Walkers

by Gary Brandner

  "Peculiar set of circumstances, isn't it?" said Dr. Breedlove.

  "Peculiar, to say the least," Hovde agreed. "What are you going to do about it?"

  "Do? What do you mean do about it?"

  "Jesus, Kermit, you've got findings here to show that this man, as you put it to me on the telephone, died twice. Same thing with the woman driver last week. Aren't you going to take this to the Board?"

  "Hell no. I don't want any part of it."

  "How can you say that? This could be one of the biggest medical stories of our time."

  "Yeah, and it could be a great big can of worms. Leave me out."

  "That's a hell of an attitude."

  "Maybe so, but that's the way I feel." The pathologist pretended to get busy with some of the papers on his desk, but when Hovde continued to stare at him he turned back with a sigh of resignation. "Look, Warren, I could take this to the Board, sure. 'Excuse me,' I say, 'I've got a couple of people on ice downstairs who appear to have been walking around and doing things for quite some time after they were dead. Then they died again and were brought in here, and I thought I'd mention it.'

  "I see two possible reactions from the Board. One, they fall all over each other laughing, or, two, they schedule me for a rubber room and one of those jackets that buckle in the back. No, make that three possibilities. They might listen to me, believe every word, then tell me to forget it if I want to keep my job here. Don't make waves."

  Hovde started to argue, but he realized that what Breedlove said was essentially true. It was an outlandish story to lay on anyone cold. And the Board of Directors of the West Los Angeles Receiving Hospital were not the most open-minded of bodies. They put great store in not making waves.

  "You could take the story to somebody else," he said. "The newspapers. Television."

  Breedlove took the toothpick out of his mouth and spoke seriously. "Warren, I am happy doing what I am doing. Chief Pathologist right here at West L.A. is it for me. I have a nice home and a nice wife and a nice quiet life away from the hospital. I want to continue. I do not want to be a media star."

  "All I'm suggesting is that you report what you've found here," Hovde said mildly.

  "Can you imagine what Eyewitness News would do with this story? Or the Herald-Examiner? Or, God help us, the National Enquirer?"

  "You've got a point," Hovde admitted.

  "I do my job, and I do it well," Breedlove said. "I put my findings in my reports, I pass my reports on through channels. If anybody up the line wants to make something out of them, they're welcome to the whole stinking mess. Do you want to make something out of it?"

  "No," Hovde said slowly. "I guess I don't."

  There was a short, uncomfortable silence between the two doctors.

  "Warren, can I make a suggestion?" Breedlove said.

  "Go ahead."

  "This friend of yours, this patient, Joana Raitt..."

  "Yes?"

  "I'd tell her to be damned careful walking past cemeteries."

  Hovde regarded the pathologist for a long moment and saw that he was serious. "I'll do that," he said.

  He scanned the police report one more time and saw that the case had been assigned to Detective Sergeant Dan Olivares. Hovde knew the name. He had worked with the policeman the year before on a series of grisly rape-murders in the Venice area. The two men had got along well.

  He handed the report back to Breedlove. "Thanks for calling me on this, Kermit. Let me know if..." He did not know how to finish the sentence.

  "If I get another one?" Breedlove supplied. "I'll be happy to."

  Horde left him there with the corpse and took the elevator back upstairs. He was grateful for the rush of warm air that met him when he stepped out into the hallway. At one of the nurses' stations he used the telephone to call the Police Building in downtown Los Angeles. He asked for Sergeant Olivares in Homicide. The instrument buzzed once and a pleasant baritone answered.

  "Olivares."

  "Dan, this is Warren Horde."

  "Good to hear from you, Doctor. How are you?"

  "Fine, fine. Dan, there's a case you're working on that I'd like to talk to you about."

  "What case?"

  "Edward Frankovich, homicide victim Sunday night in Hollywood."

  "Oh, yeah, that was a messy one. I've got the sheet in front of me now. Was he a patient of yours?"

  "No, but the girl is. The one who lives in the house where it happened."

  There was a rustle of paper on the other end of the line.

  "Joana Raitt," said Olivares.

  "Yes, that's the girl."

  "It says here her boyfriend, Glen Early, was the one who did Frankovich in."

  "Yes, I know Glen too," said Horde.

  "I wouldn't worry about, him, if that's why you called. I don't think he's in any trouble. We've got an apartment house full of witnesses ready to swear he acted in defense of his life and the girl's. This Frankovich was clearly freaked out. I make him a psycho or a doper.''

  "I'm glad to hear GIen's in the clear," Hovde said,"but that's not all I wanted to talk to you about."

  "Do you have some information?" Suddenly the official tone of the policeman was in Olivares' voice.

  "I'm not sure. Can we get together?"

  "Early and the girl are due down here in a little while to enter their statements on the record. Would you like to sit in?"

  "I would, if you don't mind."

  "Come on down. I'll have a visitor's badge waiting for you with the guard downstairs."

  Dr. Hovde hung up the phone and walked slowly down the antiseptic corridor and out of the hospital. There was no backing out now, he was in this business with both feet, whether he wanted to be or not. Walking down the steps outside the building, he thought about how simple his life had been just a week ago. All he had to worry about then was sore throats, broken bones, and his impending divorce.

  The good old days, he thought sourly, and climbed into his car.

  Chapter 16

  The Los Angeles Police Building was part of the new municipal complex that flanked the old familiar City Hall. The room assigned to Sergeant Olivares for his interview with Joana Raitt and Glen Early was on the twelfth floor. It was furnished with a short conference table and half a dozen padded vinyl chairs. A window overlooked the Civic Center Mall, where flags of the fifty states hung limp on their poles. The walls of the room were beige, the carpet a dull brown. The only suggestion of personality in the room were the ashtrays, which advertised the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas.

  Sergeant Olivares sat on one side of the table, with Joana and Glen across from him. The sergeant was a compact man with smooth black hair, a neat moustache, and wide spaces between his teeth. At the far end of the table sat Warren Hovde, with his chair angled away from the others to show that he had no official role in the proceedings.

  Both Glen and Joana looked nervous and glanced frequently at each other for reassurance. Joana smoked rapidly, while Glen chewed at a hangnail on his thumb. Olivares kept the questioning in a quiet, conversational tone. He assured them repeatedly that there would not likely be any charges arising from the death of Edward Frankovich.

  "What I'd like," said Olivares, "is for each of you just to tell in your own words what happened last night, from the time you first saw Frankovich outside the house until the police arrived. If it's all right with

  you I'll record your statements on the machine here, but if you prefer I can call in a stenographer."

  "I have no objection to the tape," Joana said. Glen nodded his agreement.

  "You'll both have a chance to see the transcript and sign it," Olivares said, He depressed the RECORD lever on the cassette machine and sat back to let first Joana, then Glen tell their stories of the violent events of Sunday night.

  Dr. Hovde sat quietly and listened as the young people spoke. Their voices were low. Their eyes reflected the horror of the experience. Hovde could not suppress a shudder as he reflected on what he knew a
bout the dead man that they did not.

  When Joana and Glen had finished their stories, Sergeant Olivares snapped off the cassette recorcler. From the floor at his feet he brought up an attaché case. He zipped it open and pulled out an eight-by-ten photograph. It was obviously a blow-up of a black-and-white snapshot. It showed a big smiling man standing self-consciously next to a palm tree. The man wore a plaid shirt and a pair of jeans. There was nothing about him that would draw a second glance in a crowd.

  "Do you recognize this man?" Olivares asked.

  Joana and Glen studied the photograph briefiy, then looked at each other.

  "That's him," Joana said. "That's the man. But he looked different last night."

  "Different in what way?"

  "He wasn't smiling, for one thing," Joana said. "He had kind of a....dazed expression."

  "And his face was darker than it is in the picture," Glen added. "Almost purple."

  "But you have no doubt this is the man who broke in and attacked you?"

  "No doubt," Joana said.

  "I'm not likely to forget that face," said Glen.

  The detective nodded. "Joana, I want you to look at the photograph again and try to remember if you have ever seen this man before he came to your door Sunday night."

  Joana squared the picture on the table in front of her and stared at it. A tiny frown of concentration creased her forehead. "No, I'm sure that was the first time."

  "You never ran across him in your work? Or socially in any way?"

  "No."

  "A casual meeting, in a store, or a theater, or a gas station?"

  Joana shook her head. "I'm sure I never saw this man before last night."

  "How about you, Glen?"

  "He was a stranger to me. I would have remembered a big man like that."

  Olivares sighed. "I really didn't expect you to know him, but I hoped Joana might have seen him before. She was obviously the one he was after, and it would help if we could make some connection."

  Joana shivered suddenly. Glen reached over and gave her hand a squeeze.

  "Have you made any enemies, Joana?" the sergeant continued. "Made anybody mad enough so they might want to hurt you?"

  "Oh, no," Joana said emphatically. "I've had my differences with people from time to time, but never anything serious. Surely nothing that would lead to this...no, it's not possible."

  Olivares wrote something in a pocket-size notebook, then looked up and smiled pleasantly. "That about does it. Thanks for coming in."

  "That's all there is?" Joana asked. "We can go now?"

  "Sure."

  Joana and Glen stood up and walked around the table to the door. Joana looked back at Dr. Horde, a question in her eyes.

  "I'm going to stick around and talk to the sergeant for a while," the doctor said.

  "We're old friends," Olivares explained.

  "Will we be seeing you later, Doctor?" Glen asked.

  "I'll call you this evening. I'd like the three of us to have a talk."

  The young couple said quick goodbyes and left, obviously anxious to be out of the oppressively bland room.

  When they were gone, Sergeant Olivares slid the photograph over in front of Hovde. "What do you think, Doc?"

  Hovde looked down at the fuzzy image of the big, smiling man with the guileless face. "From what I saw at the hospital, I couldn't swear this is the same man."

  "It's him, all right. We got the photo from his landlady. It was taken a year ago when the two of them were dating each other. That's been over now for months, according to the landlady."

  "Who is he, anyway, Dan?"

  Olivares pulled several stapled sheets out of the attaché case. "Edward David Frankovich," he read. "Born Muskegon, Michigan, March 1, 1931. Served in the army during the Korean War, discharged with rank of corporal. Purple Heart. Married in 1958, divorced 1959. Employed past four years at McCoy's Auto Repair on Figueroa. Lived alone in Huntington Park. No close relatives, no close friends, no arrest record outside of routine traffic citations."

  "Not much to sum up a man's life," Hovde said.

  "At the end, what do any of our lives add up to?" Olivares said.

  "Is there any history of mental illness?"

  "We didn't turn up any."

  "Too bad."

  "Why?"

  "Because then we'd have some kind of explanation for his weird behavior."

  "Yeah." Olivares sat looking at the doctor. "You said you might have some information for me."

  "It's more in the nature of a suggestion," Hovde said. "And I'm not quite ready to make it yet. What's your next move?"

  "I'm going out to the garage where Frankovich worked and talk to his boss."

  "Mind if I come along?"

  "It's all right with me." Olivares gathered up the cassette recorder, the photograph of Frankovich, and the stapled-together report sheets and shoved them into the attaché case. He looked up at Hovde. "Can I ask you something, Doc?"

  "Go ahead."

  "What's so special about this homicide? Why should a doctor take half a day off from his practice to follow a detective around?"

  Hovde thought a moment before answering. "I've got myself involved with these young people, Dan, without trying to, and without really wanting to. It's like the old Oriental custom that says when you save somebody's life you're responsible for that person forever afterward."

  "Did you save the girl's life?"

  "I'm not sure."

  "What kind of an answer is that?"

  "It's an evasive answer, Dan, and I'm sorry. Let's go on out to where Frankovich worked, then I'll try to tell you about it."

  McCoy's Auto Repair occupied a lot on a cluttered block of Figueroa. On one side was a wholesale plumbing supply house; on the ether was an abandoned Gulf station with weeds growing up through cracks in the asphalt. Sergeant Olivares parked the unmarked police car next to the dead gas pumps and got out. Dr. Hovde followed.

  They walked up behind a skinny blonde youth who was up to his elbows in the engine of a battered old Chevrolet.

  "Where can we find the boss?" Olivares said.

  "Inside," said the boy without looking up. He pointed a greasy elbow toward a low cinder-block building that seemed to overflow with broken-down automobiles.

  "Thanks," Olivares grunted, and led the way into the building.

  Inside, a badly tuned engine was being gunned and eased with a machine-gun popping of backfires. Above the din a man's voice could be heard shouting. Olivares and the doctor followed the voice and found a short fat man with a sweaty bald head confronting a frightened-looking dark-eyed boy. The bald man waved his stubby arms up and down to emphasize his words.

  "Goddamn it, don't you understand a simple fucking parts order? Are you so fucking stupid you don't know a head gasket from a rocker-arm gasket? Jesus, no wonder you people haven't got fucking shit." He paused in his tirade to acknowledge Olivares and Dr. Horde. "Yeah?"

  "You the boss here?" Olivares said.

  "My name's McCoy, and that's the name on the sign, so I guess that makes me the boss."

  "Like to talk to you."

  "Just a minute." He returned his attention to the boy, whose eyes darted around as though searching for an escape. "Now get your ass over to the fucking parts house and this time come back with the right fucking gasket. Comprenday?"

  The boy bobbed his head up and down, and with an embarrassed glance at the other two men, he hurried out.

  McCoy pulled a crusty handkerchief from the pocket of his coveralls and ran it over his glistening scalp. "Stupid fucking Mexicans," he said. "You can't teach them shit. Come up here and take our welfare and spray-paint their fucking names all over our property, but just try and get one of them to do a day's work. They're born lazy and they die lazy."

  "That so?" said Sergeant Olivares. "Here's my identification." He flapped open his wallet to show McCoy the L.A.P.D. badge and I.D. card. He held it out long enough to be sure the fat man had time to read his n
ame.

  "Uh—look, nothing personal, Sergeant. I wasn't talking about all Mexicans. Hell, some of them are fine people. I mean, I've had Mexicans over to my place for dinner..."

  Olivares let the man run down, then said, "Forget it. Is there someplace where we can talk?"

  "Yeah, sure," said McCoy, eager to please now. "We can go in the office."

  The "office" was a plywood cubicle sectioned off from one corner of the garage. It had a high counter with an old hand-crank adding machine and a litter of bills and invoices. A single high stool stood behind the counter. Taped to the walls were poster-size calendars from parts manufacturers that featured glossy 1940s-style pin-ups.

  "Things are hectic around here today," McCoy said. "My best mechanic got himself knocked off last night, and I have to make do with these stupid—" he broke off and glanced at Olivares. "I have to get along with temporary help."

  "Your mechanic was Edward Frankovich?" the detective said.

  "Yeah."

  "That's what we want to talk to you about." McCoy looked relieved.

  "There was already a couple of cops here this morning. They told me what happened to him. You could of knocked me over with a feather. Who'd of thought a thing like that would happen to Big Ed? That's what we called him, Big Ed, on account of his size."

  "Would you say he was a violent man?" Olivares asked. "Did he have a temper?"

  "Big Ed? Hell no. He didn't have a violent bone in his body. Smiled a lot, didn't have much to say. He was a damned good worker. Never sick, never came in late. You could of knocked me over with a feather."

  "Did you ever hear him mention the name Joana Raitt?" Olivares asked.

  "Nah. But then, he never talked much about his personal life. He didn't have much of a personal life, if you ask me. He did his work. That's all I care about in a man." McCoy mopped the perspiration from his head again. "And now he's dead. That's a funny coincidence."

  "What do you mean?"

  "For a while I thought he was a goner last Friday, right in front of my eyes."

  Dr. Hovde felt a chill between his shoulder blades. "What happened?" he said.

  McCoy looked at Hovde as though seeing him for the first time, then switched his eyes back to Olivares.