The Emperor of Ocean Park

by Stephen L Carter

“Let me help, Misha,” whispers the ghost, but it is really Dear Dana Worth.

  (II)

  FOR A MOMENT I CAN THINK OF NOTHING TO SAY. Dana stands before me, smiling shyly, and also trembling a bit, for prowling the cemetery at night is no fun for anybody. I should have known she would figure it out. She is dressed for the weather, in a dark ski parka and heavy jeans, and has even brought her own shovel.

  “What are you doing here?” I demand, still shivering from the fright she gave me.

  “Oh, come on, Misha. After what you asked me to do? Did you really think I would miss it?”

  I let this go. “How did you get in?”

  “Through the gate, the same way you did.”

  “I’ve been here since closing.”

  “The gate isn’t closed.”

  “It what? It is. I saw Samuel close it.”

  Dana shrugs. “Well, it isn’t closed now. I just walked in. So, are you going to let me help you or not?”

  I put it together. The gate isn’t closed. Somebody unlocked it. And why leave it ajar? Because this is not just about the arrangements any more, and it is not just about following me until I find them, either.

  If the gate was left open, it was left that way in invitation. Which means that now this is about Dana, too.

  Bad news. Very bad news. If Dana had left it at doing as I asked, if she had not come here tonight, what I said to her in Post would have been true: she would have been perfectly safe.

  “Dana, you have to get out of here. You have to go, fast.”

  “I’m not leaving you here, Misha. Uh-uh, no way.”

  “Will you quit being so loyal?” I am shouting as best I can without raising my voice above a whisper.

  Despite her fear, she responds tartly: “Gee, is this the guy who was lecturing me about loyalty two years ago?” When she left Eddie, she means.

  “Come on, Dana, I’m serious. You have to get out of here.” I wave a hand toward the rest of the cemetery. “It’s dangerous.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be here either.”

  “Dana, come on . . . .”

  “You come on. Don’t give me any of this me-man, you-woman stuff, okay? I know you’re primitive, but you’re not that primitive. Now, get serious, Misha. I’m not going to abandon you. I’m not. If we leave, we leave together. But if you stay, I’m staying, too. So, please, Misha, quit wasting time.”

  Well, the truth is, it’s less spooky with Dana here. And I might need the help.

  “Okay. Let’s get to work.”

  I dig. Dana pulls. Dana digs. I pull.

  Then we get it right. We both dig, clearing the dirt from all four sides. We both pull at the same time. And, just like that, the box is free of the earth, clods falling away from its shiny blue surface. The metal is at first so cold that my fingers stick. It is a box of the sort in which one keeps canceled checks or passports. A strongbox, which would usually be locked. But I am sure that this one . . .

  Yes.

  As Dana stands next to me, beaming, I brush away a few loose clods of earth and lift the top. It opens on its hinges, quite freely.

  I glance around, then sit on the low stone wall, setting the box next to me. I leave it open but make no effort to remove the oilcloth package I have already spotted inside. A grin tugs at my lips as I consider all the people who would like to be holding what we have dug up.

  “What now?” asks Dana, growing nervous again, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Is that it? Are we done?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Misha, look, this has been fun, okay, but I want to get out of here.”

  I look around again, puzzled. “Okay. You’re right. Let’s go.”

  I close up the box, still leaving the contents undisturbed. I pack up my shovel and my notebook, haul the knapsack onto my back once more, and, with Dear Dana Worth at my side, stride toward the gate. This time my route is more direct, but the shadowy headstones here look like the headstones everyplace else. Dana practically skips along. She seems almost giddy at the thought that we are leaving this place, and I am rather pleased myself. I cradle the box in my arms, still worried about whether somebody else is in here with us.

  As we hike, I listen. Was that a footstep? The sloughing of metal over stone? I fall back and listen harder. Nothing but silence now. We reach the second crossroads, turn right onto the direct path toward the gate. Dana’s stride quickens. She is tough, the terror of the law school, but I know this sojourn among the remains of the dead has spooked her. She will be relieved to escape.

  So will I.

  I allow her to walk on ahead. I slow down. Cock my head to the side.

  “Okay, Misha, what is it this time?” Dana’s voice is impatient as she circles back in my direction. She folds her arms and clucks her tongue. No matter what evidence might have brought us to this point, the only conspiracies she really cares about are those perpetrated by the faculty appointments committee. Yet I note the hysterical edge to her voice; my erstwhile buddy is as frightened as I am.

  “Hush,” I murmur, listening.

  “Misha, I really think we should—”

  “Dana, will you please shut up?”

  In the harsh white gleam of my flashlight, Dear Dana’s face is twisted in anger and hurt, the face of a little girl. She has already declared our comradeship, her furious expression signals, by coming here in the first place. She does not have to accept my verbal abuse too.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “You know, Msha,” she hisses, “there are times when I don’t know what I see in you.”

  “I understand. But hush anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m trying to listen.”

  To my relief, Dana cooperates this time. She steps away, standing off to the side of the path, shaking her head at my foolishness, but she does it quietly. She puts a hand on the side of a mausoleum, pressing as though expecting to find a hidden doorway, then pulls it back, her fingers having touched something she would rather not name. She wraps her arms around herself, puffs out air. Her bluster, I know, hides a disquiet as great as mine.

  I walk a few steps down the path in the direction from which we came.

  Nothing.

  “I’m going to turn off my light for a minute,” I tell her, and do it. “Point yours the other way.”

  Dana, her expression now uneasy, nods her head. I wait until the beam from Dana’s lantern swings out of my line of sight. Then I move farther down the path and glare into the graying darkness. Nothing.

  Something.

  A small metallic click. Repeated, but not regularly enough to represent some broken valve on a truck idling outside the walls. It is made by a human being. A human being carrying something that clanks and jangles. But trying to be quiet about it.

  Silence falls again, but I am not fooled. It was a click. A human click. Maybe more than one click. Maybe more than one human. And not far away.

  Still clutching the box, I pull Dana close.

  “Why, Misha,” she says, “I didn’t know you cared.” But she says it in irritation, for Dana, as I believe I have mentioned, does not like to be touched.

  I lean toward her ear and whisper, “Somebody else is in here.”

  Dear Dana shudders and pulls away from me. “That’s ridiculous. Number one, I think we would have heard him. Number two, nobody else is as crazy as you—”

  “Dana—”

  “Number three, please don’t grab me like that. Ever. Okay?”

  “I’m sorry, but I was trying to—”

  “Misha, look. We’re friends and all. But, number one, grabbing me like that is disrespectful of my space. Number two, it’s such an aggressive, male—”

  This time Dana has to end her list inconclusively, because we both hear, very close behind us, the crunch of what can only be a human being crossing gravel, followed by a soft exclamation as said human stumbles.

  Finally spooked, we take off, no longer trying
to be quiet. We reach the front gate in less than a minute.

  It is closed.

  “Give it a shove,” I suggest to Dana.

  She pushes, pushes harder, then turns to me and shakes her head.

  “What is it?”

  “Look.” Her voice trembles as she points. The padlock and chain are firmly in place. Now I know what was clanking in the darkness.

  We are trapped in the cemetery.

  “Okay,” I mutter, thinking fast. Maybe Samuel simply forgot, then came back and put the chain on as usual. Maybe. On the other hand, he has done nothing else for the past quarter-century but open this gate in the morning and lock it at night. From force of habit alone, he would surely have chained it up. Somebody picked the lock and opened the gate to see if anybody else came in. Anybody who was helping me, for instance. Then the same somebody chained it again.

  Dana, always prepared, reaches toward her belt. “I’ll use my phone.”

  “To call whom?”

  She frowns. “I don’t know. The police or somebody. You have a better idea?”

  Recalling my previous encounter with the police, I shake my head. “We can get out the other way.”

  “What other way?”

  I find a grin somewhere, then turn to look toward the rear of the cemetery again. I do not want to plunge back into that awful darkness, easy prey for whoever or whatever lurks in the shadows of the dead, but we have no choice. “It’s a long story, Dana. Believe me, there is another way out. A drainage tunnel in the south wall. Seriously. I’ll show you.” I take a couple of steps down the path. “Come with me.”

  She does not answer.

  I turn back. “Dana? It’ll be fine, I promise.”

  She is a couple of paces behind me, her wide-eyed gaze in the other direction, toward the gate. I follow her line of sight.

  “Misha,” she gasps, then drops her shovel on the ground and raises her hands slowly. Looking past her, I shut up at once.

  He must have been hiding behind one of the mausoleums, I realize, for he appeared as though by magic. I congratulate myself on this deduction to avoid crying out. For the man who is standing just off the path, easily picked out in the glare of my flashlight, has obviously been waiting at the gate for us to return. He is a tough-looking man, blocky and loose-limbed, a wall of flesh barring our path. A scraggly beard encircles his wrathful face. His eyes are hard. A coldly efficient gun clutched lightly in his right hand is pointing in our direction. The air seems suddenly slushy and cold, an impediment through which I must swim to move any part of my body. Dana has already put her hands up, just like a character in a movie, and I decide to do the same, especially because the man holding the gun motions with the barrel, making it plain what he wants us to do. Moving slowly, to show that I am no threat, I put the flashlight on the ground. I straighten again. He gives me another signal with the gun. Reluctantly, I put the strongbox down too.

  “Very good,” says the bearded man in a terrifyingly familiar voice. His hair is a bright, fiery red.

  “No,” I breathe. “It isn’t possible.”

  But it is.

  Because my attention is naturally on the blue-black gun with its bulbous silencer, it has taken a few seconds for my terrified brain to register a simple, stunning fact: the man blocking our path is no stranger. Behind the reddish-brown hair and reddish-brown beard is the ruddy, self-satisfied face of Colin Scott.

  CHAPTER 51

  AN OLD FRIEND RETURNS

  AS SO OF TEN, I am the first to speak, and what I say is utterly stupid: “You’re dead.”

  Colin Scott seems to give this problem serious consideration, stroking his bushy new beard. A car passes by outside the gate, but it might as well be on the other side of the world. The hand holding the gun remains very steady, aiming at a spot midway between Dana and myself.

  “He doesn’t look very dead to me, Misha,” whispers Dana, pretending that she is not frightened out of her wits. But I find myself growing calmer by the second. Either we will die here or we will not die here. The Judge always emphasized free will; I hunt around for the opportunity to exercise some.

  “Keep your hands very still,” says Colin Scott at last. My hands, like Dana’s, are well up toward the stratosphere. All four are trembling. “Use your foot to push the box over to me.”

  I do it. He makes no move to pick it up.

  “I knew you must have a helper, Professor.” He turns to Dana. “We have not been introduced.”

  I realize he is serious. I say awkwardly, “Dana, this is, uh, Agent—that is, Colin Scott, also known as Jonathan Villard. Mr. Scott, this is Professor Dana Worth.”

  He nods, no longer interested, then cocks his head, listening. He frowns. He has the gun, so we wait for him to speak.

  “Is somebody else here with you? Please don’t waste my time lying.”

  “No, it’s just the two of us,” I assure him. Dana and I glance at each other, passing telepathic messages, trying to coordinate a lie. If telepathy only existed, we might even get away with it.

  “Do you know what is in the box?”

  “I opened it. It isn’t locked. I saw a package inside, that’s all.”

  “That’s all.” He crouches, the gun holding us in place, and slowly lifts the lid. In the movies, this would be the moment when I would spin around and kick the gun out of his hand while the bad guy stood still and let me do it, watching in amazement.

  I can no longer restrain myself: “They said you drowned.”

  “It wasn’t me,” he answers calmly. “A man drowned, but it wasn’t me. I told you I would have to do something about the Bureau. Being dead is an excellent way to forestall an investigation.”

  “I saw the photograph—”

  “Yes, from the license. Well, that was me. The photograph. But a body from the water? Even a few hours with the fish can change the countenance to the point where it is difficult to tell.”

  I feel a leaden chill. A few hours with the fish can change the countenance. Is that where Dana and I are headed?

  Dana’s turn: “But the body was identified—”

  “No. No, it was not. This is a common misperception.” He tilts his head the other way and purses his thick lips as though measuring us for a casket. “No body is ever really identified. Certainly no body that has suffered any decomposition. The fingerprints are identified. The dental work is identified. We assume that, if we know the owner of the fingerprints, we know the identity of the body. But that assumption is only as good as the quality of the underlying records.”

  Even though I am likely to be dead in about ninety seconds, the semiotician in me is impressed. All of forensic science is, in this sense, based on a classic misapprehension of cognition: the inability to distinguish between the signifier and the signified. Fingerprints are the signifiers. Dental records are the signifiers. They are the coded messages to which we assign significance. The identity of the body, the person we decide is dead, is the signified. We all act as though knowledge of the first necessarily implies knowledge of the second. But the implication is only a convention. It is not celestial mechanics. It is not the healing of an illness. It works because we decide that it works. We make that decision by accepting, without question, the accuracy of the records themselves.

  “You fiddled with the records,” Dana murmurs, for she never has any trouble keeping up. “Or somebody did.”

  Colin Scott says nothing. This is not the time for true confessions. His silence is itself a menace . . . and an opportunity. His look is pensive. Not all, evidently, has gone as he planned. He is trying to decide what to do.

  “So, you have the box,” I point out, fighting for time. “You’re safe now.”

  “The box was never for me, Professor. That much of what I told you was true. I was . . . engaged . . . to recover it for someone else.”

  “Who?”

  Another long silence, weighing what to tell. His face is drawn, reminding me that he was already middle-aged when kicked ou
t of the Agency almost thirty years ago. At last he says: “I am not here to offer you explanations, Professor. But do not assume that I was the only one hoping you would find this box. I am simply the only one who was present when you found it.”

  Dana’s turn: “But why couldn’t you find the box on your own?”

  Colin Scott’s yellow eyes turn toward her, flash dismissively, and return to me. Yet, in speaking to me, he is answering her question. “Your father was a brilliant man. He wanted you to find the box, but he also knew there would be somebody in the way. Me or somebody like me. He couldn’t take any chances.”

  “What?”

  “We knew what the Excelsior was, that was child’s play. And we knew we had the wrong boyfriend for Angela, or he would have told us what we needed to find out. But the cemetery . . . that was clever, Professor. Very clever.”

  A silence. I break it. “Okay, so what do we do now?”

  His thin, scarred lips curl into a slight smile, but he does not bother to answer. Instead, he gestures with the gun, moving us further away from the gate and along the path into the cemetery. Where he can kill us more easily. He points toward Dana’s belt. With trembling fingers, she detaches her cell phone and hands it to him. He glances at it briefly, then drops it onto the gravel and, without seeming to aim, fires two quick bullets into it. Dana flinches at the muted sound. So do I.

  “You don’t have to be afraid, Professor,” he declares. His eyes appear to be watching us, the path behind us, and, impossibly, the paths off to either side, without any movement of his head. “I have what I came for, and you will never see me again. So I am not going to kill you.”

  “You’re not?” I ask with my usual incisiveness.

  “I have no compunction against killing. Killing is a tool one must be prepared to use in my profession.” He lets this sink in. “But there are such things as orders, and, as I once had occasion to tell your father, there are rules for this kind of thing.”

  “Rules? What rules?”

  Colin Scott shrugs, without moving the gun a millimeter. “Let us simply say that your friend Jack Ziegler, scum of the earth though he may be, is a very vindictive man.”