The Man Who Murdered God

by John Lawrence Reynolds

  McGuire and Lipson exchanged glances.

  “And when was it discovered?” Deeley’s voice had grown hard and cold.

  “Something more than a year later.” Farrell’s eyes moved away from the face of the priest and back again. “I . . . it was at my insistence. Two other brothers and I persuaded the abbot to accompany us to Brother Larkin’s wing. We took Brother Higgins, because he had a key. The entrance to their wing was locked at all times. To protect the books from pilferage, supposedly. It was really at Brother Larkin’s insistence.”

  He paused, gathering strength to continue.

  “Go on,” Deeley ordered. “Tell us what you saw.”

  The monk shook his head. “I cannot. I can tell you only that I observed the most brutal, most disgusting activities being performed upon Bobby by Brother Larkin and Brother Charles.”

  “You caught them in the act?” McGuire asked.

  Farrell nodded.

  “They had been sodomizing this poor kid for over a year, and nobody here knew about it?” McGuire almost shouted.

  “There had been talk. Rumours,” Farrell responded. “But it was simply beyond our comprehension that men of God—”

  “Men of God?” Deeley exploded. “These weren’t men of God, you fool. These were men of Satan. They were animals, worse than dogs!”

  “What happened?” McGuire asked quietly.

  “The abbot called for the rest of the brethren,” Farrell replied. “We removed Bobby and barred the area to prevent Brothers Larkin and Charles from escaping. After we had unlocked the door, Brother Higgins disappeared. No one ever saw him again. And that evening Brother Charles committed suicide. He hung himself in the text-repair area, in full view of Larkin. He knew, I suppose, he would spend eternity in Hell, and there was no reason to fear the consequences of taking his own life.

  “We were all shaken, of course. But none more so than Brother Halloran. He was concerned with the continuance of the order and with prescribing a suitable punishment for Brother Larkin. The rest, he decided, would be left in the hands of God.”

  “So you covered it up?” Deeley demanded.

  “We tried to let time and the spirit heal the damage,” Farrell pleaded. “We are a closed society here, Father. You can understand that—”

  “Bullshit!” McGuire spat out at the monk, who looked at him calmly.

  “It was Brother Halloran’s decision to handle it in this manner?” Deeley asked.

  The monk nodded. “Among his last earthly decisions. That evening Brother Halloran suffered a stroke from which he never recovered. He was taken by God a few months later.” Farrell made the sign of the cross as he spoke.

  “And Larkin?” Deeley asked. “What became of Larkin?”

  Farrell lifted his head and spoke with more strength in his voice. “It was the verdict of the abbot and those brothers within the ruling circle to condemn Brother Larkin to perpetual confinement within the abbey for the rest of his life on earth. He was to have no contact with others, save at feeding time. He was not to communicate with anyone under any circumstances but to spend his remaining time in contemplation with his spirit and in seeking forgiveness for his despicable crimes against man and God.”

  “Where?”

  “In a corner of the basement below us. Originally it was a root cellar, with a heavy wooden door and one window. Several years ago we converted it into a small retreat cell, with simple toilet and plumbing facilities. There is nothing else except a slab bed, some old blankets and one crucifix.”

  Farrell looked at each of the others in turn. Then, anticipating the question, he said softly, “He remains there still.”

  Deeley spoke first, in a voice which said he would brook no argument.

  “Take us to him. Now.”

  The four men rose together and left the common room without speaking. In the hallway, suspiciously near to the common-room doors, the wizened little monk Schur was walking slowly away, his eyes on a book held open in front of him. Farrell led the way past him, and the monk stepped aside to watch them proceed.

  As they turned to descend an open stairway, they encountered two more monks, walking together silently. The mingled aroma of cooking drifted up the stairs, and they passed the basement kitchen, where three monks paused from slicing vegetables to look up. Another turn and they entered a long, unlit corridor, where Farrell paused to flick a wall switch. One light glowed mid-way down the corridor ahead of them. In the distance another light source spilled into the darkened area, casting a small rectangular shape onto the stone floor.

  At the end of the corridor a door stood closed, secured with two sturdy brass locks on cast-iron hasps. A grilled opening, as deep and as wide as the spine of a book, had been fixed at eye level. The opening was hinged, and a sliding iron bolt, accessible only from the outside, held it firmly shut. “We pass his food through here,” Farrell explained.

  Farrell leaned to the opening and looked in. Then he moved aside as, one by one, each of the others stepped up in turn to peer into the room.

  A man, fascinating and hypnotic in his ugliness, glared back at them from a reclining position on the slab bed. He appeared be a large man, certainly well over six feet tall, although it was difficult to judge because the small opening prevented the men from seeing the prisoner’s full length.

  He was clad in a filthy grey garment similar to those worn by the other monks. His hair, surprisingly shiny and black, was long and tangled, his beard wispy and the same coal-black colour. He wore heavy black horn-rimmed glasses in front of shrewd eyes, which stared at the watchers defiantly. For all of this there were decidedly effeminate features about him: his hands were long and graceful, the slender fingers holding an ancient leather-bound book; and his mouth was full, the bottom lip almost pouting in its fleshy shape.

  “Open it up,” McGuire instructed.

  Farrell turned to look at Deeley.

  “Do it,” the priest ordered.

  Farrell nodded, resigned to being no longer the guiding force within his own monastery. “I will have to retrieve the keys from my office,” he mumbled, and set off to return along the corridor. Deeley resumed looking through the grillwork at the man who continued to watch him. There was a change in the monk’s expression, subtle but unmistakable—he was beginning to smile.

  The priest turned from the door and suddenly, powerfully, kicked the rough stone walls of the corridor. “Damn it!” he swore. “Damn it to hell!”

  Farrell returned within minutes, shuffling keys around a large metal ring as he walked. He chose two and fumbled with them nervously while the others watched.

  The padlocks opened reluctantly, and the abbot moved the hasps aside. Before opening the door, he turned to face Deeley and the detectives.

  “Larkin has not spoken for almost four years,” he said softly. “And it has been expressly forbidden for anyone to communicate with him. He has taken a vow of silence—”

  “Like his vow of celibacy?” Deeley asked, reaching beyond the abbot to open the door.

  A stale aroma greeted the men as they entered the tiny room and stood against the wall facing the monk, who remained watching them from his slab bed, his smile having grown wider and more obscene.

  Next to the bed stood a small table and single chair. A hand-turned pitcher and washing bowl sat to one side of the table. Crusty remains of bread lay scattered about on a dinner plate at the other end. High above the table, almost at ceiling level, a floodlight shone through the barred window from outside the building. It was the room’s only source of light. In the corner, beyond the foot of the bed, a small cubicle held a simple wall-mounted sink and a seatless toilet. Dozens of ancient books, matching the one the reclining monk held in his hands, were stacked on the floor around the bed. The whitewashed walls were free of any decoration except for a simple wooden crucifix above the table.

  F
arrell cleared his throat and said, “This is Brother Larkin, who I was speaking about upstairs. He has taken a vow of silence and solitude. No one else has entered this chamber for four years.”

  Larkin lay watching them, the book still open in his hands.

  “I want to talk to him,” McGuire said sternly.

  “It’s impossible—” Farrell began.

  “I’m releasing him from his vows,” Deeley interrupted. He turned to glare at Farrell. “Now you tell him, as his abbot, that he is to answer our questions.”

  “I cannot force him to speak,” Farrell said lamely.

  McGuire took a step forward and knelt in front of Larkin. The monk’s body odour grew stronger, and McGuire repressed a gagging reaction.

  “We know about Bobby,” McGuire said slowly. “We know everything. What we want now is a statement from you telling us what you did.”

  The smile faded, but the mouth hung slackly open.

  “Look, the kid has killed at least four people so far,” McGuire pleaded. “Does that mean anything to you? We think he’s killing people because of what happened to him here. If you can just substantiate what Farrell has told us, we’ll leave you to your silence for the rest of your Goddamn life. Just talk to us, damn it.”

  The monk stared back at McGuire before slowly bringing a finger to his mouth. His tongue, obscene and red, emerged to wet his finger, which he used to turn a page of the book before glancing up at Farrell and reading again.

  McGuire felt a hand on his shoulder. He glanced around to see Deeley looking down at him. The priest nodded in Larkin’s direction, and McGuire stood up as Deeley lowered himself into the detective’s place.

  “Look at me, Brother Larkin,” Deeley said in a voice surprisingly tender. The monk turned his head to study Deeley silently. “We can begin something good here. We can begin a healing process, perhaps even a forgiving process, which could welcome you back into—”

  The action was swift and accurate, the spittle shooting from Larkin’s mouth onto the priest’s cheek. McGuire swore and moved towards Deeley, but the priest was faster and more determined. He leaped at the reclining monk, knocking the book away and bringing his hand down upon the massive hairy head, raining blows on blows and screaming, “You bastard! You scum! You murderer of God! I’m going to pray you suffer through eternity, you sadistic son of a bitch!” while McGuire and Lipson tried to pull him away and Farrell raised his head to look sadly at the brilliant light shining coldly into the cell from beyond the window.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  McGuire lay on his sofa, watching the breeze play with the thin draperies at his open window. The fabric danced to an unheard rhythm, sailing toward him, then drifting back to the glass again. He could hear the traffic noise from Commonwealth Avenue, a concerto of squealing tires, unmuffled cars and sometimes the high rolling laughter of Boston University students returning from a pub or pizza restaurant.

  He remembered the scene of a few hours before and smiled tightly, briefly, at the image of Kevin Deeley, saliva running down his cheek, pummelling Larkin with his fists.

  Based on Farrell’s statement, Larkin was being held in a cell downtown, charged with rape and sodomy. There was talk of charging Farrell with obstruction of justice and perhaps even forcible confinement, but McGuire didn’t think Kavander or anyone else would push it. “The brothers are finished,” Deeley had said. “The monastery will be dissolved. And the bishop will be terribly upset when all of this is made public.” If the bishop passed his concerns on to the commissioner, McGuire knew exactly where the bricks would fall.

  That had been Ollie Schantz’s phrase. “Always figure out where the bricks’ll fall when the wall comes tumbling down,” Ollie used to say. “Because, as sure as grasshoppers have legs, the bricks’ll hit the guy who’s standing around with his thumb up his ass, not expecting anything to happen.”

  Norm Cooper had made positive identification of the prints found in Bobby Griffin’s room at Lynwood Institute. There was no doubt about it: whoever resided in that room had been present at each of the killings.

  McGuire sat up in a rolling motion and reached for his coffee cup. He drained the last of the lukewarm liquid, remembering Deeley’s outraged scream at Larkin:

  “You murderer of God!”

  In the car on the way downtown, McGuire asked Deeley, who was still shaking and angry, what he had meant by it.

  “I don’t know,” Deeley had replied, avoiding McGuire’s eyes. “I suppose I meant he had killed the spirit in a trusting young kid. Think of what it did to Bobby Griffin’s spirit. He murdered it, McGuire. As much as Bobby murdered Tom Lynch and the rest.”

  And the poem, McGuire had said. Remember the poem? “The death of one god is the death of all.” And, “The priest desires.”

  “Larkin was playing a priestly role to Bobby,” Deeley said. “I guess, if you’re looking for a definition, you’ve found it.”

  Something happened between McGuire and Deeley during that drive back to Berkeley Street, something that weakened and dissolved the animosity between them. Perhaps it was the sharing of horror and tragedy, the understanding that, in a world of evil and death, we instinctively turn toward an affirmation of life. The turning is a sharing. And the sharing is a bonding.

  When Deeley left the car, McGuire touched him lightly on the back. “Take it easy,” the detective said, and Deeley nodded glumly.

  McGuire stood up abruptly and walked to the telephone table. He scanned the directory for Lynwood Institute, found the number and dialled it. Dr. Taber wasn’t there, said the woman who answered. When McGuire identified himself, she promised to reach Taber at home and have him return the call. McGuire left his number and hung up.

  He walked to the window, feeling the fresh spring air chill his skin. He snapped his fingers and frowned, remembering Gloria. He would stop on the way to Berkeley Street in the morning and tell her about Larkin and Bobby. She enjoyed hearing his stories of police work. And he enjoyed telling her, he realized, because he could play a hero’s role. This tale is about the clever, hard-nosed homicide cop making the city safe for good people. That was the basis of his stories. And it was the reason he wanted to be a cop in the first place. Yet he never felt heroic when relating his stories to Gloria. He just felt good. He felt secure. He felt loved.

  It was a feeling—for all the emotion that had died within him and Gloria, and all the betrayals they had both exchanged—he’d felt with no other woman since. He wondered why.

  The telephone rang, and he set aside his musings. They were, after all, the kinds of thoughts best reserved for falling asleep, thoughts to occupy his mind in the fuzzy world between consciousness and dreaming, when all things are possible and the mind begs to be house cleaned.

  “Hello,” he said into the receiver. The sound of his own voice reminded him how tired he was.

  “Lieutenant McGuire?”

  “Yeah.”

  It was Clarence Taber. McGuire thanked him for calling and recited the events of the day—the visit to Mrs. Griffin, the explanation by Farrell of what had actually occurred at the monastery, and the confrontation with Larkin.

  “My God,” Taber whispered when McGuire had finished. “My God. Poor Bobby. So that’s the explanation.”

  “Why couldn’t you and your staff discover it for yourself?” McGuire demanded. “Weren’t you looking for a cause? Did you really think Bobby would become catatonic on his own, for Christ’s sake?”

  “I told you, McGuire. We were looking at childhood trauma, we were looking at organic causes. . . .”

  “Organic causes?” McGuire sneered. “What’s that mean, he ate a bad batch of yogurt?”

  Taber sighed in exasperation on the other end of the telephone. “McGuire, it’s after ten o’clock, and my wife and I were just getting ready for bed when I received the message to call you. Now if you’re going to insul
t me—”

  “I’m not trying to insult you, doctor,” McGuire soothed. “I’m just trying to figure out how you could treat this kid for four years without discovering that his problem had nothing to do with a chemical imbalance in his brain, and everything to do with being tortured and buggered daily by three smelly monks for over a year.”

  “Keep in mind, we had no way to communicate with Bobby for two of those years,” Taber said. “Later we were more concerned with pulling him out of his mental state and helping him recover than we were with discovering the cause. It was a very delicate situation. I can remember probing with him, trying to talk about his immediate past and watching him withdraw back into catatonia, sometimes for days on end. So cure was more important than cause to us.”

  “Do you think that’s what did it? The experience at the monastery, I mean?”

  “Knowing Bobby as I do, I have no doubt. Look, he goes into a setting like that as a dedicated young kid. He is spiritual, trusting, with the force of a dominant mother behind the idea, saying ‘You stay there and come out and grow up to be as big a hero as your father was.’ And when he gets there, the very structure he is dedicated to betrays him, does unspeakable things to him and tells him to obey in the name of authority. Under the circumstances his total withdrawal and inability to discuss it are understandable.”

  McGuire sat on the easy chair beside the telephone. “And then four years later he turns into a killer. Does that make sense?”

  Taber paused before answering. Then, “Homicide is your business, Lieutenant, not mine. Still, as a psychiatrist, I have always felt that, in the immediate state of mind of the killer, murder is totally rational.”

  “That’s interesting,” McGuire said with scepticism. “You want to explain that?”

  “Two things to think about, McGuire,” Taber went on. “First is anger. Anger and guilt are the only emotions that accumulate in the psyche. You can love, laugh, feel sorrow, have any other emotion, and it eventually drains away. But each of us has reservoirs of anger and guilt, which must be dissipated directly. Rarely do they just fade away. In fact, they can even increase in many people, especially as the individual’s personality grows and develops.