John Katzenbach - The Analyst

He took the backpack and change of clothes, the aluminum crutches, and stack of letters out to his car, leaving them on the passenger’s seat next to his cheap sunglasses and running shoes. Then he returned inside and sat quietly in the kitchen for the remaining hours of the evening to pass. He was excited, a little intrigued, and occasionally riveted by a bolt of fear. He tried hard to think of nothing, humming to himself, blanking his mind. This, of course, did not work.

Ricky knew that he could not cause the death of another, even someone he didn’t know, who was only related through the accidents of blood and marriage. Of this, Rumplestiltskin had been correct from the first day. Nothing about his life, his past, all of the little moments that made up who he was, who he had become, who he might yet turn out to be, amounted to anything in the face of this threat. He shook his head, thinking, Mr. R. knows me far better than I do myself. He had me pegged from the start.

Ricky did not know who he might be saving, but knew it was someone.

Think about that, he told himself.

Shortly after midnight, he rose. He allowed himself one final tour of the house, reminding himself how beloved each corner, each warp, and each creak in the floorboards truly was.

His hand shook slightly as he took the first canister of gasoline to the second floor, where he spread it liberally about on the floor. He doused the bedding.

The second canister was used the same way, throughout the ground floor.

In the kitchen, Ricky blew out the pilot lights on the old gas stove. Then he opened every jet, so that the room filled immediately with the distinctive odor of rotten eggs, the stove hissing in alarm. It blended with the stink of gasoline which already permeated his clothes.

Seizing the marine flare pistol, Ricky walked back outside. He went to the old Honda, started it up and moved it well away from the house, pointing it down the driveway, leaving the engine running.

Then he moved to a spot opposite the windows to the living room. The smell from the gasoline spread throughout the house mixed with the smell on his hands and clothes. He thought how alien all these angry scents were, clashing with the summer warmth and mixed honeysuckle and wildflowers, with just the mildest hint of the ocean salt, that permeated every breeze that slipped innocently across the trees. Ricky took a single deep breath, tried not to dwell on what he was doing, took careful aim with the pistol, cocked the hammer back, and then fired a single flare through the center window. The flare arced through the night, leaving a streak of energetic white light in the black air between where he stood and the house. The flare crashed through the window with a tinkling of shattered glass. He half expected an explosion, but instead heard a muffled thud, followed by an immediate crackle and glow. Within a few seconds he saw the first licks of fire dancing about the floor and beginning to spread through the living room.

Ricky turned and ran back to the Honda. By the time he slipped the car in gear, the entire downstairs was glowing with flame. As he headed down the driveway, he heard an explosion, as the flames hit the gas in the kitchen.

He decided not to look back, but accelerated into the deepening night.

Ricky drove carefully and steadily to a spot he had known for years called Hawthorne Beach. It was several miles down a narrow, lonely blacktop lane, removed from any development, other than a couple of old and darkened farmhouses not unlike his own. He switched off the lights as he eased past any house that might be occupied. There were several beaches in the Wellfleet area that would have suited his purposes, he thought, but this was the most isolated, and least likely to be the site of some late-night teenage party. There was a small parking lot at the beach entrance, usually operated by the Trustees of Reservations, the Massachusetts conservation association dedicated to preserving the wildest spots in the state’s landscape. The parking lot would only accommodate perhaps two dozen cars, and was usually filled by nine-thirty in the morning because it was a spectacular beach, a wide expanse of flat sand resting at the base of a fifty-foot bluff of blond sandy dirt encrusted with green sea grass thatches, with some of the strongest surf on the Cape. The combination was favored both by families who were moved by the view, and surfers who appreciated the waves and strong tidal pull, so that their sport was always mingled with a bit of danger. At the end of the parking lot, there was a warning sign: strong currents and dangerous undertow. do not swim without lifeguard being present. be alert for threatening conditions.

Ricky parked by the sign. He left the keys in the car. He placed the envelopes with the contributions on the dashboard and set the envelope with the letter addressed to the Wellfleet Police right in the center of the steering wheel.

Seizing the crutches, the backpack, running shoes, and change of clothes, he stepped away from the car. These he placed at the top of the bluff, a few feet away from a wooden barrier that marked the narrow path down to the sand, after removing the picture of his wife from the backpack’s outer pocket. This he placed in his pants pocket. He could hear the steady rhythmic crash of waves, and felt a bit of a southeasterly breeze on his face. He welcomed the noise, because it told him that the surf had picked up in the hours after sunset, and was slamming like a frustrated wrestler against the shoreline.

There was a full moon above, spreading wan light across the beach. It made his slippery, stumbling trip down the bluff to the water’s edge considerably easier.

In front of him, as he had predicted to himself, the surf was roaring like a drunken man, exploding as it hit the beach and sending sheets of white froth across the sand.

A small chill carried in on a breath of wind, striking him in the chest, making him hesitate, breathe in deeply.

Then Ricky removed every article of clothing he wore, including his underwear, and folded them into a neat pile, which he carefully placed on the sand well above the high-water mark the evening tide had left behind, where the first person to stand at the top of the bluff in the morning was sure to see them. He took the vial of pills that he’d acquired that morning at the pharmacy and emptied them into his hand, sticking the plastic container with the clothes. Nine thousand milligrams of Elavil, he thought. Taken all at once it would knock a person into unconsciousness within three to five minutes. The last thing he did was put the photograph of his wife near the top of the pile, weighed down by the edge of his shoe. He thought to himself, you did much for me while you were alive. Do this one thing more.

He raised his head and looked out at the immense expanse of black ocean before him. The stars dotted the sky above, as if it were their responsibility to mark the line of demarcation between the waves and the heavens.

It is, he told himself, a nice enough night to die.

Then, naked as the morning that was only hours away, he walked down slowly toward the fury of waves.

Two weeks after the night he died, Ricky sat on the edge of a lumpy bed that creaked whenever he shifted position, listening to the sound of distant traffic filter through the thin walls of the motel room. It mingled freely with the noise of a television set in an adjacent room tuned too loudly to a ball game. Ricky concentrated on the sound for a moment and guessed that the Red Sox were at Fenway, and the season was closing down which meant that they would be close, but not close enough. For a moment, he considered turning on the set in the corner of his room, but decided against it. They will lose, he told himself, and he did not want to experience any more loss, even the transitory one provided by the eternally frustrated baseball team. Instead, he turned to the window, staring out into the evening. He had not drawn the shades, and could see headlights slicing down the nearby interstate highway. There was a red neon sign by the driveway to the motel, which informed drivers that nightly, weekly, and monthly rates were available, as were kitchenettes such as the one he occupied, although why anyone would want to stay in that location for more than a single night eluded Ricky. Anyone except himself, he thought ruefully.