.”

  “The abbot doesn’t suspect you of murder.” Sebastian nudged closer to him. “It’s not uncommon to move younger monks to struggling monasteries.”

  “And ours isn’t?”

  Sebastian stood planted before Casey. He wanted to squat and take Casey’s head in his hands and utter reassurances. Not only was the case slipping from his hands, but so was Casey Galvan.

  Casey lifted his head and inhaled. “Then maybe the father is seeking revenge,” he said. “I rejected his advances once, and he’s finally enjoying his retaliation after all these months. That’s it, you think?”

  Sebastian caught his breath. He’d guessed the father had tried to seduce Casey, the way he had with JC and most likely Brother Rodel. For a moment, relief pushed aside the dread of Casey’s leaving. Casey hadn’t succumbed to the abbot’s advances after all.

  “Don’t allow this to turn you bitter,” he said in a soothing voice, his arms stiff by his sides. “Everything will be okay. You can’t take his sending you away to mean some kind of reprimand or indictment.”

  “Maybe he’s the one who did it. He killed JC and wants to conceal the truth. He’s worried I learned something when I went snooping on the computer. He’s punishing me for… for being your secondary. He’s guilty and jealous and all those horrible things.” Casey’s gaze dropped to the floor.

  “Let’s not worry about his motives right now. We’ll think of a way to keep you here.”

  Sitting firmer, Casey eyed Sebastian. “Do you think we can?”

  “Spring is a while off. There’s enough time to figure out a plan.”

  Casey cocked his head and looked directly into Sebastian’s eyes. “I don’t want to leave here.”

  “I don’t want you to leave here either, Casey.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  STANDING before Father Paolo’s mahogany desk, Sebastian waited for the abbot to finish writing in a notepad and offer him one of the Bergère chairs, as he normally would. Palm smudges on his eyeglasses suggested he’d been thinking hard on matters and would be in no mood for another confrontation. But Sebastian refused to sit back on the issue any longer.

  Impatient for the abbot to acknowledge him, he uttered, “Why must you send him away?”

  For the first time si
nce he’d stepped inside the office, Father Paolo peered over the wire frames of his eyeglasses at Sebastian. He sighed heavily. “Sit, Brother Sebastian.”

  Sebastian flashed back to when he’d stood in his captain’s office, leaning into his desk as he’d confronted Reems. Many times they’d butted heads. With JC’s murder investigation in full force, there was scant difference between Captain Terry Reems and Father Paolo Cabral.

  Seated, Sebastian repeated his question and punctuated it before the abbot had a chance to respond with, “He hasn’t even professed his vows; he’s not a full monk.”

  “It’s what the bishop wants.” The abbot pushed the notepad aside with another lengthy sigh. “He e-mailed me last week asking for young monks. What was I to tell him? I’m sure Casey will preserve just as well in Vermont as he would have here.”

  “Couldn’t you have suggested he look at another monastery?”

  “And why would I have done that?”

  “We barely have enough young men here now,” Sebastian said. “E-mail him back, or better yet, call. Tell him the brothers here are getting older and older, like at the abbey in Vermont. Brother Augustine needs full-time attention. He can’t even feed himself. It’s only a matter of time before Brother Jerome’s arthritis forces him into a wheelchair full time like Brother Giles’s gout has. We’ll need younger monks to attend to their needs. Brother George can’t be expected to do it all.”

  “I agree with you more than you realize, Brother Sebastian, but the bishop asked who among my younger charges would make the smoothest transition, and I simply told him. Why do you care where Brother Casey goes?”

  “He’s only just gotten here,” Sebastian said. “Give him a chance.”

  Father Paolo peered at Sebastian over the bridge of his nose. “You’ve become mighty bold, Brother Sebastian. I feel that I’m partly responsible. I’ve unleashed the sergeant inside you. Shall I refresh your memory of where you reside and who’s in charge? Mt. Ouray is not your old precinct in Philadelphia.”