Heinous Habits!

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “From the sale of herbs and other fresh produce you sell to the resort?” I asked as we stepped through the gate.

  “Yes. We also raise honeybees and sell the honey, make bread and other bakery products. In addition to the gardens, we have a few livestock that supply us with milk, butter, and eggs. Our sanctuary is a working farm as well as a monastery.”

  “Wow, that has to be hard. When do you have time to chant and pray and do that monk stuff?”

  Brother Thaddeus laughed. “It is a challenge at times, Brien.” He kept speaking as he locked those gates behind us. “We can pray anywhere, anytime, but we do have a routine we follow to mark the passing of the hours with prayer around the clock. Except for those prayers, we don’t all do everything that’s required to carry out all our projects. I’m not involved in the beekeeping and don’t have much to do with the care of the animals. I do have a bit of a green thumb, so I’m useful in the gardens. I’m handy when it comes to fixing things, too.”

  “Is that how you got pulled into cleaning up after the fire?” I asked.

  “Yes. Although I also have my own reasons for making sure I understand what happened here today. This has been a challenging day.”

  “Not how you expected the day to go?” I made eye contact with Brien hoping he’d let go of that premonition business.

  “No. One of those days when the unexpected happens. We do what most anyone does under such circumstances—punt! We canceled an all-day retreat scheduled for tomorrow. Since we weren’t sure what was going on, we didn’t want half a dozen guests arriving later this afternoon to find us battling flames.” Brother Thaddeus began moving down the driveway inside the gates toward the Visitor Center.

  “Guests stay here at the monastery?” I asked.

  “Yes. In the Visitor Center, we have guest rooms, meeting rooms, and a small chapel, as well as a large kitchen where we do all our baking and prepare meals for our guests when we hold retreats. A big workroom, too, where we clean and package all the produce for distribution—not just to the resort but several other shops and restaurants in the area.”

  “Uh, so when are you silent?” Brien asked that question. I’m not sure what would be harder for Brien if he had to live as a monk—celibacy, fasting, or silence.

  “That’s a great question! We’re Benedictines and have vows we keep, but silence isn’t one of them. The Rule of St. Benedict requires us to earn our living by the work of our hands. That work requires some communication to coordinate our efforts. We do have rules about remaining quiet when we’re in the cloistered areas. Those are in the quadrangle of buildings set apart from the Visitor Center.”

  “Like the quad on a college campus?” I had heard somewhere that many colleges borrowed elements of the architecture used in monastic communities.

  “Similar, yes. Four wings of buildings that surround an open garden area in the center. Each wing has two floors. On the ground level is the chapel, where we pray. Adjacent to that is the ‘Chapter Room’ where we gather to listen to our Abbot's spiritual teaching. Opposite the chapel, is the ‘Refectory.’ That's a big room with long tables where we gather for our meals. You passed through the quadrangle when we brought you out of the old monastery ruins on New Year's Eve.”

  “I only vaguely remember buildings. My most vivid memories are of the gardens. Enchanted gardens where angels were singing.” We continued to follow Brother Thaddeus to the point where a road headed off to our left led to the parking lot in front of the Visitor Center. He paused for a moment to comment on my observation about the gardens.

  “Enchanted is a good way to describe those gardens—with or without chanting. I’m usually in the chapel singing with the angels, so I don’t often experience it as you did, Kim.” A brief smile returned to his face before a more serious expression replaced it. Brother Thaddeus was a polite and patient man, but he was worried.

  “And don’t forget about a path that went around in circles, Kim. That was really interesting.”

  “You mean the labyrinth. It’s a walking meditation, a pathway of prayer where you free your mind and go to meet the Spirit. It has only one path that leads from the outer edge in a circuitous way to the center. There are no tricks to it, and no dead ends. Unlike a maze where you lose your way, a labyrinth is a spiritual tool that can help you find your way. I’m happy to tell you more about it when we’ve put more disturbing matters to rest.”

  “Sure, that would be cool.” Brien's sincerity was touching. All that talk about spiritual practices had settled into my brain not far from the skepticism I feel about ESP and premonitions. Brien’s openness is always so inviting. I smiled imagining myself walking in circles at his side as he explored that labyrinth. The things you’ll do for love!

  “The gardens are meant to be peaceful, quiet settings for prayer and reflection. We don’t have to go through there today to get to the ruins. Since you had that trouble on New Year’s Eve, we expanded a pathway running alongside one wing of the quadrangle. That’s the route the police took back in January to collect the evidence you discovered in the caves. Fire personnel used it today.”

  “Not quiet and peaceful today, huh?” I asked.

  “No. I want to show you what I found in those ruins, in addition to the marine GPS device I sent you. It won’t be as easy to do, as it would have been before the fire today. I believe you can still see enough for me to explain my concerns about the nature of a problem we're having in the caves. After that, we’ll have a bit of refreshment in the Visitor Center where I have some items to give to you to take to your detective friend.”

  Brien and I glanced at each other. I was eager to learn what it was that Brother Thaddeus had to show us, especially what he believed Mitchum would find interesting. The police must have been here today. Why hadn’t he just handed it over to one of the officers? I’d save the questions.

  “Show us the way.” Brother Thaddeus then set off at a brisk pace down an unpaved path toward the quadrangle of buildings he had described for us. The path became wetter and muddier as we moved along behind the wing of monastery buildings. I could tell people had recently used the path we followed.

  It wasn’t wide enough to accommodate a fire truck or other vehicles. Marks from the tread of narrow wheels and ruts in the mud indicated someone had dragged heavy equipment through there. Maybe a fire hose had been hauled in and hooked up to a water line nearby. There must be an irrigation system for trees in the orchard that had appeared off to the right of the path we trod. The trees in that orchard were beginning to display tiny pink blossoms. A sweet fragrance wafted our way.

  “Apples?” I asked.

  “Yes. The season is just beginning. We'll make delicious pies and cider in the fall. Well worth the wait.”

  I sucked in a deep breath when those old monastery ruins came into sight. One wing still stood. A massive wooden door with iron fixtures loomed ahead of us. It seemed as sturdy as it had been the day Brien, Mick, and I had tried to open it and make our escape.

  “That door is as impressive as it was the first time I saw it. It doesn’t look like that’s what burned today. Is there damage on the inside that we can’t see from here?”

  “No. You’re right, Brien, that door is a masterpiece. It was well fortified, and the monks who built the first monastery on these grounds sought safety behind it. They made those old structures to abut the cliffs and the caves, as you learned when you fled those caves and found yourselves in the corridor of cells that used to house monks. The fire, today, was in a room in the second corridor. That's the one you found blocked when you ran past it.”

  “That’s where I left Krugerrands to mislead the stooges who were hot on our heels, right?”

  “That’s correct. We had blocked that opening on purpose. Previous fires burned that wing of the old monastery. It hadn't collapsed entirely, but there was so much damage that we didn't want anyone in there. As you can see, after the fire today, the outer wall collapsed; that corridor’s wide open now. S
everal large timber logs that supported the roof fell too.”

  “I don’t see a bunch of doors like the ones in that hallway behind the big door,” Brien noted.

  “No, there were only a few large rooms in this wing. You can see the remnants of an old kitchen. Next to that was a room that must have served as a dining area and meeting room. You can see what's left of what was once a large, communal dining table," Brother Thaddeus said. “Watch your step. I’ve been using our little backhoe to pull out the fallen timbers. We might be able to reuse those or sell them since the fire was out by the time the structure collapsed and the roof fell. Vintage wooden beams like those sell well at salvage sales.”

  Brien and I followed him into the wreckage, taking care to follow in Brother Thaddeus’ footsteps as he led us toward the back wall at the far end of the space. At that end, the room pressed up against an outcropping of the stone cliffs.

  “Before the grounds were enclosed as they are now, backing up to those cliffs was smart. It meant one less perimeter to guard. The caves were useful places to store goods—much less vulnerable to temperature shifts than storing items above ground before the advent of heating and cooling.”

  “What about that abandoned altar we saw down there?”

  “That was a chapel. The earliest monks who arrived here were more like hermits, using the caves for shelter before they built any structures. That chamber was big enough for the monks to meet and pray, although they also cut into the rock to give the room its more symmetrical shape. The caves were more easily defended than these spaces up here above ground. Plus, there was a back door out of there. Several of them, in fact. That route you all took into the cave system from an opening in the cliffs near Sanctuary Grove was an escape route used by the monks. The whole cave system is riddled with ‘priest holes’ that the monks could use to hide in even if they couldn't escape.”

  “Priest holes? Like the hideouts priests used during the Reformation in England?” Always a font of surprising facts, like that earlier discussion he had with Bede about bat guano and gunpowder, Brien was intrigued.

  “Yes. The monks who first arrived on this site didn’t always feel as welcome as we do now.”

  “Because of those pirates?” I asked relying on the little bit of history about the area that I’d learned.

  “Not just pirates, but native people who didn’t immediately welcome newcomers. Especially after information about the European advance through South and Central America reached this area. There's not much information about who these monks were or exactly when they arrived. The Church in Rome has no record of missionaries settling here ahead of Father Serra, but they were Spanish-speaking and predated his arrival by years. There was so much turbulence in this whole region once Europeans arrived, that it’s not all that surprising we've lost much of our history. We've had help piecing the past together, but there's still much more to learn. That professor friend of yours has offered to work on it.”

  Who’s that? I wondered as Brien and Brother Thaddeus continued to talk. We had suggested Mitchum get someone from a university in Santa Cruz or San Francisco to check out the items we had found in the caves that might have historical value. Maybe that’s what had happened. Mitchum’s friend, not ours! Anyone who wanted to examine what we found in those caves would have had to contact someone at the monastery to get permission to snoop around down there. That didn’t explain how our names had come up rather than Mitchum's. Brien asked a question before I could.

  “Uh, the conquistadors had their hands full, huh?”

  “That’s for sure. Not just uprisings among the native people. There was fighting between governments vying for control. Factions within the Church got caught up in the power struggles between Portugal and Spain. Father Serra’s campaign to establish missions in what’s now California occurred after the earlier Jesuit missionaries were expelled from Mexico. Still, the Spanish government wasn’t always happy about the Catholic Church’s ambitions for the New World. The hacienda owner who eventually bequeathed this land to our monastic community was mistrustful and even outright hostile toward the monks at first.”

  “That’s like what’s going on now with the surfers in Sanctuary Grove.”

  “There are similarities. Unfortunately, in the early history of our community, not all the trouble that went on here was with outsiders. The men who came here brought the Church’s internal struggles with them. At least some of the monks who initially settled here may have held heretical beliefs or developed them soon after they arrived. Several were eventually cast out. That didn’t go well. I’m afraid some of the antagonism toward our community, early on, may have been earned.”

  “Is that where those legends of ‘mad monks’ originated?”

  “It must be, but it’s not a subject that gets discussed openly even now. I probably would have left it alone, too, except for recent events. What bothers me most is the possibility that poking around into the past has stirred up new problems. The Fire Marshal hasn’t completed his investigation, but it appears someone set today's fire.”

  “Arson?”

  10 Opie’s Ghost

  “Yes, arson. It took some effort to get these old ruins to burn. Someone brought up some of those old barrels you saw stored in the caves. The arsonist used them as kindling and to concentrate the fire in a specific spot. The location of the fire is another reason I fear I may have instigated today’s trouble. Come with me, and I’ll show you why.”

  From where we stood on old, battered tile floors, I could see the point at which we had taken that other fork in the road, so to speak, and had run down the unblocked hallway that eventually led to that massive door and our rescue. Rubble that had blocked the way into this space was still piled near the opening, but not as much as when we had passed by on New Year’s Eve while running for our lives. The odor of fire and wet burned wood was so strong where we stood that I could no longer detect the pleasant scent of those apple blossoms.

  “It could be the power of suggestion about arson, but I smell gasoline.”

  “You’re right, Kim. Whoever did this used gasoline to start the fire.”

  “Did someone unblock the corridor to get those barrels in here?”

  “No, I cleared the entrance to this area. After your trouble, when we discovered that your dead friend and others had used the caves for illegal activity, we decided to investigate ways to block access to the monastery grounds from those caves. There’s a lot of sentiment attached to the old ruins, as I said. They’re a visible part of our history when so much remains hidden. We never considered that those old escape routes might make us vulnerable. If men like those who pursued you had reached that door as you did, they might have been able to break through and make their way onto our monastery grounds.”

  “Is that what happened? Someone came in here after you opened up that entrance to this corridor?”

  “No. Some of those barrels were already in here before the fire. They were empty, so I’m not sure why they were in here. I found that GPS device in here the first time I had moved enough of the stone from that opening to get in here. It was sitting on that wooden dining table alongside a few gold Krugerrands like the ones you found. I have those for you to take to the police. Given their value, I didn’t feel comfortable sending them to you by courier.”

  “Wow! Opie was here, too! That dude made himself at home, didn’t he?”

  “From what you’ve said about the contraband he hid in other parts of the cave system, I’d have to agree.”

  “Yeah, but I wonder how the GPS device and only a handful of Krugerrands ended up in here. Why separate them like that?”

  “Maybe he was just messy. The guy wasn’t always too careful, you know?”

  “True, Brien. I guess it’s also possible someone else found them and moved them in here. Maybe we interfered before the rest of the gold coins could be moved when we found that barrel full of them and turned them over to the police. We accidentally found them in that barrel.
If they only found a few and weren’t sure which barrel the coins were in that might explain why someone had started hauling them up here before an arsonist used them as firewood.”

  “If that entrance into this area was blocked until you reopened it, Brother Thaddeus, how did Opie or anyone else get in here?”

  “In addition to the GPS device I sent to you and the gold coins, I found a couple of other items. I’ll give those to you, but let me show you something else before we go to the Visitor Center. That will answer your question, Brien. Given how the arsonist set the fire, I’m almost certain the intention was to block another exit out of here.” He moved a few feet, and we followed him. “I have been careful not to touch anything in this area until the arson investigation is complete. You can still see remnants of wooden supports that someone had built into the passageway leading out of here and into the caves. Those structures look like the ones used in old mines to support the roofs. Before the fire, you wouldn't have seen this opening. I didn’t see it at first because an old cupboard was sitting in front of it.”

  “If that was another escape route for the monks, concealing it would have made good sense,” I commented.

  “Yes, but someone knew about it. That’s how I found it and why I’m sure that your friend, Opie, wasn’t the only one who’s been in here. One afternoon, I noticed that cupboard was out of place. Maybe when I came in here that day, I startled an intruder who left quickly before moving it back into place correctly.”

  "That intruder must have noticed you removed those objects from that dining table. Maybe he or she left that cupboard ajar because it was no longer safe to return here. Why bother to hide that opening?"

  “Unless it was Opie’s ghost.” Despite my deep skepticism, I got the willies. I’m no more a believer in ghosts than I am in ESP but the whole day had been so creepy.