Walkers

Chapter 23

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, but they'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."

"We're not going to get busted, are we?" the fat girl said.

"Just tell me what happened, please."

The second boy spoke up. He was thin, with a pointed nose that dripped on his upper lip. "Don't worry, they can't use anything we say against us. He didn't read us our rights, and besides, we got no attorney here."

"You are not under arrest," the deputy explained patiently. "I'm just trying to establish the circumstances of the young woman's death."

"Yeah, well, okay," said the moon-faced boy, "just let me get it together for a minute." He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then said, "What happened, we were doing a little angel dust Wednesday, okay?"

Breedlove and Hovde exchanged a glance. Angel dust, PCP, phencyclidine. Cheap and easy to make, readily available at any high school. And just about the deadliest drug on the streets.

"No big deal," the boy continued. "Just nice and mellow, okay?"

The deputy made some notes in a book.

"So it turns out Quilla isn't used to angel dust, right? I mean, we all thought she turned on to anything. She talked like a heavy doper. How were we going to know she was new at it?"

"I mean, all she ever did before was grass," the pimply girl put in. "She was a beginner."

"What happened after you all took the angel dust?" the deputy asked.

"Quilla starts freaking right away. I mean, bad. Screaming and running around and yelling a bunch of crazy stuff. Then she took off up the Coast Highway."

"Did you try to stop her?"

"Are you kidding? Did you ever try to stop somebody freaked out on angel dust? No way. I mean, they're so strong you wouldn't believe it."

Dr. Hovde listened to the exchange with a growing sense of horror.

"What happened then?" the deputy prompted.

"Okay, Quilla runs into the parking lot of this restaurant up the highway, right? Two or three of us are following her. We want to see she don't do nothing to bring the cops down on us, you know."

"Sure. Go on."

"Then she really flips out. I mean all the way. There's this girl standing down by the cliff looking out over the water, and Quilla takes off at her like a wild animal, screaming all the way. The girl sees her coming and runs away along the cliff with Quilla after her. About that time the people inside the restaurant hear all the yelling, and they come spilling out the door. The last we seen, Quilla and the girl are wrestling way down on the edge of the cliff. You could see them clear in the moonlight. Well, we didn't hang around there anymore, we split for home."

"This happened Wednesday night?"

"Yeah."

"This is Monday. Why didn't you report it before today?"

"Be serious, man. I mean, do we want a lot of cops crawling all over our place? Anyway, we didn't know for sure Quilla was dead."

Dr. Hovde broke in. "Are you saying that this girl was alive last Wednesday when you followed her to the restaurant?"

Everyone in the room turned to stare at the doctor.

"Well, damn it, was she?" he snapped.

"Hey, yes, man, she was alive. Freaked out, sure, but just as alive as you are, okay?"

Hovde did not wait to hear any more. He jerked open the door and rushed out and down the hall to the nurses' station. The thought pounded at him that Quilla Styles was alive last Wednesday. Alive. She Was not one of the walkers. There had been only three, not the four that were coming. And tonight, Midsummer Night, was the Eve of St. John.

He snatched the telephone from in front of a startled nurse and dialed Joana's home number. He let it ring seven times, then slammed the receiver down in frustration when there was no answer.

"Do you have an L.A. phone book?" he demanded of the nurse.

"Why, yes, Doctor."

"Well, let me have it!"

The nurse blinked, then reached under the counter and brought up the thick book of Los Angeles white pages. Hovde riffled through it until he found the name of the department-store chain that Joana worked for. He spun the dial and drummed his fingers impatiently, waiting for an answer.

He was transferred from the switchboard to the corporate offices, and finally to the advertising department. He asked for the manager.

"John Walton speaking."

"Mr. Walton, this is Dr. Warren Hovde. It's urgent that I speak to Joana Raitt."

"I'd like to help you out, Doctor, but Joana hasn't come in yet. She called to say she'd be a little late."

"As soon as she comes in, have her call me at this number." He read the digits off the front of the telephone. "Tell her it's most important."

"I'll sure do that, Doc."

Hovde rang off and stood for a moment, his pulse racing. Joana would be relaxed and off guard today, thinking the last of the walkers had struck and been beaten. She did not know there was still oneunaccounted for.

He lifted the phone again and dialed the number of Glen Early's office. He listened to the buzz on theother end with sweat beginning to soak through his shirt.