Gary Brandner - Walkers

"Oddly enough, there wasn't. That Sergeant Olivares from downtown moved right in and took over the whole scene. He said not to worry, it would go into the books as accidental death. I think he knows more about the walkers than he will admit."

The doorbell rang, and they both jumped, muscles tense. Then they exchanged sheepish grins.

"Who is it?" Joana called.

"Warren."

She walked over and opened the door. Dr. Hovde came in. At his side was a tall woman with blonde hair, just beginning to silver. She had smiling blue eyes.

"Joana, Glen," said the doctor, "I'd like you to meet Marge. My wife. Honey, these are the people I've told you about."

Marge Hovde shook hands with both of them. "I'm very glad to meet you," she said. "Warren tells me you've just been through some unpleasant times."

"Yes, we have," Joana said, "but they're over now."

"I'm glad to hear that." Marge looked at her husband. "With a little luck our bad times will be over too."

Glen looked from one to the other. "Does this mean I'm losing a neighbor?"

"Just as soon as I can pack my records and clear out," said Hovde. "The events of the past week have made me do a lot of thinking about life in general and my life in particular. We had our differences, Marge and I, but who doesn't. One thing I learned for sure is that living alone is not my style."

"Mine either," said Marge. "So when Warren said why don't we try to work things out, I jumped at it. Then it seemed foolish for him to be driving back and forth from one end of Los Angeles to the other, so…"

"So I'm moving back to the Valley," Hovde finished for her. "Now that we've had a near-divorce, maybe I'll fit in better."

"I think it's wonderful," Joana said. "And I just know it's going to work out. The two of you look so right together."

"Yes, we do make a lovely couple," Hovde said, grinning at his wife.

"Modest too," she added.

"I'll be moving out too before long," Glen said.

"Really? You mean you and Joana…?"

"That's it."

"I guess it's pretty old-fashioned of us," Joana said, "but we're going to get married."

"Right after the World Series," Glen added, smiling.

Dr. Hovde pumped Glen's hand. "I'm really glad to hear that," he said. "Congratulations. You're getting a hell of a woman."

"I know it," Glen said.

"And, Joana, all the best to you, always." He kissed her on the cheek, and they all laughed for no other reason than feeling good about themselves.

Joana brought out a bottle of burgundy and they drank to each other's good luck in the future. In a little while Warren and Marge Hovde left. Joana stood in the doorway smiling after them.

"They look like newlyweds," she said. "Holding hands and giggling with each other."

"I've never seen the doctor look happier," Glen said.

"What do you think we'll look like after twenty years?"

"Lord, who knows? Who wants to know. I've had enough predictions and apparitions for one lifetime."

"I'll second that," Joana said.

Glen stretched and cracked off a yawn. "I'd better get going. Tomorrow it's back to the workaday world."

"Good old world," Joana said.

She kissed him good night in the doorway and they stood for a long time holding each other very tight.

Dr. Hovde whistled happily as he parked his car and strolled across the lot toward the Emergency entrance to West Los Angeles Receiving Hospital. He did a little dance step, then looked across the way and saw two student nurses watching him with amused smiles. He waved at them, they waved back.

He had arranged his schedule to have this Monday morning at the hospital, then take off a couple of days at the end of the week so he and Marge could drive up to Tahoe and work at getting reacquainted. Last night they had slept together for the first time since he moved out a month ago. No, before that, actually. Their lovemaking had been better than ever before. Maybe, he thought, all couples should take a break somewhere about the midpoint of their marriages. No, on second thought, most of them would probably never get back together. It seemed to be working for him and Marge, and that was all that mattered.

He entered the hospital, nodded to the others on the ward, and hung up his light jacket. He scrubbed up and put on the white coat. Nothing was happening in Emergency this morning that needed his attention. A dog bite, a separated shoulder from the Venice bike path, a firecracker burn, a battered wife. Nothing out of the ordinary, everything under control.

Hovde wandered out into the hall to get a cup of coffee and think about last night with Marge. In the two days since he had impulsively called and asked to see her, they had talked more together, really talked, than in the last five years of their marriage. He was surprised and chagrined to discover that Marge had intelligent opinions about subjects he had not suspected she cared about. She also had insights to offer him on everyday living that he truly listened to for the first time. It was like meeting a new, exciting woman, only it was better because they had all their memories intact.

"Son of a gun, if you don't look like a man who got a little last night."

Kermit Breedlove's voice startled Hovde out of his reverie. He grinned embarrassedly, realizing he was standing there with his coffee cup in his hand looking foolishly happily.

"Hi, Kermit," he said to the pathologist. "How's things in the icebox?"

"We got a customer in last night that you were asking about. I tried to call you at your apartment, but there was no answer."

Hovde was instantly alert. "Who is it?"

"Body of a girl, Caucasian, about seventeen. They pulled her out of the surf up at Leo Carillo Beach about five o'clock yesterday afternoon. I think she's your cliff-jumper."

"Thanks. You know why I wanted to hear."

"Yeah."

"Have you done an autopsy yet?"

"No. The body was in sorry shape, what with the battering it took on the rocks, and then the crabs."

"Then I don't suppose you can be sure of the time of death?"

"Come along to my office," Breedlove said.

"What have you got?"

"Some of the girl's friends are there. They came in to identify the body."

"Did you get a positive I.D.?"

"Yeah." Breedlove's toothpick shifted sides of his mouth. "The girl's name was Quilla Styles. Her parents live up in Santa Barbara, butthey're on a world cruise now and can't be reached. Apparently the girl hasn't lived at home for a couple of years."

Hovde studied the pathologist as they walked side by side down the hospital hallway. "What's the story, Kermit? There's something you're not telling me."

"I'd rather have you hear it from the girl's friends. Here we are."

Breedlove opened the door to his office and gestured Hovde inside. On a black leather couch sat two young men and a fat girl with an outbreak of pimples on her chin. The trio was dressed in soiled thrift-shop clothes. Their body odor was rank in the small office. Sad, scruffy reminders of the hippie culture of the 1960s.

Facing them sat a young man in the neat brown uniform of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office. He turned toward the door when the doctors entered.

"Go right ahead, Deputy," said Breedlove. "This is Dr. Hovde, a colleague of mine."

The deputy nodded and returned his attention to the three young people on the couch.

"How many of you are living in the burned-out condominium?" he asked.

"Who knows, man?" said one of the boys, a pale, moon-faced youth. "Six, eight, sometimes twenty. People come and go, you know."

"How long had Quilla Styles been staying there?"

"A week, a month, whatever. She came and went like everybody else."

The deputy sighed audibly. "All right, suppose you tell me what happened on the evening of Wednesday, June eighteenth."