Emperor of Ocean Park

CHAPTER 7

“You people work fast,” I tell the two agents as we settle in the living room. I have offered them something to drink, which they have declined. I am more nervous than I want to be, but that is because I am not quite ready to talk to them; I am not quite sure how to handle some of the questions they are sure to ask about my wife. Mariah, in dark slacks and bright red socks, stands in the arched entry to the foyer, watching us carefully. Sally, wearing one of her endless supply of too-tight dresses, peeks around the corner with wide, agitated eyes.

“Just doing our job,” says the tall one, a black man named Foreman. I wonder if he is deliberately misunderstanding me.

“What I mean is, we buried my father yesterday,” I explain. “My wife told me you would be coming by soon, but I would think that this could wait.”

The two men exchange a look. The shorter man, McDermott, has an angry white face, sandy hair, and a large, unsightly birthmark on the back of his hand. He seems old for this work, sixtyish, but I am wary of stereotypes. The taller one is calm and wears glasses. His hands are in constant motion, the hands of a magician. The two agents are seated awkwardly on the cream-colored sofa, as though worried about marring it. Both wear suits far cheaper than anything the mourners who crowded into the foyer last Friday would buy. I am across from them in a creaky rocker. Somewhere in the house, I hear shrieks of joy, and I know that five Dentons, plus one Garland, are off on another destructive rampage.

“We don’t think it can,” McDermott reports, staring me down.

“Well, I think this is inappropriate. I mean, naturally, I’ll be happy to help in any way I can. But surely it doesn’t have to be done today.”

There is an odd moment of silence. I have the slightly scary sense that they know secrets they are contemplating whether to reveal. I remind myself that this is America.

“What did your wife tell you, exactly?” asks McDermott at last.

“Nothing confidential,” I assure them. “She told me that you would be coming by to interview me in connection with… well, her possible nomination.”

“That we would be coming by?” Foreman sounds amused.

“Well, that somebody from the FBI would-”

“What about her nomination?” McDermott interrupts, rudely.

Before I can answer the agent’s question, Sally surprises us all by stepping forward and putting one of her own:

“Have we met before, Agent McDermott?”

He is silent for a beat, as though sorting through the visual memories of a long and distinguished career of performing background checks.

“Not that I recall, Mrs. Stillman,” he says at last. With a twinge of dismay, I note his precision: he knows who in the family has taken whose last name, and who has not. If even a timeserver like McDermott is being this thorough, Kimmer is unlikely to succeed in hiding what she most wishes to. My wife must be longing for the old days, when Washington did not care about adultery.

Once upon a time.

I make myself relax. At least we have never hired an illegal alien, my wife has never committed sexual harassment, and we have had no more trouble with our taxes than any other two-earner professional family.

“Are you sure?” Sally persists.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says shortly, and cuts his eyes toward Foreman, who nods and stands up and walks over to Sally. An appalled Mariah is already pulling at her arm. The three of them have a whispered conversation, but it is obvious that Foreman is indicating, as gently as he can, that the agents would like to talk to me alone.

“Thank you,” Foreman calls after her as Sally stomps across the foyer, half led by Mariah and half leading her. There is no response.

“Now, then,” says McDermott, looking down at his little notebook. He has already dismissed my cousin from his thoughts. I wonder, briefly, why she decided to challenge him.

“Right,” I say, for no reason. I sit back, bewildered. There is something nudging the edge of my consciousness, something to do with Sally’s reaction, but I cannot quite get it. “Right,” I repeat, losing my place.

“You were talking about your wife’s nomination,” Foreman prompts, glancing at his puzzled partner as he speaks.

“Oh, oh, right.” I gather myself. “I know she hasn’t been formally nominated. But the background check comes first, right?”

“Background check?” asks McDermott.

“Concerning her nomination,” I explain, glancing quickly toward the foyer, and also wondering whether I am idiotic or they are. “Uh, her possible nomination.”

They look at each other again. It is Foreman’s turn.

“Mr. Garland, we are not here about your wife.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“We should have made things clear.” He crosses his long legs. “We know about what is going on with your wife, of course, but I’m afraid that’s not the reason for this visit. Believe me, we would not interrupt your bereavement for a background check.”

“Okay. Okay, then, why are you here?” But, even as I speak, I know what is coming, and my heart seems to slow down.

McDermott again: “Yesterday afternoon, in the cemetery, you spoke with one Jack Ziegler. True?”

I like that: One Jack Ziegler. Conveying suspicion, but not actually saying much.

“Well, yes…”

“We need to know what you talked about. That’s why we’re here.” Just like that. He has made his demands and he is finished.

“Why?”

“We can’t tell you that,” says McDermott quickly, as well as rudely.

“We would if we could,” adds Foreman, just as fast, which earns him a dirty look from his partner. “I can say that this is in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation, and please let me assure you that neither you nor any member of your family is in any way a subject of that investigation.”

Because I am my father’s son, I am tempted, for a silly moment, to correct his use of the alleged verb ongo. In the next instant, I am tempted to tell him precisely what Uncle Jack said to me. But discipline holds in the end; one of the terrible things about being a lawyer is that cautious precision is second nature.

Besides, I already mistrust them.

I say: “How do you happen to know that I spoke with Jack Ziegler yesterday?”

“We can’t tell you that,” says McDermott, the broken record, again too fast.

“I would like to think that my government does not spy on funerals.”

“We do what we have to do,” McDermott chirps.

“We don’t spy at all.” Foreman cuts in like a bully at a high-school dance. “In a criminal investigation, as you know, being a lawyer yourself, there are certain exigencies. The methodology is often complex, but, I assure you, we always proceed in accord with pertinent regulations.” He is saying precisely the same thing as McDermott, just using a lot more words to do it. He is probably a lawyer too.

I am running out of ideas. I ask: “Is Jack Ziegler the subject of the investigation? No, never mind,” I add, before McDermott can repeat his line.

“We need your help,” says Foreman. “We need it badly.”

I use one of my father’s most effective tools when he used to lecture: I make them wait. I think about my encounter with Uncle Jack, and try to understand what it is that I am guarding. I think that perhaps I should relate, word for word, what happened. I nearly do. And then, in his impatience, McDermott ruins it.

“We can make you tell us, you know.”

Foreman nearly groans. My head snaps around. I have been angry, on and off, for the last several days, and yesterday I was frightened. I have had enough.

“I beg your pardon.”

“You have to tell us what you know. It’s your legal obligation.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snap, my eyes blazing through suddenly red air into Agent McDermott’s unanticipated umbrage. “That isn’t the law, as I’m sure you know. You can’t coerce somebody into cooperating with your investigation. You can, maybe, punish me if I tell you something that isn’t true, but you can’t make me tell you what you want to know, no matter how badly you need to know it, not unless you convene a grand jury and issue a subpoena. Now, is that what you want to do?”

“We could do that,” says McDermott. I do not understand his fury or, for that matter, his tactics. “We don’t want to, but we could.”

I am not finished. “Federal prosecutors convene grand juries, not FBI agents. And, as I recall, there is a very specific regulation prohibiting you from making threats.”

“We’re not making threats,” Foreman tries, but McDermott will not stop.

“We don’t have time to play games,” McDermott snarls. His voice has taken on a faint accent, probably Southern. “Jack Ziegler is scum. He’s a murderer. He sells arms. He sells drugs. I don’t know what else he sells. I do know nobody’s been able to nail him. Well, this time we’re going to do it. We’re this close, Professor.” He holds up thumb and forefinger a centimeter or so apart. Then he leans toward me. “Now, your wife is up for a judgeship. Great, I hope she gets it. But it’s not going to look very good, is it, when it turns out that her husband refused to cooperate in a criminal investigation of a scumbag like good old Uncle Jack Ziegler. So-are you going to help us or not?”

I glance over at Foreman in disbelief, but his face is professionally blank. Full of fiery indignation, I am about to snap out an answer-goodness knows what I plan to say-when Sally’s stout voice drifts into the room from the foyer:

“I’m leaving, Tal. Gotta go to work. I guess I’ll have to talk to you later.” Judging from her tone, she is still offended at being excluded. But she also wants to talk to me now.

I jump to my feet and excuse myself for a moment, buying time to think. And, if I can, to calm down. I walk Sally to the door. On the front step, she pauses, turns to face me, and asks if I happened to get Agent McDermott’s first name. I confess that he does not seem to have mentioned it, then ask her why she wants to know.

“I just have the feeling I’ve seen him before,” Cousin Sally says, her bold brown eyes holding mine. Except on the subject of Addison, Sally lacks an outlandish imagination, so, if she says she has met him, I am required to take her seriously.

“Where?”

“I don’t know, Tal, but-did you see his hand?”

“The birthmark? Yes.”

“Yeah, and his lip.” I think about it for a few seconds, then nod. There is a small, pale spot on McDermott’s upper lip, a kind of scar, far more prominent when he is angry. “I’ve seen that mark before,” says my cousin, who, thanks to a bad marriage in her past, has a few scars of her own.

“Where?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“On the Hill? In connection with your work?”

Sally shakes her head. “A long time ago.”

Before I can respond to this, Sally shrugs and smiles and says never mind, more than likely she is mistaken.

I wait a beat, then ask her if she is all right. “I’m fine,” she says, a sad, thoughtful look coming into her eyes. Sally squeezes my hand, and, when she lets go, my anger goes too, just like that, as though she has drawn it out of me.

“Thanks for your help,” I smile.

She smiles back, then turns and heads for her car, carrying one of the oversized totes that always remind Kimmer of a bag lady.

I return to the living room, far calmer than I was a few minutes ago. McDermott and Foreman are both on their feet, alert and impatient, but confident too. Well, why shouldn’t they be confident? They have played the good-cop, bad-cop routine perfectly, and they both know I am beaten. I know it too. I have no idea whether Sally really has seen McDermott before, but I have learned a lot over the years about cutting your losses; one of the things the Judge drummed into our heads was the old rhyme about living to fight another day. I look at the agents steadily and say: “I’m sorry if I seemed uncooperative. That wasn’t my intention. Now, what exactly do you want to know?”

My sister and I get moving later than we planned, but eventually we arrive at the crowded skating rink, which is across the highway from one of Washington’s countless suburban shopping malls. Marcus has a cold and stays at Shepard Street with the au pair, so we are seven altogether, and can all squeeze into Mariah’s justacquired Lincoln Navigator, that luxurious monster masquerading as a sports-utility vehicle. Everybody skates but me. Mariah’s children, who apparently do this all the time, are quite good, and Bentley, who has never done it before, is eager to try, for his introspective streak does nothing to reduce his childlike bravado. Mariah takes personal charge of him and promises not to leave his side. Mariah takes promises more seriously than anybody I have ever known, so I have no doubts about his safety. Bentley, however, must have a few; just before stepping onto the rink itself, he turns to me, so festooned with pads and helmet that he can scarcely be seen, and whispers, “Dare you?” Smiling, I shake my head and assure my son that Aunt Mariah will take good care of him. Bentley smiles tentatively back at me, then steps out into the rink, holding on to my sister with both hands. The Denton children have long since whirled away, to the beat of a song by Celine Dion or Mariah Carey or some other PG-motion-picture-soundtrack diva.

I lean on the heavy wooden boards that form the sides of the rink, and watch. I am not skating because I do not want to embarrass myself, but also because I want to think. I want to think because I want to make sure that I am not in trouble. I want to make sure that I am not in trouble because I did not tell Foreman and McDermott everything that happened. I did not lie to them, exactly, but I did not reveal the entire conversation with Uncle Jack. I told them about the condolences he offered. I told them he seemed sick. I told them about his repeated demands to know about the arrangements. I told them about his concern that others, who would mean us ill, would ask the same questions. But I did not tell them about his promise to protect me and my family, for fear that it might be misconstrued. I did not tell them what he said about Marc Hadley.

The odd part was that, after I finished my recitation (which they interrupted only now and then, for minor clarifications), the FBI men had just one question, asked with polite emphasis by Agent Foreman: “So, Mr. Garland, what arrangements did your father make?” When I repeated what I had earlier told Uncle Jack, that I did not have the slightest idea what arrangements he was talking about, Foreman walked me, with lawyerlike precision, through a series of possibilities: Were there any special financial arrangements? Burial arrangements? Had my father left any special instructions about what should be done upon his death? Special instructions to open a safe-deposit box, for example? Or an envelope to be sealed until after he died? Did I recall any conversations or communications over the past year in which my father used the word arrangements? (That last question would have left me laughing had their faces, and McDermott’s silky threat about Kimmer, not been so serious.)

I responded to every question with some version of the same hackneyed Washington phrase: I don’t know, Not to my knowledge, I don’t recall, sounding much like my father before the Judiciary Committee, and reminding me yet again just how much I hate the city. Once it became clear that this was the only answer I was prepared to offer, McDermott seemed ready to lose his temper again. But, for once, Foreman got there first. He told me how helpful I had been. He told me how they knew it was a difficult time and they were grateful for my cooperation. He told me that he would personally see to it that none of this created the slightest adverse reflection on my wife’s chances for nomination-another nicely meaningless lawyerly turn of a phrase. And he told me they would see themselves out, which I allowed them to do.

A few minutes after the agents left, I found myself regretting that I had not told them all I knew-and only then did I realize that they had not left me business cards telling me how to get in touch with them if I remembered anything else. This struck me as odd, because the many FBI agents I regularly encounter when my former students go through security checks for government jobs always leave their cards. I worried over this omission, wondering why they were so confident that they had all they needed to know, wondering whether I had, without realizing it, given them the decisive link in their investigation. Then I forgot all about the question, because an impatient Mariah, tapping her foot in the foyer, pointed out that we had to leave, lest we not have time to skate and still get back for my appointment with Mallory Corcoran. On the way to the skating rink, she sat in silence for a while, then asked whether I thought Sally really knew McDermott. I said something inconsequential about how I had no way to tell. Mariah said she did not think Sally was the sort to make stuff up. As it happens, I agree, but I only nodded, humoring my worried sister. Next, I figured, she would be telling me that the FBI killed the Judge. Or a cabal of liberals with strawberry birthmarks on their hands. Or a conspiracy of men with scars on their lips. But she said nothing, just brooded all the rest of the way to the rink, and I apologized telepathically for my unworthy thoughts.

Now, watching my son grow gradually less tentative under my sister’s tutelage, I am impressed by her patience, her maternal thoroughness. She has coaxed him to the point where he is willing to let go of her hand. I smile. Mariah knows how to mother, puts lots of time and thought into it. I wish I knew as much about how to father. Feeling a sudden surge of love for my sister, I try to put her wild theories out of my mind, pondering instead a far more pressing question: how to catch up with the work I am paid for. I must schedule makeup classes for torts and for my seminar, which I am missing for this entire week, and still find time to finish the overdue revised draft of my article on mass tort litigation for the law review, which I originally planned to pursue this past weekend. Maybe if I-

Suddenly, an astonishingly well muscled woman of our nation thwacks against the boards below me, grabs the top of the wall with two gloved hands, and favors me with a sunny smile. She is clad in black spandex and red skates, and she moves with the easy grace of the natural athlete. “Hey, handsome, how come you’re not skating?” she calls, as though we have known each other for years. Her skin is gorgeously brown, her face plain yet roundly pleasant, her mouth full of huge teeth, her head unfortunately topped by a shock of hideously pressed flat curls. Two gold loops, one large, one small, hang from each pierced ear. She is close to six feet tall, and older than I first thought: perhaps in her mid-thirties. “Are you there?” she asks, still smiling, when at first I say nothing. “Hello?” She is, I realize in surprise, flirting with me, not an activity with which I have much recent experience. Her eyes sparkle with secret mischief, and her toothy grin is contagious.

I find myself smiling back, but my throat is dry, and it is an effort for me to say, “I’m afraid I’m not much of a skater.”

“So what?” she laughs, shuffling her feet in place, a fist on each strong hip. “I’ll teach you if you want.” She reaches a hand toward me, palm upward, fingers splayed, and tilts her head to one side as if to stretch her neck. “Come on, handsome, you need to have some fun, I can tell.”

Unexpectedly stirred by her aggressiveness, and, I confess, already having fun, I am about to reply with a remark every bit as flirtatious as hers, when she casts a practiced eye down at my hand, observes my wedding band, loses her smile, says, “Oops, oh, hey, sorry,” spreads her long arms, and skates off, backward. With a last saucy wave, she swirls away and is lost in the crowded rink. To my surprise, I am pierced with a sense of loss so strong that for an instant I forget to watch out for Bentley, who naturally chooses that moment to collide with another skater. He leaves the rink wailing, his lip split bloodily. Mariah, full of apologies, is in tears herself. A couple of her spoiled children laugh at Bentley’s clumsiness, the others sob at all the blood. I hug my son and apply an ice pack helpfully supplied by the management, but he is shaking his head and crying for his mother. I was nowhere near him when the accident happened and could have done nothing to prevent it, but Bentley seems to think I am guilty nevertheless.

Most likely, he is right, for the roller woman cavorts through my dreams for weeks to come.