A Death in China

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.