Stephen Carter - Emperor of Ocean Park

“I’d be very interested in hearing that, Talcott.”

And so I tell him. I tell him I think at first it was reasonably innocent. Probably the Judge went to Jack Ziegler to find a private investigator, and Jack Ziegler recommended Colin Scott because Scott had been a colleague at the Agency and needed work. I doubt that my father was, at first, looking for a hired killer. Perhaps Jack Ziegler meant to put temptation in his path. Perhaps it just came together at the right moment. Either way, when my father received Scott’s report, he decided not to share it with the police.

“Why not?”

“Because of who it named.” But there is nothing in Uncle Mal’s experienced face to tell him whether the Judge shared that particular truth. For my part, I have not shared it with Dear Dana-and never will.

Instead of going back to the police, I continue, the Judge asked Scott to kill the driver of the car. Scott refused. That was the argument overheard by Sally and Addison: No rules where a daughter is concerned, my father argued, or begged.

“And so my father went back to Jack Ziegler,” I continue. He went to see Uncle Jack and asked him to use his influence with Scott, or to find somebody else to do it. Maybe Jack Ziegler was surprised. Maybe he was not. From what I have read, he has always possessed a remarkable capacity to seduce others into wrong. I suspect he would have started by tossing out objections, warning my father that he had no earthly idea what he was getting into, because he knew his old friend well enough to understand that, having started down the road into the other world, he would hardly turn back just because that other world turned out to have all the deadly features he expected. On the contrary, objections of that nature would draw him further in. My father would have pressed on, insisting that he wanted the driver of the car dead. He likely said he would pay any price, he did not care what obligations he undertook, he wanted justice done. Perhaps that was the moment when he asked Jack Ziegler to make a single promise to him: that, if anything happened to him, to my father, as a result of this mess, he, Jack, would see to it that his family never came to any harm. And he trusted Uncle Jack’s word, because, as Agent Nunzio told me, his word was what Jack Ziegler lived by

“You’re guessing,” says Mallory Corcoran, his unease growing, for I am speculating aloud now on the wrongs of two of his former clients, not one.

“I know. But it hangs together.” He offers no disagreement, so I resume. Somehow, sooner or later, Jack Ziegler agreed to intercede, and went for permission to whoever makes such decisions in his world. A deal was consummated. Scott would do the killing. There would be no charge, just as there had been no charge for his investigative services. Instead, from time to time, the Judge would be asked for little favors. Nothing obvious: no votes to overturn the conviction of a Mafia don or a drug lord. Instead, he would be called upon to help out the companies in which illegal monies were invested. Throwing out a burdensome or expensive regulation. Overturning an antitrust verdict.

“That’s why my father’s voting record got more conservative after Abby died,” I explain, with real pain. “Why he struck down so many regulatory schemes. He was covering his favors with a show of ideological purity.”

“You’re still guessing, Talcott.”

“Yes, I am. But I can hardly go interview Jack Ziegler to check my facts.” I hope he will offer to intercede, for Uncle Jack has returned neither of my calls since the cemetery, but the great Mallory Corcoran continues to sit, waiting to be impressed. Nothing has provoked a response. I know he can see my frustration, but it fails to move him.

I ponder. From what Wainwright told me, it is plain that the Judge felt burdened by his perfidy. He had ascended to the bench to do justice, not to remain in thrall forever to criminals. No doubt the special favors went on and on and on. Perhaps, as illegal money found its way into legal businesses, the pace increased. Who knows what stocks are in the Mob’s portfolio? When the Supreme Court nomination suddenly came his way, Jack Ziegler’s partners were surely ecstatic. My father was surely worried. Maybe the truth would come out, and he would be ruined. And then perhaps he had another idea. Maybe the truth should come out, and he could escape the hell into which he had sold himself.

“Which is where Greg Haramoto comes in,” I say, but the words prompt no reaction. “I tried to talk to Greg, but he wouldn’t.”

Uncle Mal, a ghostly smile of reminiscence on his lips, finally makes an independent contribution: “I’m not surprised, the way your sister talked about him on television back during those very sad hearings. What was it she accused him of?”

“Of having a crush on the Judge.”

“That’s right. You know, people don’t forget things like that, Talcott.”

“I’m not criticizing Greg. I just want you to understand that I’m still just guessing.”

“I never doubted it.” He is on his feet, and I know the interview is over. “Everything you have said is guesswork. You can’t know for sure if any of it is true.”

“I realize that.” We are walking toward my car. I had thought he would invite me to stay for lunch, but Uncle Mal has his ways, and his vacation time is sacrosanct. I suppose I should be grateful he has spared me this precious half-hour from whatever it is that big lawyers do when they own farms in the country. I cannot quite envision him milking a cow, although I seem to recall that he has a dairy herd hidden somewhere.

Uncle Mal is holding the door for me. “You know, Talcott, guessing is not always a terrible thing. Sometimes I do a little guessing of my own.”

I stand very still, not daring to look at him. Around the side of the house, Edie and the kids are singing a song. The cats and dogs, most of them hideously fat, are now somnolent in the summer sun.

“I would guess that some of what you say could be true.” His voice is soft, and a little sad. “Could be, Talcott, could be. And I would also guess that, when your father came to me and left me his letter and told me about the arrangements, he told me he was thinking of quitting the firm. If I were a guessing man, I would speculate that he was scared, that something out of his past had caught up with him. He wasn’t scared of death, I don’t think. If I had to guess, I would say he was scared of exposure. Something was going to come out.”

I turn around finally. “The arrangements… all this… wasn’t this about exposure?”

“On his own terms.”

“What are you telling me?”

The weatherproof smile. “I’m not telling you anything, Talcott. You know I would never disclose a confidence. I’m only speculating.”

“Okay… so what are you speculating?”

“I am speculating that your father was planning to hide the information he wanted you to have, and then commit suicide.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” says Dear Dana Worth.

“What is?”

“That your father would commit suicide.”

I shrug. “That’s what he said.”

Dana steams, not quite ready to accept my speculations about the man she once so adored, to say nothing of Mallory Corcoran’s. We are strolling together along the bluestone walks of the Original Quad, which, nearly empty of students in the summer, can actually be quite pleasant. We have been seeing more of each other these days, although not, of course, romantically. We are both having what my parents used to call “trouble at home.” My wife, proclaiming her love for me, has thrown me out, and Alison is angry at Dana these days for worrying so much about whether what they are doing is right. Alison wants Dana to stop hanging out at her little Methodist church with what she calls the right-wing homophobes, and Dana refuses, saying they are good Christian people and she wants to listen to their point of view. Alison asks if black people are obliged to worship with white supremacists, to get their point of view. Dana says it isn’t the same at all. I am not about to get in the middle. Dana is stoic enough to qualify as an honorary Garland, but, when our various pains leak through our facades, we friends do our best to comfort each other.