The Rule of Sebastian

by Shelter Somerset

  “What else was I to do? I had defiled the commandments, the abbey, the Church, Father Paolo, myself. There would be no explaining to anyone how everything had unraveled. I still failed to understand it myself. I started to believe in the Dalakis Curse. That JC had become possessed by demonic spirits—or perhaps I had been myself—like Brother Micah had once said.

  “I was unsurprised when Brother Rodel said he’d seen me pushing who he assumed was Brother Augustine the night of JC’s murder. I thought I had noticed his dark eyes peering at me right as I passed his cell. But my plan had worked. Why I didn’t scream for him and everyone else to awake or pull the alarm, I don’t know. I suppose I was worried what the monks might say. Primitive instincts surpass even faith and reason during desperate, horrifying times like that.

  “I wheeled him to the kitchen and instantly began to cover him in the plastic trash bags. After I had hidden him as best I could behind boxes of frozen vegetables and fruit, I wheeled Brother Augustine’s chair back to his cell, where he still lay, unmoved and his eyes wide open. Yet somehow, while I was gone, he’d managed to reach for the upper half of the broken Virgin Mary. When I got there he was clutching it to his heart. I tried to ignore the anguish in his eyes. Oh, don’t misunderstand. He can see all right. There’s no doubting the horror painted on his face. He’d seen everything unfold before his very eyes, glaucoma or not.

  “I removed the statue from his trembling fingers and cleaned up the blood with some towels I’d carried with me from the kitchen. How I ever considered such details, I still don’t know. Desperate, I grabbed up the knife and wiped it clean of blood, then hid it along with the broken statue inside Brother Augustine’s suitcase in his closet. You’ll find them there still if you care to look. Afterward, I began to feel giddy. Yes, giddy. I remembered that JC had informed us of his intention to leave only the night before. I was home free, as they say. No one would miss him. My original plan appeared more cunning than ever.

  “But that meant I still had to get rid of his belongings. I went to his cell and grabbed his knapsack and coat. At the last minute, a pang in my side reminded me how I had destroyed Brother Augustine’s statuette. I grabbed the one Father Paolo had given JC (I was sick that he’d given it to him) and replaced the one I’d ruined in Brother Augustine’s cell. I then traipsed to the incinerator and torched JC’s belongings, along with the towels I used to clean up. Since I work in the laundry, I was able to stash my soiled tunic, which had some blood smears on it, and wait until wash day to clean it. After that, I crept to the showers, washed up, and stole away to my cell in nothing but a towel. Dressed in a fresh tunic, I lay in bed as if nothing had happened. But the demons that haunted my restless sleep told me otherwise.

  “Upon Rise, I considered recounting my horrifying ordeal to Father Paolo, but I bit my tongue. There was no point, and as long as everyone believed JC would be leaving, what harm could there be? I stood there, trying my best to conceal my tremors while Brother George voiced surprise JC had left so soon. Thank goodness Father Paolo ended any speculation.

  “That night, after I’d assured myself everyone was asleep, I sneaked to the freezer to follow through with my plan to carry his body into the woods. I didn’t care if I had to face the blinding snow. Only you had discovered his remains minutes before I had come to retrieve the body. Frantic, I feigned shock. I suppose in a way I still was in a daze. Later, when I learned he hadn’t died from the blow I’d given him, but from hypothermia and suffocation, I nearly got sick. I could’ve saved him if I had been thinking like a normal person.”

  Brother Hubert paused, and his head fell farther toward his lap. The side of his white hood reflected the flames of the votive candles. He didn’t sob or shudder. Sebastian supposed he’d shed enough tears over his crime that his ducts were tapped dry.

  “If I ever hear the tune Brother Casey was playing on his flute that night,” he said, “I will not be able to think of anything but striking JC across his head with the Virgin Mary. Funny how ‘A Time for Us’, a melody about misfortunate lovers, will forever remain emblazoned on my brain to connote a much more ghastly tragedy.”

  “Is that what that tune was?” Strange those words should be the first to fall from Sebastian’s parched lips. He had wondered about the haunting melody that often flowed from Casey’s cell right before Retire. He supposed Brother Hubert’s revelation left his mind anesthetized. Yet he still needed to know more. “But JC wasn’t after Brother Augustine, was he?”

  Brother Hubert sighed and shook his head. “I knew immediately he’d gone into the wrong cell. I suppose in the dark we brothers do look an awful lot alike in our Trappist garments. I remember he kept getting turned around in the corridors, and how even Brother Jerome had found JC in Brother Augustine’s cell, thinking it was yours. I suppose you’ve pieced together why JC had come here too, and why he’d meant to target you.”

  Sebastian nodded despite Brother Hubert’s being unable to see him. “An idea of his identity came to me about two weeks ago, but it wasn’t until a few days ago that I knew for certain.”

  “I learned about your past shortly after you’d arrived at Mt. Ouray, of course.” Brother Hubert snickered. “You know me, always prying into the details of the lives of the people who come here, like with JC. I kept it to myself, not wanting to embarrass you. That was part of my uncertainty in coming forward about JC. Imagine how difficult it was for a gossip like me. I didn’t blame you, anyway. We’re both in the same boat, so to speak.”

  Thunder clapped in Sebastian’s mind, followed by a flash of blinding lightning. He was standing in the rain in an alley on Philadelphia’s north side along with two of his fellow detectives, searching and waiting. The hot, muggy June night pressed on them. He could smell the wet, hot pavement and feel the sogginess in his socks. The patter of rain and thunder so loud they could barely hear each other shout.

  They’d been hunting for a known drug kingpin, one who’d orchestrated a slew of hits on rival drug gangs, targeting mostly adolescent carriers. The latest victim of the ceaseless turf war was a teenager shot thirteen times—ironically, one for each of his short years on Earth. Six prior kids, all but two from Puerto Rican gangs, had been shot dead during the past twenty-four hours. One of the bloodiest weekends in Philadelphia. Few of the overlords ever pulled the triggers themselves. They had kids shooting kids.

  Everyone—including the mayor, the captain, the citizens, the media—demanded action. Yet Sebastian and his colleagues knew that those very same people limited their options. Most of the “tiptoeing” they did came not from pursuing criminals on the lam, but from avoiding the scrutiny of a society that insisted on protection without the ugliness of bloodshed, and in many cases, incarceration.

  The PPD had had its sights on the reigning drug leader for months, but they had to make a quick move or risk the loss of more youth—along with the expected augmentation of political swaggering if they failed. A tip-off led them to a party in Fairhill, a part of town Sebastian knew well. It was only five blocks from the twenty-fifth district station.

  When they drove by the party on Westmoreland to assess the scene, they estimated about five hundred people crammed inside the row house. Music vibrated the rain-shellacked windows to their van, which they parked a block away, across from McIntosh Playground.

  They scattered along the adjacent streets, communicating with each other on their two-ways. Although they’d protected their radios with weatherproof holsters, the downpour made hearing and speaking cumbersome. Despite the relentless thunder and rain, the heavy bass beat as they neared the party made Sebastian’s guts roil. For several minutes he worried he might mess his pants from the deep vibrations. He crept alongside two other plainclothes detectives. Four uniformed officers covered their backs out of sight, and two more flanked the parallel street.

  They slinked to the side of the row house with their guns still tucked in their holsters. The majority of party attendees were not involved in the illicit drug trad
e, and the police had to use caution. They guessed that someone might have tipped off their suspect (probably the same informant who’d squealed about the party), and soon a man dressed in a thousand-dollar Italian suit marched out front, his entourage shielding him from the rain. The posse entered a waiting fully decked dark Escalade. From his spotty, diagonal observation, Sebastian recognized it as the suspect’s car they’d tailed in the past.

  Squinting into the rain, Sebastian shouted into his two-way for the uniforms to surround the SUV and detain the suspects, but he received no recognizable response. Right then, three shadowy figures dashed out of the side door into the alley. The three detectives requested they halt. Two of the figures obeyed. One hesitated, and with his hands thrust deep inside his jacket pockets, darted straight for the undercover detectives.

  Sebastian reached for his gun and stood his ground, demanding again that he stop. The man turned to his side. A flash of something metallic pierced Sebastian’s vision below the streak of lightning. Gunfire split the night. The man dropped onto the rain-slick pavement. The other detectives rushed the two companions and forced them against the wall. Sebastian stood over the downed man while blood mixed with rainwater puddled around his feet.

  Later they would learn that the two bullets that had struck the man had come from Sebastian’s Glock. One bullet tore off a small section of his shoulder. The fatal shot pierced the heart. The metallic object Sebastian had noticed was his cell phone. He had been speed dialing his wife.

  When the media learned that a white cop had shot to death a weaponless forty-five-year-old Latino father of five with a full-time job and a wife of twenty-three years, Sebastian’s world forever changed. A few of Sebastian’s supporters (mostly independent bloggers) uncovered that, five years before, the deceased had a suspended sentence for possession of twenty-one grams of marijuana, a misdemeanor under Pennsylvania law. Unfortunately, the well-intentioned supporters set the media off like a hound on a fox.

  Local columnists labeled Sebastian everything from a white supremacist (ironically, using his Irish roots to prove his racist inclination) to a steroid-crazed cop. The sensationalized reports took on a life of their own, like a mold spore. The other two detectives were labeled as racists too, regardless that both were Puerto Rican. None of that mattered. Half a dozen local politicians marched alongside one hundred irate Fairhill residents, calling for justice. Included in the protest was the man the PPD had targeted as the mastermind behind the weekend bloodbath.

  Five months after battling for his job and reputation, he caved to pressure. Captain Reems and the D.A. demanded he resign or face prosecution. They presented their ultimatum as if staging a play for the benefit of the media. Not a private one on one, but a public spectacle. So that everyone could save their collective butts.

  On the bright side, the story bypassed the national media’s radar—it was otherwise too consumed with the presidential campaign, the mortgage crises, and the end to the Harry Potter series, Sebastian supposed. Fresh out of a job, he opted out of his lease on Leiper Street, distributed his possessions among his five siblings, and hopped a plane for his sanctuary nestled high in the Rocky Mountains—Mt. Ouray.

  He didn’t bother to tell Brother Hubert the entirety of what had unfolded after that dark night in the alley back in Philadelphia nearly five years ago, mostly because Brother Hubert had probably read the reports on the Internet anyway. He cared little to clear his name, especially in relation to Brother Hubert’s own confession. Both had experienced similar fight or flight responses, and suffered the consequences. But he believed Brother Hubert was owed something more.

  Inhaling, he said, “JC’s family and I kept our distance during the ordeal, but I did receive more than my share of threats. At least one hundred. Some fairly violent. One of them was signed Juan Carlos Valesco. It was JC. I remember because he’d said he would track me to the ends of the earth to avenge his father’s murder, ‘no matter what.’ He’d referred to me as ‘el Diablo.’ JC would’ve been about sixteen then. His father, Manuel, had the nickname Manny. I remember when JC uttered the name while I interviewed him, I’d instantly pictured the man I’d wrongly shot. My first and only case of mistaken identity. I saw his face so clearly, dripping with rainwater. But I had failed to make a connection at the time, at least consciously. After nearly five years, JC had come to make good on his promise.”

  “I read in one of the Internet articles that someone had played the flute during Mr. Valesco’s funeral,” Brother Hubert said reflectively. “Do you think, in addition to the thunderstorm, Casey’s flute playing might have helped trigger JC’s memories?”

  Sebastian allowed the quiet to settle over them, along with the faint scent of the candles. Neither man moved. Sebastian watched the dancing flames and the orange orbs oscillating against the pine wood of the transept. He recalled the achy feeling in his gut the night JC had died, while Sebastian had listened to Casey’s music. Deep inside, he had always known why JC had battled the snows to reach Mt. Ouray.

  “How did you come to suspect me and not the others?” Brother Hubert uttered toward the candles when Sebastian remained mute.

  “Basic reasoning,” Sebastian said, a tingle shooting along his spine as he recalled how he had fit the pieces together with the power of deduction. “I knew Brother Micah fabricated his confession almost from the start. I eliminated him along with Brother Eusebius because they are both left-handers, making them unlikely suspects. JC had blunt force trauma on his left temple, indicating the killer had used a wide right to left medial sweeping motion. Besides, I’d seen enough false confessions in my day to know one. Brother Giles is confined to a wheelchair, and the blow had come from at or near eye level. I figured the killer and JC were probably about the same height. And Brother Augustine…? Well, apart from blaming demonic possession, I couldn’t imagine him as a suspect. Once I figured the culprit had burned evidence, I eliminated Brother George as well. I’d smelled the incinerator going the night of JC’s death. Of course, I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But later I assumed the killer, wanting to dispose of evidence, had burned JC’s coat and knapsack. I have the leftover buckle and zipper in my trunk to prove it. Our beloved Brother George has a fear of even the smallest flames under the bins that warm our food. If he fears that, certainly he wouldn’t have wanted to face the incinerator’s raging fire. Brother Jerome and Brother Rodel also face physical limitations that led me to eliminate them. Due to his osteoarthritis, Brother Jerome can’t lift his arms above his head. He would have had a tough go reaching for the statue and striking JC and then covering his tracks. Besides, Brother Jerome most likely would have checked his pulse. Brother Rodel, at a mere five two, couldn’t have hit JC unless he’d been standing on something when he’d struck him, an improbable scenario. That left Father Paolo, Brother Lucien, Brother Casey… and you.”

  “And why didn’t you suspect any of them?”

  “I did at one point.”

  “Including Brother Casey?”

  Sebastian flushed. Had he and Casey flaunted their attraction for one another? “I’m afraid I had at one time even suspected Casey,” he said. “But what most made me consider you as the primary suspect was what Brother Rodel had said the night we found JC in the freezer. He’d said he’d seen you pushing Brother Augustine to the bathroom. Brother George usually takes care of Brother Augustine, especially late at night. And later I remembered you had come up behind me in the walk-in freezer right when I discovered the body. You had wanted to carry the body to the woods, as you stated. Again, I didn’t think anything of those things at the time.”

  “And the figurine? How did you know I had used the Blessed Mother as a weapon?”

  “When you replaced Brother Augustine’s statuette with JC’s, you’d forgotten that JC’s had a chip on the face from when he’d dropped it in Father Paolo’s office after he’d given it to him. I realized they had been swapped, but still had no idea for what reason. I began to suspect the miss
ing statuette was what had struck JC, and that Brother Augustine’s cell had been the actual scene of the struggle and not JC’s cell or the kitchen. One thing I don’t understand: how did Brother Micah know that JC had come here to seek revenge against me?”

  “I’d confided in him after Father Paolo’s directive to toss JC’s body into the woods. I figured it could do no harm. I needed to unburden myself. He can be comforting at times, Brother Micah. I held back providing details, but he knew JC had come for you.” Brother Hubert snickered. “So Brother Micah took credit for it, huh? Why do you suppose he did that? Oh, don’t bother to answer. We all know how he’s smitten with you. Almost more than Brother Casey.”

  Another rush of blood heated Sebastian’s cheeks, but he cared little for how the monks judged his relationship with Casey. “If you needed to unburden yourself, why not confess to Father Paolo after he’d asked for the responsible party to come forward in private?”

  “I did.”

  Sebastian gaped at the brother’s stiff head. “What?”

  “I confessed the very next night, right after Vespers, after the father had requested the guilty brother to step forward. I was shaking like a leaf, trembling worse than I’d ever experienced. The reality of everything descended upon me in a great sweep, and I needed help. I realized that I had done wrong to cover my tracks and should have confessed from the moment everything happened. The abbot listened to me silently, nodding with understanding throughout my entire confession, even while I sobbed at his feet. When I finished, he swore me to secrecy and said that he would find a way out of it. Promised no one would know, that he wouldn’t even tell Brother Lucien. Said it was for the good of everyone, including the Church, if I kept my mouth closed. ‘Never acknowledge what you’ve done except to God,’ he’d said. Father Paolo reminded me that his word was the word of God. And so I obeyed.” Brother Hubert lifted his eyes to the crucifix. “The father’s directive wasn’t my only reason for keeping quiet. My own fear persuaded me to agree to his decisions and keep my tongue from wagging. It’s partly why I hadn’t wanted to call anyone to my aid when I first struck JC.”