Eclipse (34 page)

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.

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.

And last, in the Google history on his PC: How to build a funeral pyre.

Thomas Chauvin was home alone in Strasbourg.

Alone, yet not alone.

Having his photographs to keep him warm.

Until recently, it had always been the other Grace who had filled his walls. Gorgeous big black and whites in every room, smaller, more intimate color shots in frames on side tables. Every book published about her on his shelves, along with all the available movies and TV shows she'd ever appeared in. Albums filled with clippings, all with pictures.

None of them
his
photographs.

All that had changed now.

He had started work on his shots of Catherine, had downloaded all the old news stories about her personal tragedy and later dramas, was anticipating more from his cuttings agency, had great plans for utilizing some of his own shots of her, and with Adobe's help and his own talent and flair . . .

One of his early efforts already filled the wall opposite his bed.

An inspiration that had gone off like a flashgun in his mind in her apartment.

Rear Window
reborn. Little black dress with sheer shoulders. Triple strand of pearls. Not the Kelly look of shock, but certainly of consternation, almost of anger, taken in Catherine's living room while she had been listening to her voicemail, and she'd been a little mad at him because she'd asked him to stop . . .

So sexy.

He lay back on his bed now, and looked at it.

At her.

Mica's voice singing from speakers threaded through his apartment.

‘
Je prends les poses de Grace Kelly
. . .'

Life was good.

Full of promise.

Would, one day, be even better.

Chauvin was sure of that.

Sam had known, right away, after he received the request, that he would go.

Martinez was against it, and just the thought of spending time, however short, with Toni Petit, gave Sam chills. But the killer had been hospitalized with severe stomach pains, was undergoing tests, and had put in a request for a visit from Sam.

Not as a detective, but as a man whose trust she had abused.

She wanted to apologize.

He was going, he thought, for himself. Because though he had never really believed in ‘closure', it still troubled the hell out of him – as a man, not just as a detective – that he had spent snatches of time with this monster over several years, and had never suspected that anything was wrong with her.

‘It isn't me you need to apologize to.'

The first thing he said when he went, on the second Friday in June.

She was in a locked ward, one of her ankles shackled to the bed.

She looked sick.

She wanted to write letters, she told him, to the families of the victims.

‘Your lawyer tell you to do this?' Sam asked. ‘To show remorse?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I don't really listen to him, but no, this isn't about sentencing, Sam. It's something I feel I need to do.'

‘So do it,' Sam said.

‘But what if my letters open up their wounds?'

‘You think those wounds are even halfway
closed
?' It was a relief to let out a little anger. ‘You think getting a letter from you is going to make any of those poor people feel
better
?'

‘Of course not,' she said. ‘I just want to try to express . . .' She shook her head. ‘There's no word that describes it. Remorse. Regret.' She struck herself on the chest with her right hand. ‘Mea culpa.'

‘Are you Catholic?'

‘I have no faith,' she said. ‘So no acts of contrition for me, and certainly no hope of forgiveness. Death Row and the fire is where I'm going and what I deserve.'

‘So what do you want from me, Toni?'

He had used her first name unintentionally, was angry with himself for it, his thoughts with the victims and Felicia Delgado and Billie.

He wanted to leave.

‘I've written a first letter,' she said. ‘To Arlene Silver's family. I'd be very grateful if you would look it over, and then I could sign it and ask to have it mailed.'

‘You should probably ask your lawyer to do that,' Sam said.

‘I trust you more than any lawyer, Sam,' Toni said.

He noticed the sheet of paper to her left.

‘Please.' She picked it up, held it out to him.

‘I'm not reading it,' Sam said. ‘You wrote it, you sign it, get it mailed, or throw it in the trash. It's all the same to me.'

He began to rise.

‘
Please
, Sam.' Petit's voice rose in a plea. ‘At least give me your pen so I can sign it – at least that'll be a start.'

He responded out of impatience, his desire to be done with her.

He took out a pen. Just an ordinary Bic ballpoint.

He handed it to her.

‘Thank you,' she said, taking it.

And then she turned it around and stabbed the point hard into her left eye.

‘Jesus!' Sam yelled as blood and vitreous gel splattered and she screamed.

He made a grab for the pen, but Petit hung onto it, and her fingers were
strong
, and two guards were running toward them, but Sam knew she was going to do it again, and no
way
was he letting her do that.

‘
No!
' she screamed, twisted her arm, and dug the pen into the side of his neck.

‘What the
hell
?!' he yelled and leapt back.

The guards were on her, restraining her, and Sam yanked out the pen – knew as he did it that it was the wrong thing to do – but though blood was flowing, it was not arterial, and he wasn't sure if he was madder at her or with himself for coming here, for being fool enough to give her the goddamned pen.