Free A Death in China by Carl Hiaasen, William D Montalbano Page A

America. Tell me about the special place he will be buried.”
    “The Arbor,” Stratton said. David’s pride.
     
    Soon after he had appeared at St. Edward’s as a young assistant professor, David Wang had bought an abandoned dairy farm on the outskirts of Pittsville. When he hadn’t been teaching, he’d begun to work the land. Not to farm it, or forest it exactly, but to manicure it, to build it into a place of beauty according to his own orderly view. David had planted stands of pine and maple, birches and oak, as well as exotic trees he grew from seed. A clear stream bubbled through the Arbor into an exquisite formal lake on the lee side of a gentle hill. David Wang had done most of the work himself, with simple tools. When he hadn’t been in the classroom, he could be found on his land or deep in an armchair in the old white clapboard farmhouse that had no locks on the doors.
    Over the years the town had grown; tract houses now flanked the Arbor on two sides and an interstate lanced through an adjoining ridgetop. But nothing molested the tranquillity and the beauty of David Wang’s oasis, and nothing ever would. Gradually it had become part park, part botanical garden, a place of fierce civic pride. Stratton could remember spring weekends when sixty people, from rough-hewn farmers in bib overalls to shapely college girls in cutoffs, would appear at the Arbor as volunteer gardeners. And how many St. Edward’s coeds, over the years, had surrendered their virginity on an aromatic bed of pine needles? Stratton smiled at his own memories. Anyone was free to wander the land, and no one dared molest it. This was where David Wang wanted to be buried.
    Stratton spoke haltingly at first, and then with a rush of details. The Arbor was a place of both beauty and meaning.
    Wang Bin displayed such lively interest that for an instant Stratton wondered, absurdly, whether the deputy minister believed that his brother had willed him the land. Everybody in Ohio who knew about the Arbor also knew that David Wang had publicly promised it to the college.
    As he talked, Stratton mentally weighed what he knew about David’s death against what Wang Bin had told him. There was something …
    And then he had it.
    ” … would liked to have enjoyed it at David’s side,” Wang Bin was saying.
    “Yes, of course.” But what did it mean, damn it?
    Wang Bin looked at Stratton sharply, as though he had divined the wandering of a perplexed mind. From the table he took a leatherbound volume that looked like a diary. He handed it to Stratton.
    “Here, this is my brother’s journal. Apparently he was addicted to writing something nearly every day. I was interested in his first impressions of China. I would be grateful if you could take it with you.” Wang Bin rose. “And I am in your debt, Professor Stratton, for agreeing to accompany David’s body. I am sure your presence will smooth the formalities. I am assured that the body has been prepared to the most exacting standards.”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “I know little of such things, Professor, since corpses are cremated in China, but I believe my brother would have appreciated a simple ceremony as quickly as it can be arranged. For my part, I think it is particularly fitting that he be buried in the Chinese coffin in which he makes his last journey.”
    “That should be no problem. But, look, about my accompanying the body. I’m not sure … ” Stratton wanted some fresh air, some room to think.
    “Why?” Wang Bin asked sharply. He made no effort to hide the strength behind the question.
    Stratton improvised.
    “This has been very emotional for me. The thought of David’s body riding in the cargo hold of the same plane … I’m not sure that I’m up to it.”
    “It is all arranged, Professor. My car will call for you in ample time for the flight. Everything is taken care of.”
    “But … “
    “You must.” Stratton could taste the menace.
    Later, Stratton would not remember