The Cry of the Owl

  “What’s that?”

  “One thing that might save me from a charge of manslaughter, and that’s being shot by Wyncoop. But they’ll have to catch Wyncoop and connect him with the gun he’s using. They’re not looking very hard for Wyncoop in these parts.” He told Peter about the bullet in the salad bowl. With Peter, he could laugh about it.

  “Bob, can’t you come up here for a few days and stay with us?”

  “Thanks a lot, but I’m not allowed to leave town these days.”

  “What?” Peter said in an incredulous tone.

  “The situation is quite bad. I’m glad you can’t tell it from the New York papers. Don’t think I wouldn’t like to be up in New York with you. How is Edna?”

  Edna Campbell came on and talked for a couple of minutes. She asked in a very tactful way if he had been in love with the girl who killed herself.

  “I don’t know,” Robert said. “I cared for her—but in love, I don’t know.”

  When he had hung up, he realized the Campbells hadn’t brought up the prowling. And they hadn’t avoided it, Robert thought, they were too close as friends for that. They hadn’t considered it important enough to bring up, evidently. That was something.

  Around nine-thirty, Robert awakened, perspiring, from a brief sleep. He was on the red couch. He had dreamt something unpleasant, but he could not remember what the dream had been. The dog still slept in the same spot on the floor. The writing-table light was on. The window through which the salad-bowl bullet had come was still open four inches, though the shade was now pulled down over it. Should he close the window? He left it the way it was.

  Robert went over and looked at the letter in the typewriter that he had begun to Jenny’s parents.

  May 29, 19—

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Thierolf,

  I am writing this to try to tell you a few facts, a few events, which I am not sure you know, as I do not know what or how much Jenny told to you. To start with last things first, she came to my house last Monday evening to tell me that she did not want to see me again. We did not have a quarrel. She was not …

  He turned away from it. It sounded banal, cold, and possibly whining.

  The scream of the telephone sent a shock of pain up his spine, across his shoulders. Nickie again, maybe. Nickie had called a few minutes after the Campbells. “Now do you know where Greg is?” she had asked. “He’s dead, he’s dead.” To interrupt her, to shut her up, he had loudly demanded to talk to Ralph. But Ralph, she said, was out for a long, long walk. He stared at the ringing telephone, and at last snatched it up.

  “Long distance calling Robert Forester. … Go ahead, Chicago.”

  “Mother?” he said.

  “Yes, Bob. How are you, darling?”

  “All right, Mother. I—”

  The dog started up with a growl, facing the window, and Robert saw the shade move.

  “Mother, I’ll have to—” There was a bang, and something hit his left arm.

  He dropped the telephone, and pushed the lamp off the table. There was another shot as the lamp fell. Another shot, and a yelp from the dog.

  Two more shots.

  Robert lay still in the darkness. The dog whined. Then suddenly Robert jumped up and went to the window, raised the shade on utter blackness. He ran into the kitchen, fumbled for the flashlight on the counter, knocked it onto the floor, found it again, and went back to the window. He shone the torch quickly, everywhere it could reach, then more slowly, but he saw nothing moving. He put the light out, held the torch like a club and went out on the porch, walking boldly and noisily, jumped off the side of the porch and walked behind the bush by the fence. He looked toward the road, where there were no deep ditches, but where someone could hide by lying flat at the edge of the road. Then he realized his left arm was bleeding, and pretty badly. Far to the left, toward Langley, he saw a car’s red lights. Greg’s? Was it worth following? It was out of sight in three seconds. It would be hopeless to try to find it.

  He went back into the house, and turned the main light on by the door. Then he saw the dog. She was lying on her side, her head toward the window, and she had a small wound in the middle of her row of ribs. And she was dead.

  He picked up the telephone, put it back in the cradle, and looked at it dully for a moment, realizing he couldn’t remember the Rittersville police station number. He picked up the telephone.

  “The Rittersville police,” he said when the operator came on.

  “What department would you like? All the departments are listed in the telephone directory.”

  “I don’t feel like looking in the directory,” Robert said. “I want the main headquarters.” While he waited, he stared without interest at the splintered corner of the writing table, at the shattered glass of a picture that hung cockeyed on the wall in front of him. “Hello,” Robert said. “This is Robert Forester. I would like to report—”

  There was a hammering on his door.

  The door was ajar. In walked a tall, gray-haired man in work clothes, his mouth half open in bewilderment. It was Kolbe, his next-door neighbor.

  “I know. Those shots. I’m just calling the police.” Robert mumbled as if he were drunk.

  The man was looking at the dog, frowning, bending over it. “That’s the Huxmeyers’ dog,” he said in an angry tone.

  The grating male voice on the telephone was saying, “Hey! Speak up! Is anybody there?”

  “I’m reporting some shots. This is Robert Forester,” Robert said, and dropped the telephone back. He started to stand up, and then passed out.

  21

  There was a bedlam of voices, a thunder of feet on the floor. Robert heard words, emphatic as gunshots, isolated words in a droning hum: “. . . drunk … Shots! … five of ’em … stranger here, but why … poor dog … Get ’em out! … Will you shut up? Some of you people better … Coming out of it? Just lie still a minute.”

  The last voice was quiet and close.

  Robert heaved himself up on his elbow, then fell forward and would have gone off the couch if someone hadn’t caught his shoulder and pushed him back. Robert frowned. A mob was in the room—policemen, men, a couple of women, one with her hair in braids and in a dark coat that she clutched about her over a nightgown that came to her feet. Robert’s head was propped up on pillows. His left shirtsleeve had been cut off and a doctor was swabbing his arm with alcohol. Robert had no feeling at all in the arm, but the smell of the alcohol was sharp and good.

  “Here. You keep on holding this under your nose,” said the doctor, handing him a wet wad of cotton. “You’ve got it lucky here. No bones broken. Didn’t touch the bone.” The doctor was a small, cheerful man with a fringe of gray hair above his ears and behind his shining bald head. He worked briskly, unrolling clean white bandage.

  Then Robert recognized Lippenholtz, strolling toward him in his light-gray suit, his hat on the back of his head. “Well, coming to? What happened here?”

  A silence fell in the room, and everyone looked at Robert. Their faces were angry, anxious, blank, or curious. No one looked friendly.

  “There were shots,” Robert said. “Through the window. The same window.” He indicated the window with a glance at it.

  Lippenholtz looked around at the window, then back at Robert. “How many of ’em?”

  “Five or six. I don’t know. Ask your police guard.”

  “Five,” said the tall man, the one who had come in first.

  Lippenholtz frowned. “There was a guard here. Said he drove off for five minutes for a cup of coffee and—whoever it was—took the opportunity.”

  Lippenholtz was lying, Robert thought, and for the benefit of the crowd. “He should carry a Thermos.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Lippenholtz said. “So what happened after the shots?”

  The doctor went on passing the roll of bandage over and under Robert’s arm.

  “I ran out—with a flashlight,” Robert said. “But I couldn’t see anything, except—”

>   “Except?”

  “I saw a car’s tail lights up the road, way up, toward Langley. They disappeared. I don’t think the car had anything to do with it. It was too far away.”

  Lippenholtz nodded and said, “We got a couple of the bullets. It’s a thirty-two again.”

  Robert looked around more steadily at the people in the room. Their faces looked hostile now.

  “How’d the dog get here?” asked the skinny woman in the coat and the nightgown.

  “She came here,” Robert said. “I gave her something to eat—because she was hungry.”

  “She’s our dog and you had no right!” said the woman, advancing a step, and a skinny man, shorter than she, advanced with her, laid a hand on her arm.

  “Martha,” he said.

  “I don’t care! Taking our dog into this awful house to be killed—just because you’re shot at! And you deserve it! You deserve it!”

  “Come on, Martha, the law’ll—”

  But there was a murmur of support, a few grunts of approval among the people. One police officer put his head back and laughed, silently, and exchanged looks with a colleague.

  “He killed a man, didn’t he?” screamed the woman called Martha. She was addressing Lippenholtz, and when he didn’t answer, she turned to the people in general. “Didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” said a couple of people quietly, in unison.

  “And now he’s killed my dog, an innocent dog! And he’s a prowler besides, a low-down Peeping Tom!”

  “Humph!” said an old man, in all-embracing contempt, and turned toward the door. The front door was open. “Don’t know what I’m doing here,” he mumbled to himself.

  “I don’t either,” said another man, and stomped out also.

  “You’re going to pay for that dog!” declared Martha.

  “All right, all right,” Robert said.

  The doctor worked on, unconcerned. He was actually humming under his breath. Now he was cutting the ends of the neat knots he had made in the bandage.

  “Twenty-five dollars!” said Martha, and her husband murmured something to her. “Thirty-five!” she said.

  “All right,” Robert sighed.

  Lippenholtz, talking to a police officer, gave a sudden cackling laugh, and since it came in a moment of silence, everyone glanced at him. Lippenholtz noticed the looks, and walked toward Robert again. “Want to go to jail now, Mr. Forester?”

  Robert had an impulse to jump up and make a loud speech to Lippenholtz and the rest of them, but the impulse left him. “No,” he said.

  “Where else does he belong?” a male voice asked from the background.

  “Yes!” piped up Martha. “Leading a young girl astray! Leading her to her death!”

  Oh, Christ!, Robert thought, closing his eyes, twisting his head toward the wall in an agony of rage and shame. The murmurs were starting again: “. . . stranger, coming into a community like this …” “. . . she wasn’t more than twenty, if that …” “. . . used to come here by night. I’ve seen her. …” “Got a wife in New York, I’ve heard. …” “Tch-tch! …” “Why doesn’t the law do its duty? …” “Killing the girl and her sweetheart—what else’re they going to let him do?”

  Robert sat up, half stood up against the pressure of the doctor’s hands against his shoulders. “I have a statement for all of you! I don’t give a damn what you say! Understand? Just get out, get out, all of you!” He let himself be pressed down, spent.

  The people didn’t move. They seemed collectively aroused now to take a firmer stand. “So he doesn’t care!” shrieked a woman.

  The doctor’s voice broke in, “Haven’t you folks said about enough for tonight? This man’s lost a great deal of blood—”

  “Hah!”

  “It’s no wonder he’s got a few enemies!”

  The doctor turned to Lippenholtz. “Sir—Officer—is there any purpose in letting this go on? I’ve given this man a sedative and he ought to rest.”

  Robert felt like smiling. The voice of reason, the small voice of reason was speaking up. One against thirteen or fourteen, or maybe it was twenty. Robert, sitting up, had to blink to see clearly now. Lippenholtz was advancing. Robert never saw him go away, only advance.

  “Your mother called a few minutes ago,” Lippenholtz said to Robert. “She said she’d call back or you’re to call her. That’s the message. I told her you got a shot in the arm.”

  Robert smiled a little. “A shot in the arm,” he repeated.

  Lippenholtz looked at the doctor and shrugged.

  “I gave him a powerful dose,” said the doctor. “Why don’t you get these people out?”

  “Look at him! Smiling !” said Martha’s voice.

  Robert closed his eyes, not caring. Dimly, he heard Lippenholtz and the doctor talking in arguing tones about a hospital, about loss of blood, an artery.

  “. . . since he’s alone here,” the doctor was saying. “I’m a doctor and—”

  “O.K., O.K.,” from Lippenholtz. “Say, Pete … O.K., the people’re leaving. Look at ’em.”

  There were sounds of shuffling feet, last over-the-shoulder words, or so Robert imagined them, that he did not try to hear. Then the sound of the door closing, followed by silence, made Robert open his eyes. The little doctor in the dark suit was walking back toward him. The house was silent and empty.

  “Want to get into pajamas or stay like that?” the doctor asked.

  “I’m all right,” Robert said, trying to stand up.

  “Don’t get up,” said the doctor.

  “I’ve got to call my mother. She expects me to.”

  “Oh. Hmm. Well, shall I get the number for you?”

  “Yes, please. I can’t remember it. It’s in that little blue address book on the table.” Robert watched the doctor looking for it, looking in the table drawer, and at last the doctor said, “Ah!” and picked it up from the floor where it lay half under the armchair.

  “Under Forester?”

  “No, Carroll. Mrs. Philip or Helen Carroll, I don’t know which.” Robert relaxed again on the pillows and closed his eyes, but he listened to what the doctor said over the telephone.

  “No, not a collect call … Person-to-person, yes. That’s best.” The doctor’s voice sounded clear and neat. “Ah, Mrs. Carroll? Just a minute, please.” The doctor dragged a straight chair over with the telephone on it, and handed it to Robert.

  “Hello, Mother,” Robert said. “No, no, I’m O.K. … Absolutely.” Robert explained that it was only a flesh wound. “Well, Wyncoop, I think. Who else?”

  Her voice sounded lovely. Kind, energetic, and lovely. She and Phil were going to Albuquerque tomorrow morning, flying. She wanted Robert to come to Albuquerque, too, for a rest.

  “Well, Mother, you don’t seem to understand the kind of trouble I’m in,” Robert said. “I don’t think I’d be allowed to leave the state. They want to put me in jail.”

  “Oh, Bob, we’ve seen the papers, but—they haven’t got any proof. Phil says the law needs proof. And even I know that.”

  “Right, Mother. It’s Wyncoop who’s shooting at me, and he’s not nearly as dead as I am tonight.” Robert smiled, feeling as happy as if the doctor had given him a dose of nitrous oxide.

  The doctor was smoking a cigarette, bending sideways to read the titles of a few books that remained on the bookshelf to the left of the fireplace. “Yes, Mother, yes,” Robert said. “A very good doctor. They’re taking good care of me.” He laughed. “Well, I’m sorry, but he gave me a sedative, that’s why I sound funny, but I’m fine, I want you to know I’m fine.”

  “But will you join us?” she asked for the third time. “Will—you—come? To the ranch?”

  Robert frowned, trying to think. “Yes, why not?” he said.

  “Will you leave tomorrow? Just as soon as you’re able? Will you be all right tomorrow? Bobbie, are you there?”

  “I’m all right now,” Robert said.

  “Would you call us again, so we’ll
know what plane to meet?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Now go to sleep, Bobbie. I’m going to call you tomorrow morning. About ten. All right?”

  “All right. G’night, Mother.” He hung up, then frowned, remembering that his mother had said Phil wanted to talk to him. Well, that wasn’t important. Robert sank back slowly on the pillows. Through his half-open eyes, he saw the doctor turn from the bookcase and come toward him, smiling slightly. Robert supposed he was about to take his leave. “Thank you very much,” Robert said. “If you tell me what the bill is—I can pay you now.”

  The doctor shook his head. He was biting his underlip. Robert saw that his eyes were full of tears. Robert frowned, and for an instant wondered if he might be dreaming.

  “No, no bill. That’s all right,” said the doctor. “You don’t mind if I stay here, do you? I’d rather stay here than go home. I’ll read something while you sleep. Matter of fact, it’s just as well that a person in your condition has somebody around.”

  Robert lifted his head a little from the pillows, still frowning. The doctor was like a different man now, only he looked the same, small and roundish, bald-headed.

  The doctor turned sideways to Robert, facing the fireplace. “I’ve just lost my wife. Ten days ago. Julia—she died of pneumonia. A simple thing like that. One would think simple, when someone’s otherwise healthy. But her heart—” The doctor turned to him again. “I’m rambling on and you’re practically asleep, I know.”

  “No,” Robert said.

  “If you aren’t, you ought to be. Well, a doctor’s not supposed to feel much about death, but—”

  Robert listened, trying hard to keep alert. “May I ask your name, doctor?”

  “Knott,” said the doctor. “Albert Knott. Well—we’re both in trouble, aren’t we? Your trouble—I’ve read about it in the papers. I know you’re suspected of killing Wyncoop. I once lanced a boil for Wyncoop. Isn’t that a coincidence? Boil on his neck. It’s not my business to pass judgment on character.” He stood motionless, a short, dark figure.