Act of God

around the ears and back, matted and sticking up above the neck of his T-shirt and on the thick forearms. The arm of the chair was wide enough to hold a drink, but there was no glass or bottle on it or in either hand.
    He seemed to be staring at the garden in front of him, a kaleidoscope of blooming flowers and plants with vases and pots in front of the rock-studded border. To his right was a half-finished shed, the vertical posts sunk into concrete footings, the lean-to roof framed but not yet planked, only a couple of boards nailed at the bottom as the beginning of its walls. Outside the shed were big, empty plastic bags that might have held peat moss; long-handled shovels; half-hoes; and small trowels. The variety of sizes suggested that Caroline Houle had been a meticulous gardener.
    As I moved closer, I could see that one of the vases by the rocks was less a flower pot and more an um, its cover sitting on top of it. “Mr. Houle?”
    No reaction.
    I moved closer still, now only about ten feet away, and spoke a little louder. “Mr. Houle?”
    The head moved, but if I hadn’t spoken I wouldn’t have taken it as a response.
    “Mr. Houle, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I need to talk about something with you.”
    This time he turned to face me, a growth of stubble on his cheeks and throat like a prospector three days out of town. The eyes didn’t have any spark to them, and the lips parted only enough to say, “What do you want?” Sometimes the best way to explain things to someone in shock is simple, declarative sentences. “My name’s John Cuddy, and I’m a private investigator from Boston .”
    “ Boston .”
    “Yes. I’ve been hired to find someone by her brother, and I’m hoping you can help.”
    “Help.”
    I wasn’t sure he was really following me or just repeating the last thing he’d heard each time. “Would it be all right if I sat down?”
    There was a second lounge chair closer to the shed. He waved at it, and I pulled it over so that I faced him from a three-quarters angle instead of head-on. “Mr. Houle, your neighbor told me about your wife. I’m really sorry.”
    He looked at me, the empty eyes. “You can’t begin to know.”
    “Actually I can. I lost my wife, young, to cancer.” Something moved behind his eyes, as with Mrs. Thorson out on her driveway. “Cancer. So, it took a while?”
    An odd question, but I wanted to bring him out if I could. “Yes. Months.”
    “Well, it didn’t take months for me. Took a second. Or minutes, I guess, they’re not real clear about that.” He looked at me, through me. “You know how they do it?”
    “Do what, Mr. Houle?”
    “Handle the identification of the body.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “They tell you how sorry they are, and then they fly you down there. They say they’d be happy to arrange for any kind of transportation you want, but how the hell else are you supposed to... So they fly you down, free, of course, and then somebody from a government agency meets you and tells you how sorry he is, too. Then they take you into a room. Not the room, not the... morgue place. No, this is a room with just another guy from the government and a video monitor and a table and some chairs in case you keel...And they stand on either side of you, and they tell you it won’t take long and are you ready. And when you say you are, you know you’re not, really, but what can you say, it has to be done. And then they kind of hold on to your arms, just a little, like they’re ready to catch you. And the camera comes on, or the screen, I guess. And there are some guys in green smocks and masks, like an operating room, only they’re around this white slab with a green sheet over it. Then they pull back the sheet and you see... You see her face, and one side of it’s gone like a burnt-out tube from an old TV, just collapsed and black, and the other side looks just like her, just like she’s sleeping next to you on the other pillow. And they say, ‘Can you—,’ only you don’t let them finish the sentence, you just say, ‘It’s her,’ and they say, ‘Thank you,’ like you’re saving them a lot of time and trouble. And then the one government guy leads you out, and there’s somebody else waiting there, outside the door. Somebody else who had someone on the plane, waiting to go in and watch the show.”
    Houle closed his eyes.
    I watched him tell it, and I felt him tell it. There was no faking this, no act. I’d lost the person I