Emperor of Ocean Park

by Stephen L Carter

  The Christmases of my childhood were grand and joyous affairs, the Shepard Street house decorated by my mother with freshly cut garlands and poinsettias and mistletoe, a tree of intimidating size glowing in the two-story foyer, the downstairs full of boisterous relatives and friends, with more reciprocal visits to come in the days to follow. We children dozed through midnight mass at Trinity and St. Michael and rose early the next morning to find the gigantic tree surrounded, as if through wizardry, by a small mountain of gifts. Even though we knew the greater part of the festively wrapped packages would turn out to hold clothing and books, we always imagined them full of beautiful toys, which some of them were. And the Judge—in those early days, merely Daddy—would sit in his favorite armchair in slippers and robe, the pipe he smoked back then held fast between his teeth, relishing our love and gratitude, rubbing our backs as we hugged his strong legs.

  At Number 41 Hobby Road, Christmas has always been a more staid affair, as Kimmer and I exchange token gifts in front of the small artificial tree on which my practical wife insists, pointing to the time, trouble, and what she calls the risk—Water and electricity together? Forget it!—of the real thing. With Bentley, at three years and nine months, old enough to appreciate what is going on (although it is Santa, not Jesus, he seems to appreciate), Kimmer and I both tried to be a little more upbeat this year. Wrapping our son’s gifts together on Christmas Eve was actually a joy, and, in bed later on, as we lay awake listening to the wind, my wife kissed my cheek and told me she is glad we are still together. I told her I am glad, too, which is the truth. I have worked hard over the past couple of weeks to keep my promise to Morris Young by treating my wife to love rather than suspicion, and she has responded with a lighter, happier mood. I have the unexpected but reassuring sense that whatever man she was involved with she has put behind her, perhaps as a New Year’s resolution, or even a Christmas gift to her husband. At the same time, belowdecks, I have tried to think of a way to move forward on cleaning up the mess into which the Judge has drawn me.

  Telling John Brown a little of what has been going on, as I promised last month I would, seems to me a sensible start.

  “So, what do you think I should do?” I ask John as I shoot again. The ball clangs off the rim and crashes down on his dark blue Town & Country minivan. He scoops up the ball before it has the chance to knock over my rusty but trusty grill, where orange flames frolic over freshly lighted charcoal.

  “Nothing. Leave it to the FBI. There’s nothing to be done. Interesting shot.” As laconic as always. John does not believe in using two words when one will do, and will never substitute three syllables when two are sufficient. We have been shooting hoops so that we can talk without fear of interruption. John has been urging me to tell the authorities about everything, but I have not committed myself to anything. “You need an expert, Misha. And they’re the experts.”

  I nod thoughtfully. I am not the sort of man who easily befriends other men, but my relationship with John has been an oddly enduring thing. I have known him and his wife, Janice, since we were all college freshmen together, Janice the most sought-after among the black women in the class, John easily the most studious of the black men. Today John is an electrical engineer, which is what he always planned, and Janice is a full-time mother, which is what she always wanted. Now that he is at Ohio State, they live in Columbus, we see them only once or twice a year, usually just after classes end for the holiday. They are wonderful people. Kimmer likes them, too: Even though you brought them into the marriage, she likes to quip.

  “I don’t know,” I say finally, the Hamlet of Hobby Road.

  John’s eyebrows go up. “What, you don’t trust the FBI?” Another shot. Bumps around the rim, then drops through, bounces on the pavement, and rolls into the wet snow that still obscures most of the lawn.

  “What if the FBI is part of it?” asks Mariah sharply from behind us, taking us by surprise. “How can we leave it to the FBI?”

  I smile uneasily. I do not know how long my sister has been listening. I have not told her about the pawn or the note, both of which I have just finished disclosing to John. He nods slightly: he will keep his mouth shut.

  John turns to Mariah. “You gotta trust somebody,” he says, which is likely a code for: Once you go down that road, you might as well move to one of those survivalist compounds in Montana. John possesses a respect for authority that I wish I still shared, but the events of the past few weeks have shaken my faith in many human institutions.

  I toss the basketball to my sister: “Come on, kiddo, take a shot.”

  She catches it smoothly and throws it back hard enough to wind me at this close distance.

  “No, thanks.”

  “You used to love to play.”

  “I used to love a lot of things.”

  I glance over at John, who has developed a sudden interest in the little paper sticker glued to the side of the post holding the hoop, filled with small-print warnings in the fruitless hope that the manufacturer will be protected from liability in the event that some child manages to topple the thing over. John once protected the university hospital from possible liability too: when Kimmer and Bentley both almost died, John and Janice flew out at once. Janice held me while I cried, but it was John who talked me around, both as a scientist and as a Christian, to the view that I should be grateful to the doctors for saving my family, not angry that they almost didn’t.

  “Come on, Mariah,” I say softly, extending a hand. “Don’t be down.”

  “Don’t be down,” she repeats. “Like there’s nothing to be down about.”

  I manage not to groan. In her current mood, Mariah will ruin everything.

  John and Janice and their children are in Elm Harbor for our regular time together, always during the quiet week before the New Year dawns, sometimes out in Ohio, usually here. Kimmer and I celebrated, if that is the word, our ninth anniversary yesterday; John and Janice, who have been married seven years longer, will celebrate theirs tomorrow; the nearly common wedding dates are what got the tradition started five or six years ago. Our annual get-together tends to be a delightfully rambunctious affair, but this time it is quite solemn, acknowledging not only the death of my father but also the mood in my household, for, if Kimmer is no longer sneaking out, she is not precisely loving her husband either. The Browns believe that every marriage can be as perfect as theirs and are often uncomfortable in the presence of living refutation of their theory; but they are good friends and refuse to abandon the dream that our marriage is reparable.

  My sister is a last-minute addition to Brown Week, as we like to call these occasions. Kimmer was surprisingly gentle in responding to the news that Mariah would be joining us, but it was the gentleness we reserve for the mentally ill. Of course, Misha, she is your sister after all, she murmured, patting my hand. I understand, I do—contriving, through this emphasis, to make clear that she does not. I am not sure I do either. The truth is that I would rather not have Mariah visiting during Brown Week, even if just for the day. (She is alone, having left her brood in Darien with the au pair. Howard, I believe, is in Tokyo.) Her fidgety presence is bound to wreck the comfortable chemistry of our two families, the Browns and the Madison-Garlands. I would rather have met Mariah at some other time, alone, but she refuses to discuss her news, whatever it is, on the telephone, perhaps afraid of a tap, and today turns out to be the earliest date on which we can make our calendars match.

  Janice and Kimmer are in the kitchen, cooking and conspiring and snubbing Mariah. John and I are splitting our time between the driveway and the yard, fiddling with the grill on which we shortly plan to burn some expensive steaks, and, just now, listening with every appearance of credulity to Mariah’s ramblings. Over by the high hedge wall separating our property from the Felsenfelds’, Bentley is playing happily with John’s younger daughter, Faith, three years older than he, and together they are doing something clever and mysterious with Faith’s Nigerian Barbie and her hot-pink B
arbie sports car, which is missing a wheel. Faith’s sister, Constance, has reached the age of nine, and is therefore above such pursuits; the last time I saw her, she was at the kitchen table, listlessly playing Boggle on her mother’s laptop. She clamors for the new version of Riven, which everybody else at school has, but her evangelical parents forbid it. Their oldest child, Luke, is fifteen, and he is somewhere in the house with his nose in an Agatha Christie novel.

  “Sometimes the FBI is on the wrong side,” Mariah insists. “I mean, look at what they did to Dr. King.”

  John and I exchange a glance. John is a small, tough man who grew up in a housing project in the state capital and scholarshipped his way to Elm Harbor. His dusky skin seems darker in the sinking light, but his eyes are bright and concerned.

  “That’s one part of what I wanted to talk to you about, Tal,” my sister continues, walking between us so that we cannot continue the game until we have heard her out. She drove up today not in the Navigator, but in her Mercedes—hubby has his own—and is wearing a fancy brown tweed pantsuit with an Anne Klein air about it, probably the right attire for an autumn cocktail party in Darien, but not precisely what we tend to don for December backyard barbecues in Elm Harbor. I have no doubt that Kimmer is making this very point to Janice in the kitchen. “We need to decide what we’re gonna do.”

  “About what, kiddo?” I ask gently.

  “About the whole thing.”

  John takes another shot and misses. The rebound arches into my hands. I lift the ball as though to shoot, but Mariah takes the ball from me and tucks it under her arm, a parent correcting a child. No more basketball, she is signaling, until we have heard her out.

  “You remember that Sally and I have been going through Daddy’s papers, right? So let me tell you what we’ve found, and you’ll see why we have to do something.”

  I almost interrupt, but I catch John’s look and subside. He plainly wants her to get it all out, and I decide to follow his example. Like a good lawyer, John knows when to avoid leading questions and let the client ramble.

  “Okay, shoot.”

  Tossing the basketball onto the snow-crusted grass, Mariah walks to her sparkling sea-green car and rummages in the front seat, pulling out a shiny brown briefcase, which she proceeds to set on the hood. “Wait a second,” she adds, setting the combination and opening the lid. A locked briefcase, I register, half amused and half alarmed. I glance at the back yard, worrying about the coals. Mariah returns with several folders. As she shuffles through the files, I remember the black-and-white covered ledger where she used to record the evidence of conspiracy. I tease her about the volume of her discoveries in the attic outgrowing the book.

  “No, I just can’t find it,” she says, distracted.

  “Maybe the bad guys stole it.”

  Taking the point seriously, Mariah points to the briefcase. “That’s why I have a lock now.” Before I can digest this, she is holding one of the folders out. “Look at this,” she orders.

  I take the folder, and John and I examine the neatly typed but fading label: DETECTIVE’S REPORT—ABIGAIL, it reads. I am suddenly excited. Except that the folder is empty.

  “Where’s the report?” I ask.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Tal. It isn’t there. Doesn’t that strike you as a little weird?”

  “A little.” But I am thinking that there are about two million reasons the report could be missing, one of them being that Mariah took it herself, or even created the empty folder as a prop for her fantasy.

  On the other hand, that scrapbook did disappear, and an enchanted pawn made its way from the heart of the Gold Coast to an Elm Harbor soup kitchen, and a book that was stolen by the men who beat me up rematerialized on the seat of my car. So lots of things are possible.

  “Then I remembered. When Daddy got the report from the detective, he turned it over to the police. You remember? Hoping they would do something.”

  I do remember, with fresh pain. The Judge was so pleased with himself: hiring a private investigator, producing new leads. He had engaged somebody fancy, he assured us, from out in Potomac, even in those days an exclusive little town. Somebody, said the Judge, who was highly recommended and very expensive. He seemed proud to be paying so much.

  “Villard,” I murmur. “That was his name, wasn’t it? Something-or-other Villard.”

  “That’s right.” Mariah smiles. “Jonathan Villard.” I shake my head, for I was half hoping she would correct me, telling me the PI’s name was really Scott. But my memory has no trouble supplying the rest of the story. When the Judge received the report, he came out of his funk, told the family that he was sure we would soon see the killer punished. That was what he always said, the killer. And then he settled back to wait. And wait. And wait. As despair settled in once more.

  “The police never followed up his leads,” I say softly, as much to myself as to John or my sister. I am far behind her, still wondering what really happened to her ledger. First the scrapbook vanishes, then the ledger. A chilly breeze stirs the hedges. “Or, if they did, they never found anything.”

  “Right,” says Mariah, congratulating a slow pupil on finally getting it. “But they had a copy of the report. So I called up Uncle Mal and talked to that woman, Meadows. I asked her if she could get a copy from the police files. She said it might take a while, because they would have to go look in the archives or something. Then she called me back a few days ago, and, guess what? The police don’t have a copy of the report either.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” I admit. John might be a statue, for all his contribution to the conversation. Then a thought strikes me. “But I’ll bet you can get a copy from Villard himself. He has to be around somewhere.”

  Mariah seems almost gleeful. “I guess all you lawyers think alike. Meadows tried that, Tal, and—guess what?—Villard died of colon cancer fifteen years ago.”

  The words escape me before I can think: “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure, Tal, I’m not stupid. Meadows even got a copy of his medical records. He really was sick, and he really is dead.”

  “Oh.” I am a bit deflated: until the cancer news, I was still ready to bet that Villard was another alias of Colin Scott. Then I brighten: “But even if he’s dead, his investigative files have to be somewhere … .”

  “I’m sure they do, but nobody knows where. That’s my point. Now, look at this,” Mariah continues, like a lawyer building a case, or a magician pleasing a crowd. From another folder, she draws a couple of pages torn from a yellow legal pad. I immediately recognize my father’s cramped handwriting. She handles the papers carefully, as though worried they might ignite. “This is all I can find about the report,” she explains.

  I scan the pages, which are creased as though folded several times. The ink is old and smeary; V’S REPORT is scribbled at the top, followed by a column of seemingly random notations: Virginia plate? … Must be front-end damage, V checked shops already … V says police work shoddy re paint etc … No ID driver, no ID passenger … I stop, go back, look at the last line again.

  “Passenger?” I ask.

  Mariah nods. “There was somebody else in the car that killed Abby. Interesting, huh?”

  “The Judge never mentioned it,” I say distantly, remembering something else. “And neither did Mom.”

  Mariah is excited now. “The notes were folded up in the back of one of his chess books. I guess whoever took the report didn’t know that.” I am about to ask which book, wondering about secret messages, but Mariah is already dealing the next card. “And look at this.” A manila envelope emerges from her briefcase. She hands it over. I open the flap and pull out a sheaf of check registers. A quick glance confirms what I have already guessed: they are from the period when the private detective was working on the case. “Look at it,” she instructs me.

  “And what exactly am I looking for?” I ask as John watches in interested silence.

  “The name Villard! Dad
dy said he was expensive, right?”

  “Uh, right. Yes.” Said it with pride: nothing but the best to track down Abby’s killer, he was suggesting.

  “Right. Now, look at the list of checks.” I look, still not sure where this is going. “Tal, these are all the checks Daddy wrote for the four years after Abby died. There is not a single check written to anybody named Villard, and there is not a single check written to anything that sounds like a detective agency.”

  “So he was careless. He didn’t record the check.”

  “I have all the canceled checks, Tal. And you know how Daddy was. Everything is perfectly organized. Just to make sure, I did the math. There isn’t a single one missing.”

  I have a disturbing vision of Mariah hunched over a calculator in the attic, punching in numbers, obsessively checking the Judge’s subtraction as her kids run all over the house and Sally does … well, whatever Sally does when they are together.

  “So he paid cash.” Yet this seems odd to me as well.

  “No,” says Mariah, flourishing another folder. She has lost none of her investigative skill. “This is a list of every single cash withdrawal Daddy made from his accounts during those years, and not a one of them, Tal, not a one of them is enough to pay for anything more than groceries.”

  “His brokerage accounts—”

  “Come on, Tal. He didn’t have any brokerage accounts in those days. He didn’t have enough money. That came later.” After he left the bench, she means.

  “So what are you saying? That there never was a detective?” I shake my head, trying to escape the mists of painful memory. John is looking on like a bystander at a car wreck, fascinated by the carnage but unable to help. “That Villard was … some kind of figment of the Judge’s imagination?”

  “No, Tal. Listen to me. Of course Villard was real. No, what I’m telling you is that somebody else paid for the detective. Don’t you see? Either Daddy borrowed the money or—well, I don’t know what. But the money came from somebody else. And if we find out who that somebody else is, we’ll find out who killed Daddy.”