Brother Micah, on the other hand, continued to posture for Sebastian’s attention. Every chance, he’d break into a figurative dance around him. Sebastian’s body language pressed for Brother Micah to back off. He even gave him one of his stealthy winks, indicating they shared a secret and must keep cool. Brother Micah, flushing and nodding, understood the implication.
Throughout the day, Sebastian kept his ears and eyes wide open. A day in the life of a Trappist monk. That’s how Sebastian carried out his routine. He shared smiles with his fellow brothers, saving the extra robust ones for Brother Micah whenever they crossed each other’s paths.
During the prayer stations, they chanted as they had hundreds of times before. Sebastian joined their rising and falling voices, unleashing the best of his lungs. He went along as if the only curious impression hanging over their heads was the sunlight that filtered through the stained glass windows.
At dinnertime he watched them seated at the long oak table in the dining hall. He kept his eyes glued to his cheese casserole and lentil soup, his peripheral vision never keener. They ate in silence. The clink of silverware rang in Sebastian’s ears. The fireplace ran cold. Their winter wood supply had run out weeks ago.
He examined everyone. Casey buttered a roll he held with his left hand. A minute later he used his right to cut into his casserole. Sebastian had noticed his ambidexterity a few weeks after he’d first arrived last October. Just like Sebastian’s youngest brother and sister. Must be something about the newer generation, he mused. Casey flashed his wide eyes at him from time to time while they ate. Obeying Sebastian, he kept still, his curiosity wrapped tight inside him.
Brother Giles’s grizzled beard, a virtual sift for everything that went into his mouth, looked more like a fuzzy a la carte of the Trappist meal. Brother Eusebius’s heft belied the easy movements of his hands, which went from tray to mouth in graceful fashion. Even from four men away, Sebastian noted the veins pumping in his strong hands. He’d seen them so often while they’d sat shoulder to shoulder and day in and day out, fashioning rosaries in the sacristy.
Brother Rodel, the youngest of their brotherhood, ate like a bird. He used his spoon for both his soup and his casserole, which had always amused Sebastian. Despite their fleshless diet, Brother George seemed to get rounder and rounder. Soon, Sebastian speculated, he’d be as big as a cart, and they’d have to put him in a wheelchair if he didn’t exercise more or eat less. He shoveled food into his mouth as if he had but minutes to spare before the call for Vespers.
Brother Jerome burped. He dabbed at his mouth with the napkin, unembarrassed by his natural sound. Aging faster and faster each day, he seemed to flick aside decorum. He’d even stopped combing what was left of his hair, which stuck out in a wild frenzy. Brother Micah, although he always managed to clean his plate, needed the entire forty-five minutes allotted for dinner to finish. Taking slow, methodical bites, he glanced at Sebastian with a tight smile, but heeded Sebastian’s eyes, which sustained the gentle warning, “Don’t let the others know about our little secret.”
Seated side by side, Brother Lucien and Father Paolo seemed to fret over their meals. Their shoulders hunched up, and their backs appeared to have humps. Steam from their soups washed over their faces and fogged Father Paolo’s eyeglasses. Spring’s onset worried the abbot. JC’s ghost might haunt him worse than any of them.
Sebastian slurped his soup, eyeballing the brothers above his bowl. Curious what they were thinking, but at the same time no longer really caring. Save for one. His gaze settled at the far end of the table, where Brother Hubert sat with a steady tempo to his eating. For an instant, they met each other’s eyes. Brother Hubert’s right hand froze midway to his mouth, his cheeks puffed with food. Sebastian prolonged his stare until Brother Hubert flushed and, swallowing, looked back toward his food.
After dinner, Sebastian kept close to Brother Hubert in the kitchen, where they emptied their trays into the sink and washed out their dishes. When Brother Hubert knitted his eyebrows in his direction, Sebastian nodded a grin. Brother Hubert screwed up his forehead further, darting Sebastian a bewildered glimpse over his shoulder before disappearing out the kitchen door.
During their evening free period, he followed Brother Hubert into the library, where they sat at opposing tables. Together they stared into the wintery scene, the cobalt sky shellacking the dwindling snow with subtle blue.
Sebastian stretched his long legs while seated sideways at the table. Brother Hubert glanced at him over his dark-framed glasses, cleared his throat. He turned back to the window, his hands cupped under his chin and his elbows on the armrests. Sebastian mirrored his sounds and gestures, fully aware Brother Hubert could see him reflected in the windowpane, framed by hoarfrost. At that point the brother stood and took his leave. Sebastian followed.
In the bathroom, Sebastian sat on the bench by the shower stalls, waiting. Brother Hubert, dressed in a bathrobe and carrying his toiletry bag, stopped in his tracks when he spotted him. He shook his head and sighed, and went about prepping to shower. Sebastian left him privacy.
While chanting the Salve Regina at Compline, Sebastian continued to study him. Brother Hubert maintained concentration on the psalmody, yet his rising shoulders pointed to his growing unease.
The following morning, Sebastian burned his eyes into him at every chance. He carried his breakfast tray to where Brother Hubert liked to eat, by the large window in the back foyer. When Brother Hubert made to leave, Sebastian got up and bumped straight into him, feigning clumsy ignorance. Brother Hubert scurried for the kitchen.
They exchanged more awkward stares and unusual encounters deeper into the day. Acting as the abbey’s barber, Brother Hubert visibly tensed when Sebastian entered the laundry room for his monthly trim. He sat in the chair, and Brother Hubert swathed him with the smock. The sweep of Brother Hubert’s sandals as he shuffled across the hair-covered floor gave Sebastian that tingly feeling he enjoyed.
Brother Hubert’s breath, sour and warm, fell over Sebastian’s neck while he squirted water over his hair and combed out the tangles. Flexing the razor-sharp shears, he commenced first by trimming Sebastian’s hair above the neck, the way Sebastian always liked it, and next along the sides. Sebastian closed his eyes, placed his trust in Brother Hubert’s capable hands, refusing to allow the sudden discomfort to subdue him.
When he finished, Brother Hubert removed the smock and shook it free of the russet hair, after which he brushed Sebastian’s neck with cooling talcum powder. Brother George, waiting patiently, took Sebastian’s place in the barber’s chair. Brother Hubert returned Sebastian’s appreciative nod and clicked on the clippers, filling the laundry room with gentle buzzing.
The second morning, he again followed Brother Hubert into the bathroom. He scrutinized him in the mirror while they both shaved, shoulder to shoulder. Brother Hubert had taken off his black-framed glasses, and his irises appeared like raisins. His upper lip and shaving hand twitched. He left without bothering to rinse his face.
His chanting lagged during Vigils and Lauds. Sebastian, standing next to him in the chapel for the first time, noted he’d become less focused than the previous days. His hands trembled, and once he’d even dropped the psalmody, the sound resonating in the chapel like a blow.
In the kitchen, where Sebastian washed his lunch dishes, Brother Hubert showed the first signs of resentment. He dumped his dishes in the sudsy water and stomped off. Sebastian, unhurried, cleaned his dishes, strolled to the cells, and leaned against the wall across from Brother Hubert’s cell with arms and legs crossed. A minute later Brother Hubert stepped into the corridor, grimacing as he passed Sebastian.
He followed Brother Hubert past the cloister garden, where he allowed a moment of pleasure listening to the chatter of the finches nibbling on the bread crumbs someone had left atop the melting snow, and into the chapel for None. Again Sebastian sat beside him, chanting louder than ever before.
Brother Hubert forewent his free
period and scurried for the administrative office, glancing over his shoulder to check Sebastian’s trailing him. Sebastian, smile muscles stretching his face into what he was certain was the same smirk from the past few days, watched from the doorway as the brother sat at the “off limits” computer. Brother Hubert tried to ignore Sebastian’s presence and affected a professional stance while jabbing the keypad and jotting in a notebook. After another minute or two, Sebastian turned to leave for lectio divina.
As the afternoon progressed into evening, Sebastian maintained a steady gaze on him. Never once did they speak. Yet Brother Hubert’s irksome expression had begun to fade into one full of lethargy and fatigue. By Compline, red eyes behind his thick lenses appeared ready to burst.
Nearing midnight—a time when the abbot would have surely reprimanded the brothers if he’d caught them lingering outside their cells—Sebastian knelt at the transept. Votive candles flickered and danced with an expectant energy. He mumbled Psalm 84, his folded fingertips rested under his nose. He kept his eyes closed tight. The scent of burning candles and dry wood filled his nostrils.
He prayed for many minutes. But prayer had not been the main force ushering him to the chapel. He squeezed his eyes tighter, inhaled. The sensation of completeness, what he lived for back at the PPD, overpowered him.
The pit in his stomach goaded him. He was waiting. Like back in Philadelphia. He and his colleagues would stew for hours—days, even—waiting for a suspect to show himself. To make the final move.
He heard the steps of someone enter the chapel, but he did not budge from his prayer spot at the transept, nor did he open his eyes. He continued to mouth his prayers, his hot breath brushing his fingertips. The footsteps grew louder, then ceased a mere few feet to his left. He sensed someone entering the pew ahead of him and then sitting. He knew who even before opening his eyes.
Sebastian ended his prayer by whispering aloud, “Give me a sign of your goodness, that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.” Following a reflective pause, he opened his eyes, crossed himself, and sat back in his chair, his hands loose on his knees.
“Have you known all along?” Brother Hubert said after a moment of silence between them.
Sebastian stared at the back of the brother’s head, none too surprised to find he wore his cowl with the hood raised. He kept his own head unmoved, pointed toward the fluttering candles. “I wasn’t certain until a few days ago.”
“What can I tell you, Brother Sebastian?”
“How about the full story?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
BROTHER HUBERT crossed himself, keeping his eyes directed on the candles. Sebastian watched from his side vision. The hood concealed Brother Hubert’s face. But Sebastian did not need to see him to imagine the grim expression that must have elongated his features. Sebastian savored the moment. He also swallowed a sickness that welled up in his throat. The same affect from when he stood on the cusp of solving a case with the PPD.
“How much do you know?” Brother Hubert said, his voice hollow but stable.
“I pieced together most of it. The rest I suspect you’ll fill in for me.”
Mottled color from the moonlight filtering through the stained glass windows washed over the crucifix above the altar. Sebastian gazed at Jesus, waiting for Brother Hubert to find the courage to continue. The eyes hypnotized him a moment. They were blue, as are many depictions of Christ. In reality, Jesus most likely resembled Casey—and JC.
Brother Hubert peered at his hands, and with a shudder, he concealed them in the folds of his cowl. “There was a strange snowstorm that night,” he began, his voice distant, as if he were transported back in time. “The winds and the thunder had kept me awake. My mother used to say that thunder during a snowstorm was an omen for bad things to come. How I wished I hadn’t laughed at her for saying that when I was a boy.
“But it was more than the snowstorm that agitated me. I’d been wracking my brain for days, wondering what I should do, or if it even warranted action. You understand, I discovered who JC was and why he’d come to Mt. Ouray about a week before that horrible night. Or at least I thought I had. I had no way of knowing for sure. How could I prove anything? Finally, I had to confront him.
“I slinked to his cell. I knocked, and he answered. I stepped inside and found him sitting at his desk, dressed in his street clothes that I had laundered for him and drumming his fingertips on the desktop. He looked up at me. A strange gleam shone in his eyes. Stranger than usual. Sinister and dark. The look of someone wanting to do harm. I no longer doubted my assumptions.
“‘I know why you’ve come here,’ I whispered, my heart pounding in my chest. ‘I know all about it.’
“Unblinking, he stared. ‘And?’
“‘I think you should call for a helicopter as soon as possible and leave us.’
“‘What if I don’t want to?’
“My insides turned to ice cubes. I realized that I was already in over my head. Who was I dealing with? I should’ve presented everything I suspected about JC to Father Paolo days ago. He had researched missing persons as well, but I think he had yet to build a connection why he’d come. But I worried about the ramifications if I were wrong. I knew how much the father had cherished JC.
“Without warning, JC stood and nudged past me for the corridor. I turned to follow him to see what he was up to. I found him standing in the kitchen, a fierce expression cut into his face. Wanting to keep him calm, I asked what his true intentions were for coming, although I already knew. He merely stared straight through me and stated, almost trancelike, that his memories had been trickling back to him, and right before I’d come into his cell, everything had fallen into place. He said that he was going to do what he’d intended all along, to take care of the business that had brought him so far. To finally make good the promise to himself that had forced him to suffer in the blizzard. A chill darted up my spine. It was all the things I had grown to suspect and worse. He hadn’t faked his amnesia. Now I had to deal with a man who’d awakened without realizing much time had elapsed. A man without time is a man looking for trouble.
“He said he’d planned to come during winter, knowing that Mt. Ouray would be empty of visitors. I suppose he had underestimated the mountain snowstorms. From the information provide in our website, information that I partly wrote, he knew only the monks would be here. Funny how nowadays we use the Internet to spy on each other. He’d mentioned taking a bus from Philadelphia so that he could conceal a gun without detection. He kept whispering between clenched teeth how he wished he still had it. I informed him we never found a gun on him. He insisted we’d stolen it, along with his wallet and cell phone. That’s when I noticed the knife clutched in his right hand, by his side. I’d been so focused on his menacing eyes I hadn’t noticed he’d grabbed one of Brother Micah’s kitchen knives from the wall magnet. I shuddered, realizing he was crazed, worse than anything I had imagined. Although my suspicions for why he’d come proved true, I had yet to comprehend what he was capable of. With the instinct of an alley cat, I blocked the door from his leaving and demanded he put down the knife.
“‘Step aside, or I’ll let you have it too,’ he said with a horrible, gravelly tone.
“‘Why must you do this?’ I pleaded with him.
“‘Don’t you know?’ he said, and he elbowed me aside, forcing me against the doorframe. Of course I scurried after him, my mind in a whirl. I don’t recall seeing anything other than the heels of his sneakers growing smaller and smaller and the terrible glint of the knife clutched in his hand.
“I turned the corner and saw a shadow disappear into Brother Augustine’s cell. My mind whirled. Why on earth would he go in there? But I suppressed my puzzlement and honed in on one realization: I had to stop him. I raced inside the cell and found him standing over Brother Augustine’s bed, the knife gripped in both hands, ready to plunge it into his chest. In the light coming from the corridor, I co
uld see poor Brother Augustine gaping up at him, unable to move or scream. He must’ve been terrified and confused. A strange focus overcame me. My mouth went dry, my hearing dulled, and I saw him as if I were staring down a tunnel. I pulled JC’s arm back, and he shot me a fierce, monstrous glare.
“‘Keep back,’ he spat. ‘This is what he deserves. He’s el Diablo.’
“I remember a blast of thunder just before I reached behind me for the statuette of the Virgin Mary on the wall shelf. Filled with anger and desperation, I clutched it. I wasn’t thinking. I was acting like an animal, on pure instinct. I remember the odd sound of Brother Casey’s flute emerging above the wind and thunder at the precise moment I struck JC on the side of his head. He dropped the knife with a horrible clank and fell instantly, right by my feet.
“The Virgin had broken in two, and her precious torso had tumbled onto Brother Augustine’s bed faceup, right into the hollow of his lap. Her white eyes seemed to gape at me, as if she were in shock at my deadly act. There wasn’t much blood, but JC didn’t respond to my nudging him and pleading that he wake up. I panicked. When I saw Brother Augustine’s wheelchair in the corner, an idea struck me. How quickly we resort to thinking like common criminals.
“I grabbed for one of Brother Augustine’s cowls from his closet and pulled it over JC, making sure to cover his face with the hood. My scheme was to wheel him to the walk-in freezer to preserve him until I could carry out my plan to toss him into the woods once the storms passed, just like how Father Paolo had eventually wanted, ironically. If anyone caught me wheeling him away, I could say I was taking Brother Augustine to the bathroom. I was panicked. My instinct was to cover my tracks, nothing more or less.
The Rule of Sebastian Page 23
