The Cry of the Owl

  “Well, he’s been missing since Saturday.”

  “Missing? Maybe he went to Philly.”

  “I don’t think he’s in Philly now. The police found his car yesterday on the River Road near Queenstown. His car was just abandoned with the door open. The police think he might have drowned.” Her voice trembled on the last word.

  “Drowned?”

  “That’s right. There were signs of a struggle in the bushes by the river there, the police said. The police are already watching the river. I think he’s met with foul play.”

  The phrase “watching the river” sent a chill through Jenny. She had seen newspaper photographs of bodies washed up on the rocks of the rapids. “I don’t know what to say, Mrs. Van Vleet. I hope he’s all right. I’ll call you this afternoon and see if he’s come back.”

  When they had hung up, Jenny went back to her window, where someone was waiting with a deposit book. Jenny stared at the man for a moment, then said, “Will you excuse me? I can’t—” She turned and went to Mr. Stoddard’s office at the back of the bank, and told him she had to go out to make an important telephone call. Mr. Stoddard always wanted to know when any of the staff went out and for what reason, and everyone was shy about asking for time, but Jenny stated her purpose as if there were no question of not getting permission for it, and Mr. Stoddard said, “Oh, certainly, Jenny.”

  She went out to the drugstore, got a supply of dimes and nickels, and called Langley Aeronautics. It was nearly five minutes before she got Robert.

  “Robert, Greg is missing.”

  “Missing? What do you mean?”

  “They found his car on the River Road yesterday and they can’t find him. His landlady just called me. You don’t think he fell in the river that night, do you?”

  “No. He was sitting on the bank when I left him. I suppose it’s possible—possible he got up so groggy he staggered.”

  “You left him sitting on the bank?”

  “Well, I didn’t escort him back to his car, no. The police found his car?”

  “Yes. They’re watching the river now.” She heard Robert’s breath in a long sigh against the telephone.

  “Well—maybe I should talk to the police. Or do you think he could have gone to a friend’s house around there? It was near Queen-stown, I think.”

  “Yes, that’s what Mrs. Van said. I don’t know of anyone Greg knows around there. I don’t want you to go to the police, Robert. Not if you left him sitting on the bank. It’s not your fault and you shouldn’t get blamed for anything.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to be blamed for anything, but if he doesn’t turn up, I suppose I ought to talk to the police.”

  “Don’t do it today. Wait, Robert.”

  “All right. I’ll wait.”

  “Can I see you tonight, Robert?” They hadn’t planned to see each other tonight. They had only a tentative date for Wednesday.

  “I suppose. Shall I come to your place after dinner? I’ve got a dentist’s appointment in Langley at five-thirty and I don’t know how long he’s going to take with this tooth. He’s got to file it for a jacket.”

  “I don’t care, I’ll wait dinner. Come for dinner, Robert. Whenever you get there, it’s fine. I hope the dentist doesn’t hurt.”

  Robert laughed.

  Jenny was home by five-fifteen. She had bought some groceries and the Langley Gazette in Humbert Corners, and she looked at the paper before she emptied the grocery bag. On the second page, there was a picture of Greg’s car with the left door partly open, as it had been found on the River Road. A short column underneath said that Gregory Wyncoop, twenty-eight, of Humbert Corners, had been missing since Saturday night, when his landlady noticed that he had not come home. Broken bushes and footprints between the car and the river indicated that a struggle might have taken place. The only clue the police had was three small buttons from a man’s suit.

  From Robert’s suit, Jenny thought. Or why not from Greg’s? She hadn’t noticed any buttons missing from Robert’s suit Saturday night. The papers were playing it up as a mystery, she supposed, getting all the excitement they could out of it. Greg would probably turn up—with a bad hangover—at a friend’s house, just as Robert thought. Greg had a friend named Mitch in Rittersville, a garage mechanic who was a big drinker, and Greg might have gone to see him. It would be like Greg to stay drunk for two or three days after a fight with Robert. He’d stayed drunk for two days, he said, after she broke their engagement. Jenny tried to think of Mitch’s first name and couldn’t. There were about thirty Mitchells in the Rittersville telephone book. She called Mrs. Van Vleet.

  Mrs. Van Vleet had heard nothing from Greg, but she told Jenny that a “squadron” of six patrol boats were combing the river with searchlights between Queenstown and Trenton for Greg’s body. Jenny had heard the sirens in the bank in Humbert Corners, which was nearer the river than her house.

  “Mrs. Van, do you know Greg’s friend Mitch’s first name? The one who lives in Rittersville?”

  “Mitch? No, I’ve never heard Greg speak of him. Why? Do you think he’s responsible?”

  “No, but I thought Greg might be with him. I don’t think Greg drowned, Mrs. Van.”

  “You don’t? Why?”

  “Because—I just don’t.”

  “When did you see Greg last?”

  “I think it was a whole month ago.”

  “He’s a very unhappy young man since you broke up with him, Jenny. He’s been moping around for weeks. I didn’t hear about it from him, from somebody else. It crossed my mind he might’ve killed himself. Jumped in the river.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t think that’s so, Mrs. Van. Let’s just wait and see. Goodbye.”

  Robert arrived at seven-thirty, with a hanging upper lip. “A nice cold Scotch might help,” he said.

  Jenny made a drink for him while he looked at the Gazette.

  “Buttons?” Robert glanced at his cuffs. Then he went to the kitchen closet, where he had hung his overcoat. “Well—three buttons gone from my right sleeve.” He turned to Jenny. “I think I’d better tell the police.”

  Jenny stood in the middle of the kitchen with his drink. “Just because of a couple of buttons?”

  “Thanks,” he said, taking the drink from her. “At least I can tell them I left him sitting on the bank of the Delaware.”

  “Tell them you pulled him out once, if you talk to them.”

  Robert smiled uneasily and drank.

  “I’m going to call Susie,” Jenny said.

  “Why?”

  “She might know Mitch’s first name. Mitch is a friend of Greg’s.” Jenny dialed Susie’s number.

  Susie answered. “Gee, what’s this about Greg? Do you think he killed himself?”

  “No, I don’t,” Jenny said. Robert was watching her from the kitchen. “Listen, do you know Mitch’s first name? You know, Greg’s friend in—”

  “Charles, I think. Sure, Charles. He gave me his phone number the night we went to that kookie dance. As if I’d ever call that gorilla! Why do you want it?”

  “Have you still got it? Can I have it?”

  “With pleasure. Hold on.”

  Jenny waited, watching Robert sip his drink as he walked around the kitchen.

  “Cleveland 7-3228,” Susie said. “Do you think Mitch and Greg had a fight?”

  “No, I don’t. I’ll talk to you later, Susie. O.K.?” She hung up, then dialed Mitch’s number.

  A woman answered, and Jenny supposed it was Mitch’s mother. Mitch wasn’t in.

  “Do you know if Mitch has seen Greg? Greg Wyncoop?” Jenny asked. “This is Jenny Thierolf.”

  “Oh. Why, no, Jenny. We saw the papers, too. Mitch just left the house five minutes ago. He was saying Greg might’ve committed suicide, because he was so upset about—about the break with you. Mitch is going off right now to talk to somebody he said might know something about it.”

  “If he finds out anything, would you have him call me back?” J
enny gave her number. “I’ll be in all evening. It doesn’t matter how late he calls.”

  “I’ll sure tell him, Jenny. Thank you for calling.”

  Jenny hung up. “Mitch is a friend of Greg’s,” she said to Robert. “I thought he might be there, but he’s not.”

  Robert said nothing. He was walking slowly around the kitchen, looking down at the floor.

  Jenny put a couple of frozen chicken pies into the hot oven. Then she started making the salad. Robert went into the living room. A moment later, Jenny had another idea. She went to the living room door and said, “You know, Greg might be in Philly with his parents. The police might know by now that he’s O.K. That paper’s hours old.”

  Robert only nodded. He was sitting on the sofa with the newspaper. He put the newspaper down and got up. “One thing I can do is call and ask,” he said, going to the telephone.

  “Call who? The parents?”

  “No, the police here. I’m sure they’ve checked with his parents.”

  “Robert, don’t get mixed up with the poli-ice,” she said in a pleading voice.

  “Since when’re you afraid of the police? We’re trying to find this fellow.” He looked at her for a moment with his hand on the telephone, then he lifted it. He asked for the Rittersville police headquarters. When he got it, he gave his name and asked if there was any news about Gregory Wyncoop. The officer said no. “I’m the one Wyncoop had the fight with Saturday night,” Robert said.

  The Rittersville police officer was very interested in what Robert had to say.

  “Where are you?” asked the officer.

  Robert told him—at the house of a friend, Jennifer Thierolf, near Humbert Corners. The officer said he would like to send someone to speak to him, and Robert told him how to get to the house.

  “Oh-h, Robert!” Jenny said.

  “I can’t help it,” Robert said when he hung up. “If it isn’t now, it’ll be some other time. It’s the right thing to do, Jenny. It’ll take him at least half an hour. We can—”

  “These chicken pies won’t be done in half an hour,” Jenny said.

  Robert stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “I’m sorry, Jenny. Can’t you take them out and put them back?”

  “No! What’re you going to be able to tell the police?” She was angry.

  Robert looked at her for a moment, then slowly turned and went back to the sofa.

  Jenny turned the oven higher. As long as they were hot all the way through, she thought. They’d be ruined if they ate them after the police left. It was Greg interfering again, Greg—whether he was alive or had walked into the Delaware, she really didn’t care. She beat the salad dressing with a fury, and poured it over the heaping bowl of greenery. Then she called Robert to the table.

  “We’ll have salad first,” she said.

  And Robert obediently ate.

  There wasn’t any wine, she realized. It was a miserable dinner. A police car pulled up in the driveway as Jenny was pouring coffee. Robert got up from the table to open the door.

  There were a policeman and a detective, and they introduced themselves as McGregor and Lippenholtz.

  “Robert Forester,” Robert said. “And this is Jenny Thierolf.” Robert told them what had happened Saturday night. He said he had heard that morning from Jenny that Greg was missing, but that he had waited until now to talk to the police, because he had thought Greg would turn up. “The three buttons are from the sleeve of my overcoat.”

  The officers had listened calmly and politely. Then McGregor, a tall, hulking fellow, asked, “What was the fight about?”

  Robert took a deep breath. “I think Wyncoop resented that I’ve been seeing Miss Thierolf. She broke off their engagement. He’s made threatening remarks to me before. I was expecting a fight with him—thinking he’d pick one sooner or later.”

  Officer Lippenholtz nodded. “We’ve heard that from Wyncoop’s friends also. A pretty hotheaded fellow, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. By the way, I am not engaged to Miss Thierolf. She told Wyncoop that her breaking the engagement had nothing to do with me. But that’s not the way Greg saw it.”

  McGregor was taking notes in a tablet.

  Lippenholtz looked at Robert. “You say you left him sitting on the bank. How far from the river was he?”

  “I’d say four feet at least,” Robert answered. “It was pretty dark. I can’t say precisely.”

  “Sitting up? He wasn’t knocked out enough to be lying on the ground?”

  “I’m sure he was sitting up. I don’t know how groggy he was.”

  “But he was so groggy,” Lippenholtz went on, “you had to pull him out of the water a couple of minutes before? He wasn’t climbing out himself?”

  “No. He wasn’t that I could see.”

  Silence, while the other officer wrote on.

  “What’re you thinking, that he got up and fell in the water again?” Robert asked.

  “That’s a possibility, I suppose,” Lippenholtz said. He was a short, slight man with pale-blue eyes and pockmarks on the left side of his face. “After all, a fellow just doesn’t leave his car sitting open on a road. …”

  The two officers watched Robert, then slowly both looked at Jenny, as if to see her reaction.

  “Have you called his family in Philadelphia to see if he’s there?” Jenny asked.

  “Oh, sure,” said Lippenholtz. “We called them the first thing. We’ve talked to a lot of his friends around Humbert Corners. Nobody’s seen him.”

  Robert moistened his lips. “How does the water look there? I couldn’t see it in the dark. I know there were rocks—”

  “Rocks close by the shore. A few,” said McGregor. “Beyond that, it gets pretty deep right away. Ten feet deep or so.”

  “Well—wouldn’t the rocks by the shore hold anyone who fell in?” Robert asked.

  “Sure, providing he wasn’t knocked out by them, by falling on them,” Lippenholtz said. “If a man was knocked out, he might lie there, drown, get washed on down.” Lippenholtz frowned. “What did you say to Wyncoop when he threatened you, Mr. Forester? How did he threaten you?”

  “Oh—said he’d break my neck or something like that, if I didn’t stop seeing Jenny.”

  “And what did you say back?”

  Robert shrugged. “I said, ‘I understand.’ Something like that. I didn’t threaten him back, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You kept cool,” said Lippenholtz.

  “Yes, and I suppose that annoyed him.”

  “You didn’t say you wouldn’t see Miss Thierolf again?”

  “No,” Robert said.

  “Where were you when he threatened you?”

  “In the parking lot of Langley Aeronautics, where I work. Greg called me up and said he wanted to see me, so we arranged to meet there.”

  “When was this?” asked McGregor.

  “About a month ago.”

  “Hear anything from him after that?”

  “No. Not until Saturday night.”

  “Is the overcoat here?” asked Lippenholtz.

  Robert got the coat from the closet. Lippenholtz picked up the buttonless sleeve and looked at it, then looked at the other with its three buttons, and nodded.

  “Well, we’ll be watching the river,” Lippenholtz said gloomily, with a sigh.

  The telephone rang, and Jenny excused herself and went into the living room to answer it. The two officers waited with interest in the kitchen, looking at her through the doorway.

  “Oh, yes, Mitch. … No, I haven’t, that’s why I called you. … Well, have you talked to all the people you know that he knows?” Jenny saw the policemen shifting on their feet now, disappointed. “Call me if you hear anything, will you? … I don’t know, Mitch. … Goodbye.”

  Jenny came back into the kitchen. “A friend of Greg’s,” she said. “He doesn’t know anything. I wanted to say,” she said, looking at both the officers, “Greg sometimes goes on benders. He could be hiding out somewhere—just
drinking for a couple of days.”

  “Any idea who he might be with?” asked McGregor.

  “No. That’s why I called Mitch, Charles Mitchell, in Rittersville. He’s the only one I know Greg goes drinking with. I mean”—she brushed her hair back nervously at the side of her head—“it doesn’t happen very often with Greg, but it might be happening now, after a fight like that.”

  “Mm-m,” said McGregor. “Routine question we have to ask, Mr. Forester. Have you ever had a police record of any kind?”

  “No,” Robert said.

  “Who would you say won that fight you had?”

  Robert shrugged. “Neither of us. I doubt if Greg looks as beaten up as I do.”

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Forester,” said Lippenholtz. “And you, Ma’am.”

  They exchanged good nights, and then they were gone.

  “I didn’t know you saw Greg a month ago,” Jenny said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “And he threatened you? Is that why—you started seeing less of me?”

  “No, Jenny. We were seeing less of each other before Greg talked to me.” He looked away from her hurt eyes. “Can I have some hot coffee?”

  “Did he try to start a fight then?”

  “In front of a couple of hundred people? Not Greg.” He lit the electric burner under the coffee.

  “Robert—you don’t think Greg really did fall in the river, do you?”

  “No. If I thought so, I’d have said so. From what I could see of those rocks, they weren’t rapids. A fellow’d have to stumble a long way out to get to deep water. Just rolling down the bank wouldn’t have done it. But the main thing is, I don’t think Greg was that knocked out.”

  But Jenny was thinking he might have been. Where could he have gone, walked to, without being found by now? She could imagine Greg getting up a minute after Robert left him and staggering wildly in the wrong direction, wanting to fight Robert again. She knew Greg must have been in a furious temper. She looked at Robert’s serious face as he watched the coffeepot, and wondered what he was thinking now. Whatever he was thinking, she was sure it wasn’t about her. “Why did you take such trouble to tell them we weren’t engaged?” she asked.