Eclipse (33 page)

Lieutenant Alvarez and Sergeant Riley, who had handcuffed him.

Dr Ethan Adams, who he had so worshiped, and who had struck him down with a single look.

Mildred Becket.

And Dr David Becket. A man who'd already had a lifetime in pediatrics.

George Wiley would have been a better doctor than Becket, given time and an easier journey, decent parents, the education he had deserved, of which he'd been deprived.

He had counted up his crimes and their penalties, had done the math as well as possible. Practicing medicine without a license, forging diplomas, assaulting patients – since he supposed that an unlicensed doctor's examination probably qualified as some degree of assault, even if it had been done to
help
the patients.

Same as when he'd written prescriptions, given injections, pills.

Not forgetting the biggest crime, so far as the
law
was concerned.

Identity theft was a federal crime.

Up to fifteen years for that sin alone.

And if he survived it all, did his time, emerged alive, there would be nothing.

No more medicine.

No purpose left.

So he did not intend to wait.

Arriving at his Surfside rental apartment, Chauvin asked the detectives to stay in the car while he went inside to pack.

‘We promised to help you.' Sam got out of the Saab.

‘You're injured, after all.' Martinez opened the rear door.

They both felt the younger man's edginess noticeably heightening as they took the steps up to the second floor, keeping him between them as they moved toward his front door.

Chauvin fumbled with his keys.

‘Allow me,' Sam said.

The narrow, white-painted entrance hallway was clear and clean.

The main studio room took Sam's breath away.

‘Jesus,' Martinez said.

‘Sonofabitch,' Sam said softly.

‘They're just photographs,' Chauvin said.

True enough.

The walls were covered in them. Printed on matte paper.

Of Grace, mostly. And of Cathy.

Sam walked around the room, looking more closely. There could be no doubt for anyone that most of the shots of Grace in Switzerland had been taken without her knowledge. There were several of her on a conference hall podium, three of her with a man and a woman standing outside a restaurant – in one of which, Grace did appear to be looking right at the camera, though Sam was sure that Chauvin had simply timed his shot well.

The photos of Grace bothered him a great deal, but not quite as much as those of Cathy, knowing that she had asked him to stop and that he had not done so – not, at least, until he had happened to call.

Which was when Chauvin had left.

‘What do you want to do?' Martinez asked Sam quietly.

‘I want to take them down,' the Frenchman said. ‘Since I have to leave.'

‘I don't think so,' Sam said.

‘You mean I can stay?'

Sam's mind worked swiftly through the facts. There was nothing overtly wrong with any of these pictures. Nothing in any way indecent. None of them appeared to have been manipulated or enhanced, which was not to say that Chauvin was not playing games of that kind on his computer.

He could keep the guy here, use these photographs as partial evidence of stalking, but he would achieve very little. An illegal search was pointless, and they had no probable cause to get a warrant. Which meant that the best way to draw a line under this chapter was still to get him out of the USA.

‘Get packed,' Sam said.

‘You sure, man?' Martinez asked, even lower.

Sam nodded, grim-faced. ‘I want him gone.'

Chauvin nodded, reached up to remove one of the photographs of Cathy.

‘Leave it.' Sam's voice was whip sharp.

‘The prints are my property,' Chauvin said.

‘Don't push your luck,' Martinez said.

‘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.

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.

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.'