Gary Brandner - Walkers

"You're telling me she was electrocuted?"

"Exactly."

"And the time of death?"

"Midnight Wednesday, give or take a couple of hours."

"But none of that jibes with the accident report. The woman was seen alive by several witnesses on Thursday afternoon."

"So, like I said at the time, the accident report was fucked up. It wouldn't be the first time. And autopsies do not lie."

"Who identified the body?"

"Let me see…" Paper rattled on the other end of the line. "Here it is. The husband, Avery Carlson. Came in at four o'clock and made a positive I.D."

"Do you have Carlson's address?"

"Yeah." Breedlove read off a street and number in Glendale. Hovde thanked him and hung up.

Now what the hell, he wondered, did he do that for? Everything about the case made him uncomfortable-the wide discrepancies between the accident report and the autopsy findings in the cause and time of Yvonne Carlson's death, her relation if any to Joana Raitt, and Joana's bizarre story of drowning Wednesday night right here in the swimming pool. It was definitely not the kind of thing a nice conservative G.P. should get mixed up in.

With that decided, Warren Hovde went out and got into his car and headed for Glendale.

Tucked in between Burbank and Pasadena, just north of Los Angeles, the city of Glendale backs gingerly up to the San Gabriel Mountains like a fastidious middle-aged lady edging away from raffish fellow passengers on an elevator. Unaffected by the cavortings of its better-publicized neighbors, Glendale had changed little since World War II.

The Carlsons' house was a white frame bungalow on a quiet street lined with tall palm trees. The house was freshly painted, with apple-green shutters at the windows. The square of lawn that lay between the house and the sidewalk showed the results of affectionate care. Dr. Hovde followed the flagstone path to the front door and rang the bell.

The door was opened by a dark, slim woman in her mid-thirties.

"Yes?"

"How do you do. I'm looking for Mr. Avery Carlson."

"May I ask what it's about?"

"It's about Mrs. Carlson. I'm Dr. Warren Hovde." He had learned, not long out of medical school, that the title Doctor opened more doors than a twenty-dollar bill.

"Just a minute, please."

The woman left the door ajar and moved out of sight. Hovde could hear her conversation with someone in the room adjoining the small hallway.

"Who is it?" said a low-pitched man's voice.

"It's a doctor. He asked for you, Daddy."

"I don't want to talk to anybody unless it's really important."

"He said it's something about Mama."

"What's his name?"

"Dr. Hovde, I think he said."

A pause, then, "I don't remember him. But never mind, I'll talk to him."

A man of about sixty came to the door. The flesh of his face sagged, and there were brownish patches under his eyes from lack of sleep.

"I'm Avery Carlson," he said.

"Mr. Carlson, I'm very sorry about your loss. I hope you'll forgive me for intruding at this time."

"Yes, thank you," the man said absently. "What is it you want?"

"I was at the hospital yesterday when your wife was brought in, and there are some things about her case that I find confusing. I'd appreciate it if you could clear them up for me."

"I don't suppose this is idle curiosity, Doctor?"

"Not at all. You see, in a roundabout way your wife's accident is connected with a patient of mine. It could be very helpful to me, and beneficial to my patient, if I knew more of the facts."

Avery Carlson studied his face for a moment, then apparently decided he was sincere. "Come inside."

Hovde entered the neat little living room. The furniture was sturdy and old, and wore bright, fresh slipcovers.

Carlson gestured toward the woman who had answered the door. "This is my daughter Nadine. She's staying with me until…for a few days."

"How do you do," said Hovde.

"Nice to meet you, Doctor. Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

"Please don't go to any trouble."

"No trouble, it's already made."

Nadine went out through an archway into the dining room, then through a swinging door that led to the kitchen.

"Have a seat, Doctor," Carlson said. "You'll excuse my manners, I hope. I'm not quite thinking straight yet."

Hovde chose the sofa. Carlson settled himself stiffly into an overstuffed chair facing him. Nadine returned with a tray bearing coffee, cream, sugar, and a plate of oatmeal cookies. She set the tray down on the coffee table, placed one cup before Dr. Hovde, and carried the other to her father.

Hovde added cream to his cup and smiled his thanks to Nadine. Carlson set his cup on the floor next to his chair and forgot about it.

"All right, Doctor, what can I tell you?"

Dr. Hovde let his gaze range over the cozy room. There was an antique pendulum clock on the mantel, framed graduation pictures, wedding pictures, baby pictures. Little figurines of china and glass, well dusted, stood on a three-sided knicknack shelf in one corner. Over the fireplace was a framed, blown-up photograph of a desert sunset. Hovde searched for words. How did you tell a man who lived in a solid, ordinary, old-fashioned house like this that you suspect his wife may have been walking around half a day after she died?

Finally he said, "I wonder if you could tell me, Mr. Carlson, if anything unusual happened to your wife during the day before the accident?"

"Unusual? What do you mean?"

"Anything at all that was a change of pattern. Anything different from the way she normally acted or spoke."

Carlson looked at him intently. For the first time the hurt, tired eyes showed a spark, of interest.

"As a matter of fact, there was a whole lot different about the way she acted."

"In what way?"

"First I'd like to know why you'd ask me a question like that."

"It's a matter of the medical reports. It would help a lot in completing them properly to have some background information." Well, that was more or less the truth, Hovde told himself, and it was sure better than scaring hell out of the guy.

Carlson pulled on his lower lip for a moment. "All right," he said finally, "if it will help someone I'll tell you about it." He looked over at his daughter.

"If you don't need me for a while," she said, "I think I'll run down to the store and pick up something for dinner." She nodded to Hovde and went out the front door.

"The whole business started Wednesday night," Carlson said, "about midnight."

"Midnight?" Hovde jumped on it, remembering the pathologist's estimate of the time of death.

Carlson looked at him curiously. "That's right. I was working up in Santa Barbara on a construction site. That's my business, construction. We finished up late Wednesday night, but I decided to drive on home instead of spending the night up there in a motel like I do sometimes. I called Yvonne and told her I was coining. She likes… she liked to know when to expect me.

"I got home about eleven-thirty, and she was in the tub. I looked in on her and she said she wanted to be all clean and sweet-smelling for… well, that's not important. Anyway, she seemed perfectly all right. Then, a little while later while I was changing my clothes in the bedroom, I heard her scream. Then there was this big thump in the bathroom, like somebody falling down. I went running in, and there was Yvonne stretched out on the floor, her mouth open and… well, she didn't look good. She had a hair dryer in her hand, and it was still running. I saw right away what had happened and yanked the cord out of the wall. But Yvonne didn't move."

Carlson's voice choked off, and he sat working his hands together, staring down at them.

To give the man a chance to recover himself, Hovde said, "Do you mind if I take a look at the bathroom?"