Cat's Eyewitness (23 page)

34

A
thin blue plume of smoke curled upward as Sheriff Shaw sat opposite Brother Andrew. He offered the monk a cigarette; Brother Andrew refused. Rick offered not to smoke, but the physician monk told him to please go ahead; after all it was the Sheriff’s office. He could do as he pleased.

As Rick gratefully drew on the unfiltered cigarette, Brother Andrew inhaled the secondary smoke.

“Are you sure you don’t want one? I can call out for filters if you’d prefer?”

“No. It’s an indulgence I understand only too well, but I can luxuriate in your smoking.”

“No one smokes up there?” Rick was incredulous.

“Uh, in theory, no. In practice, yes.” Brother Andrew folded his hands on the small metal table, which rattled with each touch.

“Must be like high school, sneaking cigarettes.” Rick smiled, remembering his days at old Lane High School, when he and his friends would duck behind a car in the parking lot to light up.

“Yes. Those of us in thrall to nicotine would usually hide our stashes where we worked. For instance, I locked mine in the medicine cabinet in the infirmary. Brother Prescott—well, I shouldn’t rat on a brother, should I?”

“Stays here.”

“He keeps his on a thin ledge behind a bookshelf. It’s funny, really.”

“Booze?”

“Oh, yes.” Brother Andrew nodded. “We aren’t in prison, Sheriff. We can go to town.”

“I thought you took a vow of poverty.”

Brother Andrew held up his palms. “We do, but one earns a little pocket money here and there. Some have access to family money. We have few earthly pleasures, if you will, although watching the sun rise from the top of the mountain is certainly a large one.”

A knock at the door diverted the conversation for a moment.

“Coop?”

“Yes,” came the voice on the other side of the door. “May I come in?”

“Do you mind if Deputy Cooper takes notes? She’s much better at it than I am.”

“No, not at all.” Brother Andrew welcomed the opportunity to be in a woman’s company, even if the circumstances were strained.

“Come on in.”

“Hello.” Coop entered, took a seat slightly behind Rick so she wasn’t right up at the table. She carried a stenographer’s notebook.

“It’s nice to see you again, Deputy.” Brother Andrew liked Coop.

“You know, it’s nice to see you, too, and I regret the circumstances.”

“Yes,” he quietly replied.

“Did Brother Thomas smoke?” Rick questioned.

“He did up until his eightieth birthday, and then he gave it up. Cold turkey. I teased him about that.” Brother Andrew gestured with his right hand. “Why renounce something that soothed his nerves at eighty? He said, ‘I want to see if I can do it.’ That was a challenge, so I bid the weed good-bye myself. We became quite close after that.”

“Did Brother Thomas have enemies?”

“No.”

Rick leaned forward, the bottom of the chair legs scraping the floor. “Brother Andrew, you know that Brother Thomas had both chloroform and morphine in his body, the latter killing him. You and Brother John are the only two people with access to those substances.” Rick stubbed out his cigarette. “Legally.”

“Correct. Why am I here and not Brother John?”

“We grilled Brother John rigorously. He said a bottle of morphine is missing from the locked medicine cabinet, along with needles.” Rick stopped and thought for a long time.

“Needles can bend. Whoever killed Brother Thomas probably took extras for insurance. They’d be ridiculously easy to hide.”

“Like cigarettes and booze.”

“Yes.” Brother Andrew kept calm about the news of the missing morphine and needles.

“Might I say something, Boss?” Coop glanced over her notebook.

“Do you mind?” Rick asked Brother Andrew.

“No.”

“Did you know the needles and morphine were missing?” the deputy asked the brother.

He sat still, breathed a few times, then answered her. “Yes.”

“Morphine is not something you’d want to find missing from your medicine cabinet.” Rick sounded surprised.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Why didn’t you report it?” Cooper asked.

“I thought I could find out who took it on my own. If I told Brother Handle or you it wouldn’t help. I thought it better to lull the killer.”

“Convenient explanation,” Rick flatly replied.

“Brothers live in silence much of the time. I really believed I could uncover the thief.” Brother Andrew lifted his eyes slightly. “Better this be done among our own. You all, forgive me, wouldn’t help. You’d hinder. You don’t understand the order.”

Rick, voice calm, said, “You know exactly how to use chloroform. You know how much to put on gauze to knock out a person. Morphine is there for your taking. You would know exactly how to drive an object through the eyeball into the brain. You’re tall enough, strong enough to do it.”

A moment of silence followed, then Cooper asked, “What was your relationship with Brother Thomas?”

“I loved him.”

“We often kill the ones we love,” Rick stated.

“Yes.” Brother Andrew flashed back on giving his suffering wife the injection that ended her wretched pain. “Yes, I suppose we do, but you are thinking in different terms than I am. You are thinking of murder. I am trained as a physician. My job is to save lives, not take them. My job is to lessen suffering. Why would I kill Brother Thomas?”

“That’s what we want to know,” Rick said. “For instance, perhaps he was terminally ill and no one knew it but you. You gave him a safe and quick exit.”

Brother Andrew blanched, then composed himself. “No, and if I did I wouldn’t prop him up against the statue of Our Blessed Virgin Mother.”

“I imagine the brothers hide many secrets. The little secrets like smoking and drinking,” he paused, “and drugs, no doubt. Little secrets. Then there are perhaps bigger secrets about why each man is there.”

“Your assumption is that we are there because of something we did wrong, we are there to expiate a sin. It is possible, Sheriff, for a man to choose such a life because he feels it will bring him closer to God.”

“Has it?”

“Yes, and”—Brother Andrew swallowed hard—“no. Christianity is a hard path.” He allowed himself a slow smile. “When I hear pundits say that we are now embarked on a crusade, the final war with the Muslims, which is always justified by saying that the Muslim wishes to kill every Christian, I think to myself, no worry here. There are no Christians in America, just hypocrites.”

“Surely there are some.” Coop’s voice exuded a warm quality.

“Oh, I’m cynical, but I know from my experience that Christianity is difficult. Didn’t Christ tell us that it will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? What do we do but lay up riches? We have preachers telling their flocks that Jesus didn’t really mean that. In fact, the richer they are, the more this is a sign of God’s favor.”

“Calvinism.” Coop read her history.

“Indeed. And then I tell myself that my job isn’t to save anyone’s soul but my own.”

“Brother Andrew, you surprise me,” Rick said.

“You thought I’d come in here and mouth pieties or beg forgiveness or confess to a crime I didn’t commit?”

“Give me some reason why you didn’t,” Rick pressed.

“I told you. I loved Brother Thomas. I had no quarrel with him about anything. He was as close to a Christian man as I have ever seen. He was devoid of vanity, of falsity, of cunning. He took delight in his tasks, whether they involved horticulture, his favorite, or plumbing, not quite his favorite. He gladly helped when needed and he had an uncanny knack of knowing when one needed help. I would never have killed him.”

“Who would?”

“I don’t know.”

“But if you did, would you tell? Is your first priority to protect the monastery?”

“If I thought one of the brothers killed Brother Thomas and I knew who, I hope I would have the courage to come to you.”

“Well, that monastery sits on top of the mountain, hardly two miles from Interstate 64 and only a half hour, at most, from the interchange of Interstate 81 and 64. It would be a perfect cover for drug distribution—not sales, distribution. And not necessarily street drugs, but the hard drugs. How easy to leave kilos of marijuana? Or Oxycontin? Percodan? Viagra and Levitra?”

“Given our vow of chastity, the latter two would be rather cruel.”

Rick smiled. “I didn’t say you all were taking these drugs, just distributing them.”

“I’d know.”

“Why would you know? You don’t know who got into your locked medicine cabinet.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m going on my hunch that you supplied the morphine.”

“I did not,” Brother Andrew protested.

“Brother, you
are
the most likely suspect, unless you can point me in a better direction.”

“I can’t.” Brother Andrew threw up his hands.

“You put the body in the coffin.”

“After he thawed out, yes.”

“You nailed shut the coffin.”

“No, Brother Mark did that. Brother Prescott and I dressed the body, laid him in the coffin. Brother Frank put in an appearance, but he didn’t do much. We put the lid on and Brother Mark nailed it shut. I saw him do it.”

Rick’s voice grew stronger. “And you carried him to his grave.”

“I was one of his pallbearers, and if the coffin had been empty, I would have known. Of course, now I know three fifty-pound sacks were in the coffin, not Brother Thomas.”

Rick switched tactics. “Nordy Elliott must have known the secret. Maybe he was in on it, a distribution ring, for example.”

“He was ambitious, Sheriff, that doesn’t mean he was selling drugs,” Brother Andrew coolly answered.

“He must have known something.”

“If he did, it’s gone with him. And with Brother Thomas, as well, if he knew something. But what could he have known? If there is a drug ring, if the old man had stumbled upon it, he would have gone straight to the Prior. Straight to him.”

“What if Brother Handle is in on it?” Rick paused as this sank in. “Did you tell Brother Thomas your secrets?”

“He saw me smoke. Occasionally, I took a drink.”

“You were a successful physician in your other life. You made a great deal of money. Rarely does a man walk away from something like that.”

“I did.”

“Why?” Rick bluntly kept at him.

“My wife was dying of cancer. I couldn’t save her and she was in terrible pain. When she finally died, I—there’s no other way to put it, I broke down. If I hadn’t chosen this life, to retreat and pray, I think I would have committed suicide or drunk myself to death. She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Rick was silent for a long time, then said, “No, she wouldn’t.” He reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table, then thought better of it. “You check your medical supplies daily?”

“I should but sometimes I let it slide. I figure Brother John has done it for me.”

“Wouldn’t Brother John report the missing morphine?”

“Not necessarily,” Brother Andrew said. “I thought he’d have more sense. I thought I’d get to him before he talked,
if
he talked.”

“He ran right to Brother Handle. How long did you know?”

“Hours.” Brother Andrew put his head in his hands. “The cabinet is locked. So I naturally thought that it was John who took the bottle, see? I wanted to ease my way toward him on this. I thought he was the killer.”

“A clever fellow could pick the lock. I’d be willing to bet anyone could have picked that lock. It might not have been John who took the bottle.”

Cooper interjected. “Why would you think Brother John would kill Brother Thomas?”

“That’s just it. I couldn’t fathom it. I wanted time.”

“Let me ask you this: the tears of blood from the statue of the Virgin Mary. Do you think this is a hoax?” Rick pressed.

“Hoax is a strong word. I think it’s a natural phenomenon.”

“One bringing in money, much needed money.”

“If Brother Handle were unscrupulous, it could bring in more.”

“How do you know he isn’t?”

A shocked look passed over Brother Andrew’s face. “I would know. Brother Frank gives a treasurer’s report.”

“What if Brother Handle and Brother Frank are in collusion and keeping the money for themselves?” Rick pressed.

“Never.”

“Maybe Brother Thomas found out and tipped off Nordy Elliott. Brother Thomas probably wouldn’t go to an outside authority, but Nordy was a reporter, not a cop. If the story got out it might pressure the schemers. Brother Thomas thought like that.”

“He could have come to you,” Rick said.

“I doubt he would,” Brother Andrew replied.

“He found out you were in on the cut of the fake miracle,” Rick stung him.

“I am not. I would never do something like that.”

“You’re here because you’re a suspect for murder. What’s a little fakery and ill-gotten gains compared to that?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.” Brother Andrew folded his hands together.

“Then perhaps you can explain this to me.” Rick spoke as to a slow-witted child. “You keep your medical certification current. Right?”

“I do.”