Emperor of Ocean Park

CHAPTER 14

After lunch on Tuesdays, I meet with the members of my seminar on Legal Regulation of Institutional Structure. The seminar covers everything from securities regulation to canon law to the rules that govern student-council elections, always playing the semiotic game, trying to figure out not what each rule means, but what it signifies, and how that signal is related to the purpose of the institution. The course draws some of the brightest students in the law school, and probably I enjoy it more than any other class I teach. This afternoon features a delightful, good-natured clash between two of my favorites, brilliant if slightly addled Crysta Smallwood, still struggling to figure out when the paler nation race is going to expire, and the equally talented Victor Mendez, whose father, a Cuban emigre, is a power in Republican politics, which probably puts him to the left of Victor himself. I play referee as Victor and Crysta contend across the seminar table over the question of whether sexual harassment represents a failing of institutions or of individuals. When I finally call time as the class ends at four, I award the round to Crysta on points. Crysta grins. The dozen other students laugh and pound her on the back. I remind them that we will not meet next week because I will be in Washington at a conference, and admonish them to turn in the first drafts of their term papers to my secretary before I return. With students of this caliber, there is no whimper of complaint.

Oh, but there are days when I love teaching!

I trip happily up the stairs to Dorothy Dubcek’s office, where I collect messages and faxes, then bounce down to my own little corner of the law school. Outside my office, I trumpet a cheery hello to aging Amy Hefferman, my Oldie neighbor, who was in law school with my father. She blinks her tired eyes and tells me that Dean Lynda is looking for me, and I nod as though impressed. Safely inside, I toss everything onto my desk while I check my voice mail. Nothing important. A reporter, with a question, miraculously, about tort law, not the Judge. American Express-I am late again. And one of Lynda Wyatt’s assistants: the Dean, as Amy mentioned, wants to speak to me, presumably about Kimmer’s competition with Marc Hadley. No thanks. Instead, I call the day-care center to make sure Bentley is okay, and the head teacher’s irritation blasts through the telephone. I smile at her annoyance: as long as she is angry, my son is doing fine.

My mood surprises me. I should, by rights, be dispirited. It is one week since my encounter with Not-McDermott, one week since the delivery of the pawn to me at the soup kitchen, one week since the arrest of Sharik Deveaux. Five days ago Kimmer came home from San Francisco and lovingly calmed me down. I am jumping at shadows, she murmured, kissing me gently. I have to look at things rationally, she said, cooking me a nice dinner. If the pawn was really a message and not somebody’s tasteless joke, then whoever sent it will tell me sooner or later what it means, she whispered, head on my shoulder, as we sat up together and watched an old movie. What is there to be afraid of? she asked me softly as we lay in the darkness of our bedroom, surprisingly comfortable together. The murderer is in jail, and McDermott, who has come and gone, has been declared harmless by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Day after day Kimmer has repeated the same arguments. She has been both comforting and persuasive. I have gone from frightened to worried to merely concerned. I have been trying to reach serene. I have been trying not to suspect that the real reason my wife wants me to relax is in order to keep her potential judgeship on track.

Nothing can quite drag me down. The weather has turned fair: temperatures in the fifties, and here it is the middle of a New England autumn. My mood has lifted along with the temperature. Today, for the first time since the death of the Judge, I am actually feeling like a law professor. I am enjoying the classroom; and so, it seems, are my students. (Except for Avery Knowland, whose attendance at my torts class has grown spotty and who has largely ceased to participate. I need to do something about him.) I remember that I chose this profession more than it chose me, and that I have been reasonably successful at it.

I am actually humming a bit of Ellington as I turn to the message slips and discover that one of my favorite people in the world, John Brown, has been trying to get in touch with me. John, a college classmate who now teaches engineering out at Ohio State, is the steadiest man I know. I call him back at once, hoping to hear the details of the visit he and his wife and children will be making to Elm Harbor in a few weeks. We exchange a few pleasantries, he tells me how much his family is looking forward to their stay with us, and then he discloses the reason for his call: an FBI agent dropped in yesterday, doing a background check for a possible “high-ranking federal appointment” for my wife. John wants to know what it is all about, and why he and his wife, Janice, have to be the last to know.

The only trouble is, Mallory Corcoran has assured me that the background check has not yet begun. The day that has been so peaceful and bright begins to turn dreary once more.

“John, listen. This is important. Please tell me that the agent who interviewed you was not named McDermott.”

My old friend laughs. “Not to worry, Misha. It wasn’t Mcanything. I’m pretty sure he said his name was Foreman.”

I try not to alarm him. I tease out a few details, suppressing the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. I cannot lie to John. I tell him that the man called Foreman is not really with the FBI, that he is some kind of private investigator, and that he is breaking the law by pretending otherwise. I tell him that the real FBI will probably want to talk to him, because they are looking for Foreman. I wait for John to turn chilly on me, but instead he asks if I am in some kind of trouble. I tell him I doubt it. I promise to explain what I can when he and his wife come visit. When we finally hang up, I put my face in my hands, feeling the weight of depression pressing down on my shoulders. I sit shaking my head, wondering how I could have been stupid enough to think it was all over.

And that is where Mariah tracks me down, still at my desk, to tell me the exciting news about the way the Judge was murdered.

“Bullet fragments,” I repeat, making sure I have heard my sister correctly.

“That’s right, Tal.”

“In the Judge’s head.”

“Right.”

“Fragments that the autopsy somehow overlooked.” I am clicking frantically with my mouse, trying to find the Web site Mariah is describing over the telephone with such gusto. This is the last thing I need. There are about eleven hundred things I would rather be doing just now, but, as Rob Saltpeter likes to say, obligation to family is nonrefundable.

“On purpose, Tal.” Mariah is suddenly impatient. “Not by accident. They didn’t want us to know. They didn’t want anybody to know.”

“They in this case being…”

“I don’t know. That’s why I think we need some help.”

“So why wasn’t there any blood in the house?” I am proud of myself for asking a reasonably intelligent question. The quarrel with Mariah has at least distracted me from the possibility that McDermott and Foreman are still on the loose.

“They cleaned it up.”

Of course.

“Or moved the body,” I suggest facetiously, but Mariah takes it at face value.

“Exactly! There’s lots of possibilities.”

The university loves investing in its science departments, but the law school’s cut-rate technology includes ancient computers, and the download of the supposed photographs of my father’s autopsy is taking forever. I need to hurry, because it is almost time to pick up Bentley from his preschool. I mentioned this to Mariah, who told me that her news would only take a minute. Still waiting for the computer, I stand up and stretch. For the past two weeks, I have been listening to my big sister’s ever-wilder theories about what actually happened. Despite an unambiguous autopsy result, Mariah continues to insist that so many powerful people wanted the Judge out of the way that some combination of them is bound to have brought him down. She has been reading up on drugs that can cause heart attacks. For a few days it was potassium-chloride poisoning: the medical examiner did not search properly for needle marks. Then it was prussic acid: the ME did not do an oxygen-saturation test. Each time it turns out that she is wrong, my sister comes up with something else. And, when pressed, she almost always concedes that her source is some Internet site. I remember something that Addison, proprietor of several sites, likes to say about the Web: One-third retail, one-third porn, and one-third lies, all of our baser nature in one quick stop.

“What kind of help do you think we need?” I ask her now.

“There are lots of people who want to help,” Mariah proclaims happily, if cryptically. “Lots and lots of people.” I grimace, wondering what has been going through her head as she sits all day with all those children in her palace, as Kimmer calls it, in Darien. Mariah has probably received the same bizarre calls I have, a variety of hard-right organizations dedicated to demonstrating conspiracies whenever they lose, and, certainly, when one of their most valuable assets is so prosaically struck down. Real men are murdered. Heart attacks are for wimps.

“What exactly do they want to do, kiddo?”

“Well, for one thing, they are going to run newspaper ads calling for an investigation.”

“Great. When do they plan to go public with that brilliant idea?” Hoping that I can get Uncle Mal or some other of my father’s wiser Washington acquaintances to prevent it.

“Don’t take that tone, Tal. Wait until you see the pictures.” A beat. “Have you looked at them yet?”

“In a minute.” I return to my chair. “When is the announcement, Mariah?”

“Soon,” she murmurs, no longer sure I am an ally.

“Mariah, you know… Okay, hold on.” The download is at last complete, four rather gory photographs, and I see no reason to think that any one of them is authentic. Three of the four do not show the face of the corpse, but the build does not resemble the Judge. Nor does the skin color, in every case too dark. The one that clearly is my father is sufficiently grainy that it is not clear why it is even there, which conspiracy it is supposed to prove. I frown and lean closer, pushing my glasses up onto my nose with a finger. One of the nonfacial shots does indeed show the black specks that Mariah called to tell me about. I suppose they could be bullet fragments, if I knew how bullet fragments look. Only… wait…

“Mariah.”

“Hmmm?”

“Mariah, I think… couldn’t that just be dirt on the lens?”

“See? That’s the same thing the medical examiner said.”

I remind myself that Mariah is my big sister and I love her. “Mariah, kiddo, please tell me you didn’t ask the ME about this.”

“Oh, no, Tal, of course not.”

“Good.”

“I didn’t have to ask. Her statement is in this morning’s paper.”

Oh, great. In the newspaper. The Judge must be spinning in his grave. I wonder if Kimmer has heard. “Well, if the ME says it was just dust…”

“You can’t believe her. ”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, she’s a Democrat.”

The thing is, Mariah isn’t joking.

So, glancing at my watch, I say what I know she wants me to say. “I’ll call Uncle Mal and ask him to look into it.” Not telling her that the great Mallory Corcoran hardly ever takes my calls any more, which means that I will be kicked down the ladder to Cassie Meadows. Or that Meadows herself is probably tired of me too, and will likely spend no more than one phone call on the matter.

I am hoping that is all it is worth.

To my surprise, not only is Meadows free to talk, but she has good news: the FBI has tracked down the mysterious McDermott. He is, indeed, a private investigator, based down in South Carolina. He has been bothering people who knew my father, especially around Washington, asking about a woman named Angela. He is well known to his local sheriff, who considers him persistent and perhaps a bit underhanded, but certainly not dangerous. He even has a real name, but the Bureau would not tell Meadows what it is.

“Why wouldn’t they tell you?”

She hesitates, wanting to be a Washington player like Mallory Corcoran, and thus loath to admit that she is outside certain circles of knowledge. “They said we didn’t need to know,” she finally confesses.

“Did they say why?”

Another pause. “I didn’t ask, to tell you the truth. Maybe I should have pressed…”

“It doesn’t matter.” I sketch for her the substance of John Brown’s call. “Did they tell you anything about Foreman?”

“Foreman works for him. He’s some kind of private investigator too, and, yes, Mr. Garland, he is also considered harmless.”

At last I allow myself a ripple of relief. “Anything else?”

“Only that the two of them have fled the jurisdiction. Left the United States. They apparently heard the FBI was looking for them and headed for Canada.”

“Canada? What is the FBI after them for, that they would go to Canada?”

“That’s what they told me.”

Puzzled but relieved, I remember why I called in the first place. I tell Meadows about Mariah and her bullet fragments. Meadows laughs.

“What’s funny?” I glance at my watch, worry about my son waiting.

“I’ll add it to the file.”

“What file?”

“Mr. Corcoran had me open a file for stuff like this. We’ve got every nutty letter, every Internet posting, every right-wing pamphlet, every wild talk-show host’s theory about your father. It’s a very thick file, Mr. Garland.” Another chuckle. “We already have lots of alleged autopsy photographs in there.”

“So what’s the funny part?”

“Oh, well. I have a whole subfile full of e-mails from your sister.” Meadows lowers her voice. “I haven’t even bothered Mr. Corcoran with them.”

“You’ve… heard from Mariah?”

“Would you believe twice a week?” Another laugh, except that this one is humorless. “I guess she figures, you know, being as how she’s Mr. Corcoran’s goddaughter and all…” Meadows trails off, then adopts a more serious tone: “Somebody has to do something about her, Mr. Garland. My friends on the Hill tell me that if she doesn’t cut this stuff out… well, your wife won’t stand a chance.”