A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [122]
“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 grave-site. 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 windowsill. 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