by Carl Hiaasen
Stratton introduced himself and said, "I read about the accident this morning in the Post."
"That was the official version," Beckley said.
"What do you mean?"
"The two people in that car didn't die in any wreck. They were shot. Classic murder-suicide, I'd say."
Stratton was dazed.
"When you called, you said you knew something about the passengers," Beckley prodded. "Can you help us out?"
Mentally Stratton dusted off his story.
"Harold Broom was doing business with a good friend of mine. They'd been traveling together for the last week or so."
"Had you seen them recently?"
"Yes," Stratton said. "Day before yesterday. In Washington. They rented a car."
"So you think the other victim could be your friend?"
"I'm afraid so," Stratton said. "That's why I drove straight over here after I saw the story in the paper."
"We appreciate it," Beckley said. From a bottom drawer in the gray metal desk the policeman withdrew a stiff brown envelope. "How's your stomach, Mr.
Stratton?"
Stratton took the envelope. His hands trembled. He scratched at the gummed flap.
He wasn't acting anymore.
"What was your friend's name?" Beckley inquired.
Stratton pretended not to hear. Be there, he said silently.
He slipped the photographs from the envelope. They were black-and-whites, the usual eight-by-tens. The top picture captured what was left of Harold Broom after he had been dragged from the smoldering car. His clothes dangled like charred tinsel. His chest and face were scorched; the flesh on the upper torso was scabrous. The face was raw, frozen in a death scream. The eyelids had burned away completely, leaving only a viscous white jelly in the sockets. Broom's out-reached arms had constricted into the common rigor mortis of burn victims-elbows sharply bent, fists clenched in front of the face, as if raising a pair of binoculars.
Tom Stratton took a deep breath. He felt clammy.
The next two pictures, taken from different angles, were also of Broom.
"The next one," Beckley said, watching closely. "That's the one you're interested in."
Stratton looked at the photograph and nearly gagged. Through the din of his own heart pounding he barely heard Beckley shouting for someone to bring a glass of water.
The pictures slipped from Stratton's hand and drifted to the floor… Broom lying by the road, Broom face-front, Broom from the waist up…
And Linda Greer.
Stratton covered his eyes and moaned. His face burned.
Beckley stood at Stratton's side, a hand on his shoulder. "I'm very sorry," the cop said. "Have some water. You'll feel better."
Stratton scooped the photographs from the floor and, without looking, handed them to Beckley.
"Mr. Stratton, can I ask your friend's name?"
"That wasn't him," Stratton croaked.
"Him?" Beckley was bewildered. "But just now-"
"My friend is a Chinese man. Wang is his name."
"Judging by your reaction to that photo, I thought for sure that the girl was the one-"
"No. And I'm sorry I frightened you."
"Well, it was a pretty goddamn frightening picture," Beckley said. "I'm sorry you had to see it. Still, it's better to know one way or another. Did you recognize the girl?"
"Never saw her before." Stratton drank some water. "You say it was murder?"
"Lover's quarrel, the way I figure it. The girl was a one-nighter, a fiancee, a hooker-we'll nail it down eventually. She got it first, back of the skull, two rounds. Then Broom aced himself, once in the right temple. The gun was a cheap thirty-eight. We found it on the front seat between them."
Beckley reached into the same drawer that held the photographs. He slid a piece of notebook paper across the desk toward Stratton. "We found this in a briefcase that was tossed in some bushes near the car."
The suicide note had been written meticulously in black ink, each letter capitalized:
"DARLING I AM SORRY, I COULD NOT ALLOW YOU TO LEAVE ME. THIS WAY IS BEST."
One glance and Stratton knew who had written it. I could not allow you to leave me. Much too clumsy for a fop like Harold Broom.
"What about the fire?" Stratton asked.
"An accident. Here's what I figure: Broom pulls off the highway in a passion.
Takes out his gun, plugs the girl, writes his farewell note, then checks himself out. Bang. Leaves the engine running and the goddamn catalytic converter overheats. Catches fire. The whole thing goes up in blazes. That's Detroit for you."
Stratton said, "I'd better go now."
"You knew this Broom character?"
"I met him only once or twice."
"A real asshole, right?"
Stratton shrugged. "I couldn't say." Suddenly he was in the line of Beckley's fire: time to go.
"What about your friend, the Chinaman?"
"I… I guess he's all right."
"I'd really like to talk to him," Beckley said, "your friend, the Chinaman. I'd like to keep it nice and friendly, too. Subpoenas are such a pain in the ass."
"I understand," Stratton said. "When I talk to him, I'll be sure to have him call you."
"Right away." Beckley tugged at his chin. "And you've got no idea about the dead girl?"
"No," Stratton replied. "I'm sorry."
I am sorry.
Beckley led him back through a maze of dingy halls in the police station. As he reached the front desk, Beckley realized he was walking alone. He backtracked and found Stratton at the door to the property room. Staring.
"It was in the car," Beckley explained. "Wrapped up in the trunk. Didn't even get singed."
Rigidly Stratton approached the Chinese soldier who stood noble and poised, an unlikely centerpiece amid the flotsam of crime-pistols, blackjacks, bags of grass and pills, helmets, stereo speakers, radios, jewelry, shotguns, crowbars.
Each item, Stratton noted, was carefully marked.
The ancient Chinese warrior, too, wore a blue tag around its neck, an incongruous paper medallion.
"What do you think?" Beckley said.
Stratton was overwhelmed. He couldn't take his eyes off the imperial soldier.
"Well, I'll tell you what I think," the cop said after a few moments. "I think it's the damnedest-looking lawn jockey I ever saw."
CHAPTER 26
Stratton spent the night in Wheeling. He slept turbulently, racked by old dreams and new grief.
First David, and now Linda.
He tried to convince himself that it wasn't his fault. They had argued under the oaks at Arlington: Stratton for vengeance, Linda for patience. Wang Bin was worth more alive than dead, she had said. "He's an encyclopedia, Tom. Do you know what he could do for us?"
"Do you know," Stratton had countered, "what he's already done?"
But she had been determined, and Stratton had underestimated her.
Now she was dead, and Wang Bin was dust in the wind, a clever phantom. Stratton was sure he'd already grabbed the money, and with the money came boundless freedom-comfort, respectability, anonymity. That's the way it worked in America.
That's what the deputy minister had counted on. In his mind's eye, Stratton pictured the cagey old fellow in his new life-where? San Francisco, maybe, or even New York; an investor, perhaps, or the owner of a small neighborhood business. Maybe something more ambitious: his own museum.
Stratton was desolate in his failure. Without clues, without even a scent of the trail, he had nowhere to go.
Nowhere but home, back to doing what he should have been doing all along. And before that, a detour. A couple of hours was all he needed, a moment really. A chance to say goodbye to the man who had meant so much to him, and whose murder he had been unable to prevent. A taste of better times, something enduring and warm for a lifetime of cold dreams.
Stratton got an early start and reached Pittsville by noon. The moment he passed the city limit
sign he pulled his foot from the accelerator, a vestigial reflex from his days as a student. Speed trap or not, the town was still gorgeous.
It was green and cool and hilly, a sleepy old friend. Stratton wished he had never left.
He stopped for lunch at the village sundry, not far from St. Edward's campus.
The counter lady, a grand old bird with snowy hair and antique glasses, remembered him instantly and lectured him on his lousy eating habits. Stratton cheered up.
The campus had changed little, and why should it have? The enrollment stayed constant, the endowments generous but not extravagant. Ivy still climbed the red-brick bell tower, and the bells still rang off key. The narrow roads were as pocked as ever, and the college gymnasium-now called an Amphidome-still looked like a B-52 hangar.
Stratton discovered he was in no hurry. He was home. He allowed himself to be led by sights and sounds. On the steps of the cafeteria, a shaggy folksinger strummed a twelve-string and sang-Stratton couldn't believe it-Dylan. Stratton dropped a dollar into the kid's guitar case and strolled to the post office to read the campus bulletin board. It was another St. Edward's tradition.
"Roommate wanted: Any sex, any size. Must have money."
"Need Melville term paper within ten days. Will pay big bucks, plus bonus for bibliography. Reply confidential."
"I want my Yamaha handlebars back. $200 firm. No questions."
Stratton shook his head. Nothing had changed.
"You lookin' for work, young man?" came a gruff voice from behind. " 'Cause we sure don't need any more liberal agitators on this campus!"
Stratton immediately recognized the voice. "Jeff!"
"Mr. Crocker, to you." Crocker beamed and threw an arm around Stratton's shoulders. "How are you, Tom? You look like hell."
"You too."
"Editors are supposed to look like hell. It's in their contract."
"Yeah, well, I've been driving all day and I'm beat."
They walked the campus, making small talk. Crocker had been a reporter for the local newspaper when Stratton had been a student at St. Edward's. Now he was executive editor.
"They even let me teach a journalism class out here."
"God help us," Stratton said with a ghost of a smile. "The National Star comes to Pittsville."
They gravitated to the beer cellar in the basement of the cafeteria. It was five o'clock, still early for the campus drinkers, so Stratton and Crocker had no trouble finding a quiet booth.
Halfway through his first beer Crocker said, "I kind of expected to see you at the funeral."
"I couldn't come, Jeff. I was in China."
"With David? When it happened?"
Stratton told him what he could.
"It was such a shock," Crocker said. "The irony. After all those years, to return-only to die."
"He told me he was writing new lectures."
"Yes," Crocker said. "We did a feature story before he left. David always felt there was a thirty-year gap in history, at least for him. By going back he hoped to fill that empty space so he could bring his students up to date. The way he talked, the trip was purely a scholar's survey… hell, we all knew better, Tom.
You should have seen how excited he was." Crocker polished off the beer. "He was packed two weeks before the plane left. Isn't that the David Wang we knew?"
"Orderly, to the extreme," Stratton said fondly.
"Yup. It was so sad. The service was very lovely."
"I would like to have been here, Jeff. You know that."
"Have you been up there yet?" Crocker motioned with his head. Stratton knew where he meant.
"No, not yet. I'll walk up in a little while. Is the house still open?"
"They decided to lock it up after David died. To protect his library as much as anything." Crocker winked. "The key's in a flowerpot on the porch."
"Thanks."
"On my way back to town I'll tell Gulley you're up there, so he won't get all worked up and send a squad car when he sees the lights."
Stratton said, "I'll only stay a little while."
"Stay as long as you want," Crocker said. "Don't cheat yourself."
Outside, darkness had gathered swiftly under a purple quilt of threatening clouds. Stratton set out for the Arbor with a quick stride, freshened by the cool stirrings of the birch and pine. All around him students lugging books hurried to beat the rain. Past the biology building, which looked and smelled like a morgue, the campus ended and the old trees gave way to a sloping, blue-green valley. All this had once been pasture, part of the old dairy David Wang had purchased after his arrival at St. Edward's. The valley was narrow and sharply defined, and halfway up the far slope Stratton could see the trees, David's trees, a lush wall of maple and pine and oak. At the top of that hill was the old farmhouse. Beyond that, on the downslope past another tall grove, was the bluff where David's coffin lay, near a lone oak. Stratton had no desire to visit the gravesite. An empty place, it mocked him in his nightmares.
The house was something else again-all the hours they had spent together there, the student and his teacher. It was there Stratton had shared his private agony-Man-ling-and tried to explain it over and over until David had gently touched his arm and said, "I understand, Tom. War."
"Murder." Stratton had wept. "Murder."
"I understand, Tom."
And from the confession had come a silent bond more powerful than any in Stratton's life. Often in the evening the two of them would sit on the porch, sipping tea, watching the hillside go dark. Stratton learned to talk of other things, and finally the nightmares went away. Because of David, Stratton had left St. Edward's a man reconciled to his past.
Now the wind came in fits, slapping at the leaves of the trees. Stratton jumped a clear brook and bounded up the hill in a rush toward the old clapboard house.
He clomped onto the wooden porch at full tilt.
For a few moments he stood there, facing the Arbor, trying to catch his breath.
The cool wind raked through his hair and made him shiver.
It was almost nightfall.
Stratton found the flowerpot on a freshly painted window-sill. The house key lay half buried behind a splendid pink geranium.
The key fit easily, but before Stratton could turn it, the door gave way.
Crocker was wrong. It had not been locked.
Stratton groped in the darkness, cursing loudly when his knee cracked against the corner of an unseen table. His hand found a hanging lamp and turned the switch.
He stood in the middle of David Wang's library. Ranks of books marched from floor to ceiling. There was the burgundy leather chair with the worn and discolored arm rests. There was the giant Webster's on its movable stand; David would drag it all over the house, wherever he happened to be reading. And there in one corner was the newest thing in the room, a grandfather clock. Never on time, never on key, it had been a recent gift from the faculty club.
Stratton felt warm and safe in this place.
His eyes climbed to a high spot in one of the bookcases where David had tenderly arranged several framed photographs of his family. Stratton moved closer and stood on his toes. One picture in particular intrigued him: two young men at the waterfront, arms around each other's shoulders. They could have been twins, they looked so much alike. Both young men in the sepia photograph smiled for the camera, but those smiles told Stratton which of them was leaving Shanghai Harbor that day. David's smile was bright with hope, his brother's strained with envy.
"Yes, it was a sad farewell."
The voice cut through Stratton like a blast of arctic air. He had no time to speak, no time to turn around. He heard a grunt, and then his skull seemed to explode, and he felt himself falling slower and slower like ashes from a mountaintop.
CHAPTER 27
The photo album had a royal blue cover and a gold stripe. It was old and worn, with tape for hinges. The album contained faded black-and-white pictures, a half century old, of wicked, life-giving Shanghai
. There were photos of New York in the 1930s as well, of a self-conscious young man in stiff white shirt and broad necktie posed before municipal landmarks: Grant's Tomb, the spanking new Empire State Building.
The album had been David Wang's favorite.
He would sit at his desk in the old farmhouse and turn the well-remembered pages. Before a man can understand where he is going he must first come to terms with where he has been. Sometimes David Wang found refuge in the album when he had a visitor. From it he would extract lessons that matched the problem the visitor brought. Once Thomas Stratton, nerves jangled, memories still too fresh, had sat before the cumbersome old farmer's desk and watched David Wang finger the pages to the accompaniment of a gentle, wise man's monotone.
"Ah, Shanghai, what a city it was, Thomas. A cauldron of the very best and the very worst there is to life. Luxury unbounded. But for most, inconceivable misery. Too much misery. It had to change, but alas, it took the Communists to do it. We are all a bit like Shanghai, aren't we? We all change. Every day we are different. And if we are smart, smarter than the Communists, we do not destroy the good. We destroy the bad, edge it out slowly but surely-ruthlessness, cruelty, injustice, rash behavior. We build on what is good, like the body repairing a wound, forcing out the infection, replacing good for bad. Why, I remember as a boy in Shanghai… "
Through a cotton wool of pain and confusion Thomas Stratton watched David Wang again at his desk, again with the album in his delicate, thinker's fingers.
But it was not David. Not even the dulling ache in his skull would allow Stratton to believe that. There was no cup of jasmine tea at David's elbow.
Instead, a coil of rope, serpentine and menacing, lay on the scarred old desk.
There was no crackle from the old fire or soft glow from a desk lamp, only the rattle of an old-fashioned kerosene lantern perched anachronistically in one corner.
