Джонатан Келлерман - Night Moves

She said, “Finally.” Then: “No, I’ll get it,” as I started for the front door.

She rolled, hooked the cane around a pull-handle. A young woman wearing a black baseball cap stood outside, smiling and holding a plastic shopping bag. A few words passed between her and EmJay Braun before the bag was handed over. EmJay Braun pushed the door closed and raced to the kitchen where she unloaded on the low counter, placed a few things in the fridge.

“They like you to say something religious when they give you food, like thanks for the grub, God.” She returned and faced us. “I know he didn’t pay his fine but does it look like we’re millionaires?”

Milo said, “What fine?”

“Ninety bucks for when he planted that tree near the harbor without permission, that’s why you’re here, right? They also wanted him to dig it up but when they saw his leg, they let that go.”

“Ms. Braun, we’re from L.A. There’s no easy way to tell you but a body was found several days ago. We’re not certain but indications are it might be your husband.”

“Might be? What does that mean?” No shock, just indignation.

“There was some disfigurement so we can’t make a definite I.D. A pattern of old injuries matches that of Mr. Braun.”

“Who told you about his injuries?”

“His former wife.”

“The lazy one,” she said.

“You know her?”

“Hal told me about her, she never lifted her butt to do anything. Why’d she stick her nose into it?”

“We released information to the media and she phoned in. She felt the description might match Mr. Braun.”

“Description of what?”

Milo told her.

Her mouth twitched. “So what? Lots of people get hurt.”

“The injuries match your—”

“So what,” she repeated.

Then she fell apart.

Gasping and bending nearly double, she dropped her head, grabbed at her abundant hair with both hands, chuffed a few times and continued to breathe rapidly. A hand trembled. The cane tumbled to the floor. I picked it up and held on to it.

She said, “No, no, no, no, no, stupid, stupid, stupid !” Her right hand flew from her hair and began pummeling a wheel of her chair. She’d pulled out some black strands and they frizzed her fingers. She kept hitting rubber and the heel of her hand turned gray.

It took a while for her to go silent. She kept her head down.

Milo said, “Ms. Braun, if it is Mr. Braun, we’re so sorry for your loss. But we need to know for sure.”

“Of course it’s him. Why wouldn’t it be him? He was supposed to call a week ago, didn’t but so what, that’s Hal, he does crazy crap like that.”

She sobbed. I got her a tissue from the kitchen. She snatched it, ground soft paper into both eyes. “He’s so stupid !”

Milo said, “Ma’am, I hate to ask this, but a DNA match will tell us definitely if it’s—”

She looked up. “When he left he wouldn’t tell me what, just that it was his grand adventure. I told him he was being stupid, going off on one of his — the dumb jackass fool. ”

She let the tissue drop to her lap. “You’re thinking I should’ve reported him missing when he didn’t call. But that wasn’t how it worked. The deal was, I shut up and waited and he’d come back with a story. Everything all CIA.”

“He told you he was in the CIA?”

“No! That’s not what I mean!” Deep breath. Balloon cheeks as she held on to air, finally let it out. “I said he got all CIA — like it was a secret mission. I knew it wasn’t, just one of his stupid, stupid, stupid adventures. I figured he needed to get it out of his system. Like a steam pipe, you know? Blow it off. Sometimes he needed to do that.”

I said, “He went on other adventures.”

“He’d be okay for a while then he’d get restless and do stupid things,” she said. “Like the tree. He decided the harbor needed a blue eucalyptus because the color brought out the ocean. So he bought one and snuck out there at night and planted it and harbor security drove by and caught him. Turns out eucalyptus have small roots, it could’ve fallen down in a big wind. What did Hal care? He was speaking for the trees. A few years before that, he did the same thing with flowers near a gas station. No one complained about that, what did they care, they got free flowers. But the owners laughed at him and the flowers were dead in a month because no one watered them. Hal goes in for gas, starts complaining they don’t care about nature, they kick him out, say don’t come back. So now we got to drive farther for gas.”

“For his Jeep.”

“Piece of junk — he’s not a bad guy, just does stupid things — like walking at night in bad neighborhoods, where the gangs hang out. Like... a dare, you know? Except no one’s daring him. He’d get in people’s business, that almost got him beat up.”

“By who?” said Milo.

“This was a few years ago, he drove by a McDonald’s, a guy was yelling at a woman. Hal stops, goes up, says that’s no way to treat a lady. Guy’s twice his size, grabs him and lifts him off the ground and throws him away like he’s a piece of dust.”

“You saw this?”

“No, he told me. Like it was funny. Like he was proud of himself. I begged him to stop doing it, he’d give me this pat on the head, say EmJay, it’s keeping the code. I’m like what code? He’s like back when honor mattered — knights and dragons and all that. He used to read books about knights. Then he switched to CIA books, Tom Clancy, whatever. He’d talk about how great it would be, going co -vert, no one knowing who you really are.”

Tears dribbled down her cheeks. “I should’ve known. When he packed that duffel, I should’ve asked questions. But he wouldn’t have told me. He never told me anything until afterward.”

Her mouth worked. “When he didn’t call after a week, I won’t lie, I was mad. Then I said maybe his burner phone ran out.”

Milo said, “He used a pay-as-you-go?”

“We both do, cheaper,” said EmJay Braun. “We ain’t exactly Bill Gates.” She wheeled the chair to the side, showed us her profile “Why can’t he be recognized?”

Milo said, “No need to go into details.”

“That bad?” she said. “No, tell me.”

“A shotgun was used.”

She grimaced. “Oh, God... I was hoping maybe another fall. That’s how he got messed up the first time. Hiking. An ad ven ture.”

She looked at her hand, untangled strands of hair, stared at them. “I should be careful, it’s the only thing I’ve got going anymore, the hair.” Dreamy smile. “I used to model. Hair and hands, once in a while even whole-body. When I was like twenty. Nothing fancy, discount catalogs, but I was doing okay. I got something called A.S. Not M.S. You tell people A.S., they think M.S., it’s nothing alike.”

I said, “Ankylosing spondylitis.”

She stared. “How do you know?”

Years ago, I’d consulted to Western Pediatric’s Rheumatology Division, learned about arthritis of the spine.

I said, “I know someone.”

“They doing okay?”

“They are.”

“Well, good for them, I’m hanging in. Mine started when I was twenty-one, a stupid backache. Then it was okay, then it came back.” Soft tap on a tire. “I’m not a cripple, I can walk a little when I absolutely have to, but it hurts bad. That’s how I met Hal. Physical rehab, he was working on his leg strength, I was getting my spine looked at again.”

I said, “His accident.”

“That had happened years before, he had the limp. He’d been okay but then his muscles started to get weak and they said he’d better do something about it, so he went to rehab. I wasn’t that severe, myself, we started dating. When I got worse, he stuck with me, I thought, what a guy.”