Eclipse

by Hilary Norman

‘And while you’re packing,’ Sam said, ‘I’d like to look at your camera.’

  ‘No way am I giving you that.’

  ‘I’m not going to keep it,’ Sam said. ‘I just want to admire it.’

  ‘And to delete the originals,’ Chauvin said.

  ‘As if,’ Sam said. ‘But if you don’t want to let me see it, I won’t.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m guessing you’ve already copied them to your home computer, anyway.’

  ‘Or sent them to some goddamned “cloud?”,’ Martinez said.

  Sam had taken out his iPhone and was taking his own snaps of the walls.

  ‘Hey,’ Chauvin said.

  ‘You got a problem?’ Sam tapped his wristwatch. ‘Believe me, you will have if you miss your flight.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Chauvin said. ‘If you were going to arrest me for something, you would have done it by now.’

  ‘Believe this.’ Sam went on taking photos. ‘I want you out of my country more than I want your sorry ass in jail costing taxpayers’ money, but if you waste much more time, that is what I can make happen.’

  ‘Will you let me take these?’ Chauvin nodded at the walls.

  ‘Sure.’ Sam shrugged. ‘I have my own photographs now.’

  ‘Merde flics,’ Chauvin said, and began taking the pictures down, hampered by his injured left arm.

  ‘What’d he say?’ Martinez’s dark eyes danced anger.

  Sam grinned. ‘Shit cops, I think.’

  ‘Do I have to go on being polite?’ Martinez asked.

  ‘Just a while longer.’

  Chauvin had all the prints and turned to the closet. ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘Don’t forget your passport,’ Sam said.

  George Wiley had been home for a while.

  A modest apartment of which he was fond, in which he had felt safe as he’d read and studied and prepared for the next rung up.

  Not to be.

  Thanks to Mildred Becket.

  He had cooked the potatoes and asparagus and flash-fried the calves liver, and had drunk the wine, and it had all tasted so wonderful that he had wept.

  Because he knew it was his final meal.

  He had cleaned up meticulously, as was his habit.

  And then he’d sat down to read.

  He couldn’t settle, could find no perfect last reading, had strayed restlessly, browsing Sophocles, Shakespeare and Milton, moving finally to a thesaurus of quotations, searching themes that most closely fit his predicament and emotions.

  Loss, grief and anger. And the need, if not precisely for revenge, then, at least, to have his loss recognized.

  He found little that was apt. Except for a line from Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, which sailed so close to his personal truth that his throat closed with the pain of self-pity.

  ‘No man can lose what he never had.’

  He laid a bookmark on that page and moved on to his desire for an end, to reading of a more practical kind. Mostly to reaffirm the decision he had already reached.

  He did not want a mundane death, nothing so vulgar as his mother’s suicide. What George Wiley, MD wanted to achieve with his final act was something that would make him notable, if only by his dying.

  He did not own a gun, did not want to cut himself and bleed messily to death; he lacked the courage to jump from a tall building or to commit seppuku – besides which, he had no sword, and a scalpel just wouldn’t be right. Poison rendered people ugly, as did hanging.

  Self-immolation appealed to him on several grounds. First, it was often regarded as a form of sacrifice, frequently of protest. He had read that some extreme Buddhists believed that it proved a disregard for the body in favor of wisdom – Wiley liked the dignity of that.

  Finally, so long as he prepared carefully, it need not be the hideous torture suffered by poor souls burned at the stake in the past. Though it would be intensely painful at the outset, third-degree burns destroyed nerve endings, and suffocation and shock usually killed very rapidly.

  He wanted it to have grandeur, but he also wanted it to be quick. Death held no great fear for him, but he was as afraid as the next person of pain. He had seen good and bad deaths in hospitals, but most often it had seemed a release.

  Whereas the prospect of shame in prison, of the deprivation of all he had striven for, was a thousand times worse.

  He would never be considered a martyr, he accepted that, but he could at least anticipate that his final act might be of interest to psychologists and, specifically, students of suicide.

  He might merit a mention in an essay or even a textbook.

  More probably, his life and death would be reported in some local rag, maybe find its way onto the Internet, not even making Wikipedia.

  Bitterness rose again in George Wiley MD, reminded him again how much those people had to answer for.

  He looked at his watch.

  Time to prepare.

  It was dark again when Sam finally got home.

  He and Martinez had seen Chauvin on his way back to Europe, after which they had dragged through paperwork back at the office, until his partner had pointed out that enough was enough and it was time to stop.

  His son was asleep, and getting home too late for even a bedtime story had been happening too often lately . . .

  ‘Let’s take a break,’ Sam said over dinner.

  Eating with his wife, for once, and Grace had made osso bucco Milanese with risotto, and Sam was way past bone weary, and Grace had offered to bring him up a tray, but he’d wanted this more.

  ‘Just a long weekend,’ he said now. ‘Maybe five days. I thought we could go up to New England, if you liked the idea.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  And after that they talked about whether they might go to Boston or maybe Vermont, about which would be most fun for Joshua, since what they both wanted was some family travel for the memory book.

  After dinner, Sam took Woody out, and then they looked in on their sleeping boy, stroked his hair and kissed his soft cheek, and then the ten ton weight of his exhaustion overwhelmed Sam entirely and he crawled into bed ahead of Grace, vaguely aware of her telling him goodnight.

  And then he was out.

  May 28

  George Wiley felt cold.

  Not a physical chill. The night was warm and humid, and he was not running a fever, was not sick.

  This was a chill of the soul, warmth already departing his body.

  Even before . . .

  He had arrived a while ago.

  Had driven around the block twice – seen that the house was in darkness, that it was protected by an alarm, but that there were no police patrol cars in the vicinity – and then he had parked on the next side street.

  It might have ended there, if someone had reported a suspicious guy heaving heavy-looking bags up toward Dr David Becket’s house, then vanishing behind the white stone wall that all but hid the first floor of the house from Ocean Boulevard.

  And if it had finished then, with another arrest, he guessed he’d have had to rethink, probably from inside prison . . .

  That thought galvanized him.

  He had not wanted to die. He did not want to die. He wanted to live.

  But only as a doctor.

  And that was finished now.

  The books had been heavy, and the two gas cans, and his instruments. Everything else was pitifully light: framed diplomas, white coats, two fleece jackets for tinder, ten packs of wooden tongue depressors for kindling; his stethoscope, George Wiley’s IDs, driver’s license and Social Security card, two large boxes of matches and two safety lighters – he’d had to buy those, had never smoked in his life.

  No one stopped him as he slipped around to the back of the house. No floodlights pinned him in their glare. The alarm stayed silent, would probably remain so, since he had no plans to break in.

  He switched on his small penlight, looked around, saw all he needed.

  Garden furniture made of wood.

&nb
sp; Satisfied, he set to work.

  He was not physically strong, but he had no reason to move the heaviest item, the table, from where it stood. He could have left the cushions and seatbacks in place, but that didn’t mesh with what was in his head, so he removed them, tossed them silently onto the ground.

  Table first.

  Then stack the chairs.

  Quietly, carefully.

  He worked deftly, neatly, as swiftly as was safe and quiet, wanting no more time for thinking.

  No turning back now.

  It had not rained for several days, so the table and chairs were dry.

  Almost ready now.

  Then all he would need were his chosen spectators.

  And flames.

  And courage.

  In this, at least, he hoped he might succeed.

  Mildred thought, at first, that it was raining.

  A storm, perhaps. Hailstones rapping on the window.

  She had always liked thunderstorms, even during her years of living close to the beach. Sometimes they’d gotten a little scary, but it had been magnificent to watch the South Florida thunderheads sweeping along, to see the vast sheets of brilliance in those dark skies.

  This was not hail.

  She glanced across at David, saw, with her uncovered eye, that he was still sound asleep, then crept quietly out from under the sheet and over to the window.

  And gave a soft gasp.

  A man stood in their backyard on what looked, at first sight, like a sculpture, of which he was a part.

  He was dressed in white, something hanging around his neck, and his right arm was lifting, swinging in an upward arc.

  Throwing something.

  She ducked, flinching, suddenly afraid.

  The small stones struck the glass.

  ‘David,’ she said sharply.

  He’d already woken. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘There’s a man in our backyard.’ Her voice was a hiss in the semidarkness. ‘Come look. Quickly. I don’t know what he’s doing.’

  David was already beside her.

  ‘What the—?’

  She squinted with her one eye, saw that the thing around his neck was a stethoscope. ‘It’s him,’ she said. ‘It’s Doctor Wiley.’

  They both stared down at him, knew immediately that they were looking at a man gone mad.

  And then they saw him bend, pick something up.

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ David said. ‘It’s gasoline.’ He turned to get the phone. ‘Come away from the window, Mildred.’

  He had his spectators.

  The gasoline was pungent in his nostrils and at the back of his throat, choking him, making him cough.

  Almost there now.

  He threw the first gas can away, picked up the second and poured, directing the fluid at the tinder and kindling and wooden furniture, and then he raised his right arm again, high above his head, and emptied the rest over himself.

  He experienced a sudden burst of terror then, dropping the can, but still the longing was greater: for it to be done, finished. And yet, despite that yearning, he faltered just a little, had to remind himself . . .

  Fifteen years in prison and nothing to emerge to.

  Dr George Wiley gone forever, lost in ignominy.

  This his only chance for a proud end.

  He looked up at the window again as he picked up the first matchbox.

  Another man might have thought of saying a prayer, but the only gods he’d ever set any store by were Apollo the Physician and the other god and goddesses who had witnessed his solemn oaths of Hippocrates.

  Perhaps they were sealing his fate now, for his transgression.

  He looked up at Mildred Becket, at her mouth open in horror, the eye shield in place, the other eye staring, and figured that the old man was probably calling Fire Rescue or maybe his cop son.

  Now. It had to be done now, or they might come, try to stop him, and unless he was beyond help when they arrived, his end would be long and agonizing beyond comprehension.

  He opened the box, and now his hand hardly shook.

  He struck a match, dropped it, struck another, dipped that into the box, where it ignited the rest. That first tiny burn on his hand stung a little, and he winced, then laughed, looked down and saw that it was catching, and the explosion of heat was instantaneous, surpassing his imaginings, beyond heat, and the sounds, as the gasoline roared into flaming majesty, were terrifying and magnificent.

  He took the second matchbox, dropped it onto the fire.

  ‘I did try,’ he said, looking up into the night, and then he hooked his arms around the tops of the chairs stacked on the table, so that when he passed out, he would not fall and risk being saved to linger on.

  He felt it now, the devouring, all-consuming pain, and as he looked down, dazzled, to his feet, he saw them burning, flesh and bones melting, and his gut rebelled and his bladder screamed and he imagined that he heard the sizzle of his own urine spilling, and then he heard his own scream, which seemed to come from outside himself . . .

  And then suddenly he saw that the fire was not being contained within his pyre.

  It was travelling in fierce, spiking, flowing rivulets, toward the house.

  ‘No!’ he protested, though the word never formed, because his body was on fire now, and he was already dying, and maybe it was true that third-degree burns destroyed nerve endings, but oh, dear Apollo, the destruction was purest agony, and oh, Jesus, now his lungs were broiling, and his roasting flesh and bones and muscles and fat stank like the Devil’s own barbecue, and he longed for death, but he was still living, feeling . . .

  Able to see that gasoline had splashed onto the pathway, and tufts of dry weeds between stone slabs were feeding the hungry flames, and tongues of fire were lapping up the cushions that he had tossed aside, and an old swing seat with cushions and a fabric canopy stood close to the Beckets’ French doors, and a sheet of blaze was reaching for the house itself.

  ‘No!’ his mind screamed, because now those old people inside might burn too, and he had not wanted that to happen, had not intended to endanger life, not even theirs. He had only wanted to alarm them, appall them, and he had sworn the Hippocratic Oath in three versions, had sworn it with utmost solemnity with only his books to witness it . . .

  And his penultimate thought, as he burned on the funeral pyre of his own making, was that finally he had violated his oath, his covenant – even in that, he had failed.

  And then, when he could no longer see, as his hair blazed, just before the coiled wonders of his brain began to melt, he realized that when Fire Rescue or whichever poor bastards came to collect and assemble and analyze his charred remains, they might already know that he was not truly Dr George Wiley.

  That he had remained, from birth to death, an ambitious, pointless fool named Gregory Wendell, whose own parents had despised him, and who had been correct to do so.

  They had come in time.

  Fire Rescue in time to save the house, though the fire had blown out the French doors and taken out some soft furnishings and the old couch. The paramedics in time to check over the shocked elderly couple, who were physically unharmed, and who refused to consider hospitalization.

  Sam in time to see the smoldering nightmare in their backyard, and to extricate his father and Mildred from the scene.

  He brought them back to the island, where Grace was deeply disturbed by what she saw in their faces.

  As good an imagination as she possessed, she knew she could never conjure up the sheer horror of what they had witnessed.

  ‘How will they get past this?’ she asked Sam, quietly.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘Though we know they’re both very strong.’

  ‘They’ll need to be,’ Grace said.

  They spent the night in Cathy’s old room, David insisting that Mildred rest, though he did not sleep at all, kept watch on her, dozing off periodically and waking with a start.

  ‘I think we need to go back
as soon as we can,’ Mildred said suddenly, just after five a.m. ‘If we wait too long, I think it might be worse.’

  ‘Sam says we shouldn’t think of going back until the repairs are finished.’

  The smell of a house fire being a terrible thing even without . . .

  David shuddered involuntarily.

  ‘I keep seeing it,’ Mildred said. ‘Seeing him.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Was it because of us, do you suppose?’ Her mouth trembled.

  ‘It was not.’ David was definite. ‘Whatever was wrong in that man’s mind was there long before I had him arrested – before he assaulted you, Mildred.’

  ‘Poor soul,’ she said. ‘To be so tormented.’

  ‘I know,’ he said again.

  ‘How will we ever forget it?’ she asked him. ‘I know it’s selfish to even think about ourselves, but . . .’

  ‘It isn’t selfish,’ David said. ‘It’s human. And I imagine time will ease it. As with most things.’

  ‘You mean we’ll try and bury it.’

  ‘As deep as we can,’ David said.

  They were both silent for a little while.

  ‘There is one small thing I am rather grateful for,’ Mildred said.

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘My derrière will be very glad to be shot of that terrible old sofa.’

  ‘You’ve always told me you thought it was comfy,’ David said.

  ‘Only compared to my old bench,’ Mildred said.

  June 1

  The truth about Gregory Wendell, aka George Wiley, had begun to emerge quite swiftly after his suicide.

  That he had never been a doctor.

  That he had been a fraud, with no license to practice medicine, no genuine qualifications, guilty of several counts of identity theft.

  A pitiful kind of a guy with grandiose ambitions, who had achieved for a time what ought to have been impossible, and who had, it appeared, believed that he was doing good, not harm.

  Impossible, at this early stage, to know just how much harm he had done in his ‘medical’ career.

  He had left behind in his apartment two apothecary cabinets, a microscope, a medical mannequin – formerly used for patient care training in a school – and a collection, in his refrigerator, of porcine eyes. He had also left a fascinating curriculum vitae, citing felonies and misdemeanors as credits and achievements, plus a bookmarked thesaurus of quotations and three handsomely printed versions of the Hippocratic Oath, naming Apollo as his witness.