Paul was my next door neighbor for twenty years. He and his shy wife were born in Germany. They raised two daughters. Paul and his wife lived more than eighty years. He played the role of a genius. He had many interests and was proficient in English, German, Spanish, and at least three other languages. He was a licenced building engineer who supervised the building of most of the schools built in San Diego County. His oil paintings were sold and used to decorate new model homes for sale. He played the organ and composed music. He read books on medicine, physics, electronics, and many other sciences. He was an astrologer. He listened to classical music and opera but was also well educated in jazz and popular American music. He did not go to church but studied religions of the world. He was interested in oriental religions and spoke Chinese.
Although he loved her dearly, Paul treated his wife in the old way. He allowed her to cook and clean, but he liked to do all the talking. He felt she should keep quiet and let him do talk when I came to visit them. He seldom took her away from the house to visit with others, and he shushed her when she tried to enter a conversation with me. In her early eighties, she became weak and senile, unable to take care of herself. Eventually Paul asked me to drive them to a convalescent hospital with a staff that spoke German. We left her there and she died two months later.
A year passed and Paul grieved the passing of his wife. He met many women who were interested in him, but Paul was no longer interested in having a woman. He enjoyed reading Playboy Magazine but did not respond to the sexual hints of the women he met when he went swimming in a therapy pool to ease his gout and arthritis. Almost ninety, he had good posture as he drove his clean Cadillac sedan. We invited him to attend parties at our home, but he always refused. He admitted his loneliness to me but would not come to the parties. He said he enjoyed watching and listening to us from his yard.
On several evenings I noticed a light burning in Paul's garage. Each time I phoned him he thanked me and turned out the garage light. When he didn’t answer the phone I rang his door bell, and he let me in. He thanked me warmly and turned out the light each time. I became accustomed to making sure he turned out the garage light. I knew he was retired on a fixed income, and I didn’t want him to waste electricity.
One night my wife Barbara received a phone call from San Francisco. Paul’s daughter was worried because her dad did not answer the phone. The next day was his birthday, and Barbara told his daughter we would check on him. Barbara promised to get him a birthday cake and have a little party for him. I looked and saw his garage light was on. He didn’t answer the phone, so I walked the one hundred paces to his door. It was a dark, spooky night and I noticed his Cadillac was parked in the lighted garage. Nobody answered when I knocked on his door. I was about to turn out the garage light when the thought struck me that Paul might have had a heart attack in his car. I looked in the drivers side and saw him slumped over on the passengers side of his front seat. He had a plastic black trash bag over his head, and the sack was tightly tied around his neck.
I was shocked, frightened, and a little angry. I realized he had committed suicide and set me up to find him. I hurried home and Barbara dialed nine, one, one. I asked Barbara to go and check his vital signs while I went to the street with a flashlight to direct the paramedics to Paul’s driveway. Barbara got in the drivers side of the car. She reached across Paul’s slumped body to open the locked door where he sat. Later she told the police, “He felt cold and had no pulse. I saw a coffee cup with yellow sediment in the bottom. I guess it was sleep medication. I found a suicide note on the car dash and read it. There was also some printed papers I could not read because I didn’t bring my glasses. I put the papers back on the dashboard, walked around and opened the door on the passenger side. I wondered if I should take the plastic bag off Paul’s head. No, I decided the authorities would rather see him with it on. Then the firemen came, and I let them take over. I went home and called his daughter in Beverly Hills.”
Two hours later the daughter and her former husband arrived. She told us that Paul had spoken to her on several occasions saying he planned to kill himself. “He had reading material on how to do it.” The police and coroner read the papers found on the dash. The papers described in detail how to commit suicide in the fashion he had done it. Paul planned to have me find his body promptly but not too promptly. I guess he figured I would be able to handle it. He didn’t want to be a bother to anybody.