Seize the Night

Consequently, Mom and Dad were disturbed by my obsession with death, but because they were academics with a belief in the liberating power of knowledge, they didn't hamper my pursuit of the subject.
    Indeed, I relied on Dad to acquire the book that completed my death studies: Forensic Pathology , published by Elsevier in a series of thick volumes written for law-enforcement professionals involved in criminal investigations—This grisly tome, generously illustrated with victim photographs that will chill the hottest heart and instill pity in all but the coldest, is not on the shelves of most libraries and is not knowingly provided to children. At fourteen, with a life expectancy thought to be—at that time—no greater than twenty, I could have argued that I was not a child but already past middle age.
    Forensic Pathology covers the myriad ways we perish, disease, death by fire, death by freezing, by drowning, by electrocution, by poisoning, by starvation, by suffocation, by strangulation, death from gunshot wounds, from blunt-instrument trauma, from pointed and sharp-edged weapons. By the time I finished this book, I'd outgrown my fascination with death … and my fear of it. The photos depicting the indignity of decomposition proved that the qualities I cherish in the people I love—their wit, humor, courage, loyalty, faith, compassion, mercy—are not ultimately the work of the flesh. These things outlast the body, they live on in the memories of family and friends, live on forever by inspiring others to be kind and loving. Humor, faith, courage, compassion these don't rot and vanish, they are impervious to bacteria, stronger than time or gravity, they have their genesis in something less fragile than blood and bone, in a soul that endures.
    Though I believe that I'll live beyond this life and that those I love will be where I go next, I do still fear that they will depart ahead of me, leaving me alone. Sometimes I wake from a nightmare in which I'm the sole living person on earth, I lie in bed, trembling, afraid to call out for Sasha or to use the telephone, fearful that no one will answer and that the dream will have become reality.
    Now, here, in the bungalow kitchen, Bobby said, “Hard to believe he could be this far gone in three or four days.”
    “Exposed to the elements, complete skeletonization can occur in two weeks. Eleven or twelve days under the right circumstances.”
    “So at any time … I'm two weeks from being bones.”
    “It's a quashing thought, isn't it?”
    “Major quash.”
    Having seen more than enough of the dead man, I directed the flashlight at the items that he evidently had arranged on the floor around himself before pulling the trigger. A California driver's license with photo identification. A paperback Bible. An ordinary white business envelope on which nothing was written or typed. Four snapshots in a neatly ordered row. A small ruby-red glass of the type that usually contains votive candles, though no candle was in this one.
    Learning to live with nausea, trying to will myself to recall the scent of roses, I crouched for a closer look at the driver's-license photo. In spite of the decomposition, the cadaver's face had sufficient points of similarity to the face on the license to convince me that they were the same.
    “Leland Anthony Delacroix,” I said.
    “Don't know him.”
    “Thirty-five years old.”
    “Not anymore.”
    “Address in Monterey.”
    “Why'd he come here to die?” Bobby wondered.
    In hope of finding an answer, I turned the light on the four snapshots.
    The first showed a pretty blonde of about thirty, wearing white shorts and a bright yellow blouse, standing on a marina dock against a backdrop of blue sky, blue water, and sailboats. Her gamine smile was appealing.
    The second evidently had been taken on a different day, in a different place. This same woman, now in a polka-dot blouse, and Leland Delacroix were sitting side by side at a redwood picnic table. His arm was around her shoulders, and she was smiling at him as he faced the camera. Delacroix appeared to be happy, and the blonde looked like a woman in love.
    “His wife,” Bobby said.
    “Maybe.”
    “She's wearing a wedding ring in the picture.”
    The third snapshot featured two children, a boy of about six and an elfin girl who could have been no older than four. In swimsuits, they looked again at the photograph that had been taken as they stood beside an inflatable wading pool, mugging