The Cry of the Owl

  To Robert, he seemed to be floating, suspended in the air.

  “In a minute, you won’t be hearing what I’m saying, and it doesn’t matter,” said Dr. Knott, not looking at Robert now. “I loved my wife and she died. That’s the story in a nutshell.”

  There was a long silence, so long Robert felt in danger of falling asleep, and he did not want to. “I hear you. I’m listening.”

  “Try to relax,” said the doctor, like a gentle order.

  Robert obeyed.

  Now the doctor was walking slowly up and down. The only light came from the red-shaded lamp set on a low table by the armchair. “Yes, I know about Wyncoop’s disappearance,” the doctor said softly. “Whether you killed him, whether you didn’t, I’d be here anyway. It’s strange. I’m not usually on call to the police, but it’s not the first case I’ve been called on by them. The usual doctor is out of town, and I’m one of the doctors on a list in case he can’t make it. Just happened, just happened.” A pause of half a minute, while he paced twice, hands in his pockets. “I heard you say you thought Wyncoop’s doing the shooting.” The doctor stopped and looked at Robert, as if he were not sure he was still awake.

  Robert was too sleepy even to murmur anything.

  “That’s logical,” said the doctor, nodding, starting to pace again. “He’s twice as angry, because his girl killed herself. Well, that’s a horrible thing.” But he said it lightly, or his tone was light. “You’re thinking of going somewhere tomorrow?”

  Robert made an effort. “Yes, I told her I’d be coming out to see her in Albuquerque.”

  “I don’t think you’ll be strong enough to leave tomorrow.”

  “I’m not sure the police will allow it, either.” Robert squeezed the bandage on his left arm gently and felt nothing.

  “That’s still numb from the local,” said the doctor. “I understand this is the second time the bullets’ve been flying.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well—I think you ought to leave this place.” The little doctor opened his arms as if it were all quite simple. “They won’t give you a police guard that’s adequate, they won’t put you in jail—”

  Robert stopped fighting the drowsiness. It was like dropping off a cliff, falling, but without a fear in the world. The doctor’s voice droned on for a few seconds in comforting tones, and then stopped.

  22

  “Well, good morning,” said the doctor, smiling. He was standing near the couch in his shirtsleeves, in a bright square of sunlight. “Have a good sleep?”

  Robert glanced around the room. His wristwatch was gone. His left arm throbbed.

  “Your watch is on the table there. It’s eight-thirty-five,” said the doctor. “You slept through two telephone calls. I took the liberty of answering them. One was from Vic McBain. New York. Said he’d called after midnight last night and was talked to very rudely by a cop. We had quite a little chat. I told him I was your doctor and was staying with you and you’re all right.”

  “Thank you.” Robert blinked, still fuzzy-headed. He saw that the carpet was rolled up at one side of the room, and he vaguely remembered that he had gotten blood on it while he was calling the police last night. Robert started to get up to wash.

  “Let me get you some coffee before you move,” said the little doctor, going off to the kitchen. “Just made this a few minutes ago. Among other liberties, I used your razor. I hope you don’t mind. Milk or sugar?”

  “Just black,” Robert said.

  The doctor came back with the coffee.

  Robert tried to remember his name. Knapp? Knott. That was it. “There were two calls, Dr. Knott?”

  “Yes. One just a few minutes ago from Jack—Nelson, I think. He said he’d come by this morning. That is, any minute.”

  Robert watched the doctor’s round, happy face as he sipped his coffee. He could not understand the doctor’s liveliness, his cheerfulness, his good will. But his face drew Robert’s eyes to it again and again, as the warm sun might.

  “Well, I was staying around to see how you felt,” said Dr. Knott, “and also to give you a hand, if you need it. I should say an arm.” He laughed. “I have no appointments till three today, and that—” He shrugged.

  Robert was waking up. He remembered his mother was going to call at ten. His arm was not too painful, and he was wondering if he could start the drive to New Mexico. Today was Friday. Tomorrow afternoon the dentist was arriving, and presumably could give a verdict at once on the corpse. Then Robert remembered he had dreamt last night of Brother Death. Hadn’t it been different, somehow? Brother Death’s face had not been smiling and healthy as usual. It had been green. And maybe the hideous corpse had been in the dream, maybe lying on the table Brother Death was sitting at. The corpse was so real to Robert, had been so much in his mind, that nearly fleshless, colorless, but still human form, he could not tell if he had dreamt of it last night or not.

  “You were talking quite a bit in your sleep,” said Dr. Knott, and Robert felt guilt like a physical pain seize his entire body for a second.

  “I imagine about death,” Robert said.

  “Yes, yes, that was it,” said the doctor as brightly as he said everything. “‘Brother Death?’ you said, like a question. And ‘Hello.’ You didn’t sound afraid. It wasn’t like a nightmare, that is. I don’t think.”

  “Yes, I have a recurrent dream,” Robert said, and he told it quickly to the doctor. “But I’m not so fond of death as that might sound.”

  “Oh-h.” The doctor paced toward the fireplace.

  Robert was suddenly embarrassed, remembering Jenny’s final note, which the doctor must have read in the newspapers. He remembered also that the doctor’s wife had died, ten days ago.

  The doctor turned around, his blue eyes twinkling. “Death’s quite a normal thing, as normal as birth. The human race refuses to get used to it. That is, we do in this culture. Can’t say the Egyptians refused to get used to it, for instance.”

  “But there is a time to die,” Robert said. “Youth isn’t the time, is it? It’s no wonder young people fear it. I’ve seen old people accept it. That’s different.” Robert looked at the doctor. “I didn’t say anything about Jenny, did I?”

  “Jenny? No, I don’t think so. I was dozing in the armchair. Can’t say I heard every word. Jenny’s the girl who killed herself, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wyncoop’s girl.”

  Robert was sitting up now, his feet on the floor.

  “Were you going to marry her?”

  “No,” Robert said. “It was too bad. She loved me.”

  “And—you said no to her?”

  “I said—I didn’t know if I could ever love her or not. So—she killed herself Tuesday night. She said to me many times she wasn’t afraid of death. She’d seen her little brother die of meningitis. It threw her—for a while—but she got over it by accepting death, she used to say. That was the word she used, ‘accepting.’ It frightened me, when she used to say it. And then, you see—she did it, for no good reason. I suppose you saw the newspapers. They printed the note she wrote. She said I represented death to her.” Robert looked directly at the doctor, curious as to what the doctor would make of it, not knowing all the facts, not all the little facts, even if he had been following the Wyncoop story in the papers. “She was in love with death, in a way. That’s why she was in love with me.”

  The doctor looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then his smile was back. “That’s a matter for a psychiatrist, no doubt. A psychiatrist for the girl, I mean. Yes, I read the story. I remembered it last night. When I was riding here with the police in my car, I remembered the story. I thought, that’s a tough spot for any human being to be in. The purpose of many suicides is to make somebody else feel sorry, feel guilty. Did you break off sharply with her, something like that?”

  “No.” Robert frowned. “First of all, there weren’t any promises, it wasn’t really a romance—and yet it was. I didn’t understan
d the girl, really, because it never crossed my mind she’d kill herself. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to understand her, maybe I never could have, if I’d tried. It just leaves me with the most awful regret—and shame for having botched something. A person.” Robert saw the doctor nod briskly, twice, and he was afraid his words hadn’t sunk in, hadn’t been clear. Robert stood up, staggered slightly, but set his cup and saucer down on the coffee table and went into the bathroom in his stocking feet.

  He wanted to take a shower, but he was afraid of getting the bandage wet, didn’t want to bother the doctor with putting on a new one, so he washed with a facecloth at the basin and shaved hastily and not very carefully. He felt weak.

  “Doctor, can you give me a pill?” he asked as he came out of the bathroom. He walked to a suitcase to get a fresh shirt. Then the scene began to dissolve in gray particles. The doctor was pulling him by his right arm toward the couch again. “To pick me up,” Robert mumbled. “I’m not in pain.”

  “I can give you a pill, but what’s the use? You’ve got to take it easy today. Is there someone you can call to stay with you?”

  Robert’s ears were ringing so loudly he barely heard the doctor.

  “You’re not going anywhere today,” said Dr. Knott.

  There was a knock at the door, and the doctor went to answer it.

  “You’re Mr. Nelson?” asked the doctor.

  “Nielson,” said Jack. “How do you do? How’s the patient?”

  Robert was sitting up very straight now on the edge of the couch. “Fine, thank you. Would you like some coffee, Jack?”

  Jack looked around the room before he answered, saw the corner of the writing table, and moved toward it and touched it. “Holy smoke!”

  “Yes, there were five of them. Five bullets,” said Dr. Knott, going into the kitchen.

  Jack’s black eyebrows scowled. “What did the police do this time? Just nothing?”

  “No, they were here. They came. So did a lot of neighbors,” Robert said.

  “How do you like your coffee, Mr. Nielson?” asked the doctor.

  “A spoonful of sugar, thanks,” Jack answered. “Did they see anybody around? What did they do?”

  “I don’t know exactly, because I passed out—about ten minutes after I got hit. When I came to, the house was full.” Robert laughed. There seemed nothing else to do but laugh, laugh at Jack’s long, frowning, puzzled face.

  Jack accepted the coffee from the doctor. “Thank you. Do you think it’s Greg?”

  “Yes,” said Robert. “Sit down, Jack.”

  But Jack kept on standing with his coffee cup, in his unpressed flannel trousers and his tweed jacket and his space shoes, glancing at his watch and no doubt thinking that he had to leave in one minute for the plant. “But just what’re the police doing about it?”

  “I think you’re being too logical,” Robert said.

  Jack wagged his head. “I suppose they won’t do anything until they find out the corpse isn’t Wyncoop. Isn’t that it?”

  “I asked Lippenholtz about its condition,” said Dr. Knott. “From his comments, even from his comments, it sounds as if that corpse had been in the water longer than a couple of weeks or whatever it is.”

  It was thirteen days now, Robert thought, since Wyncoop had presumably been thrown into the Delaware. Jack was looking at him.

  “What did you think—about the corpse?”

  Robert took a big gulp of the hot coffee the doctor had just poured. “I thought it was a corpse.”

  “I’m going to scramble some eggs,” said the doctor, and went off to the kitchen again.

  Jack sat down gently on the couch beside Robert. “Does this mean they’re not looking for Wyncoop now? I’m sorry to be so stupid, but I don’t get it.”

  “I guess they’re not looking very hard,” Robert said. “And you’re no stupider than anybody else, so don’t reproach yourself. You’ve hit it anyway—they’re not looking. Why should they?”

  “Well, who do they think’s doing the shooting?”

  “It simply doesn’t interest them,” Robert said.

  Butter sizzled in a skillet in the kitchen. The doctor stood in the kitchen doorway with a spatula in his hand. “Mr. Forester seems to be right. It doesn’t interest them. I’d suggest you put your head back and relax, Mr. Forester.” He pulled some pillows against the wall behind Robert, and Robert lay back against them. “How do you feel?”

  “All right, but a little funny.”

  “You lost enough blood last night to feel funny. I had to sew up an artery,” the doctor said cheerfully.

  Jack looked at his watch again. “Anything you’d like me to say to Jaffe, Bob—”

  “No, thank you, Jack. Well, yes—you can tell him I won’t be in today. That I’m sick. As soon as I can, I’m going to write a letter resigning. Quitting. I’m licked. It’s true.”

  Jack looked at the doctor, then back at Robert. “What about tonight? Aren’t the police—”

  “Mr. Forester is very welcome to stay at my house,” said Dr. Knott. “In Rittersville. Nothing ever happens there, except”—he rubbed his bald head—“except a phone call in the middle of the night because somebody’s got indigestion. That’s the old joke and it’s still true. Would you join us in some eggs, Mr. Nielson?”

  Jack stood up. “No, thanks, I’ve got to be going. Bob, why don’t you wait about the resignation? The dentist tomorrow can—”

  “After Jaffe’s speech?” Robert said.

  “Did he make you a speech?”

  “Not exactly, but I’m sure he thinks I’m generally guilty. An oddball, not the kind of character for L.A. That’s enough.”

  “You won’t be working for Jaffe in Philly.”

  “Oh, it’s all connected,” Robert said. “If the dentist tomorrow says the corpse isn’t Wyncoop, that doesn’t produce Wyncoop, does it? That doesn’t prove I didn’t kill him.” Robert glanced at the doctor, glad that he was listening from the kitchen doorway. “It’s good to talk. It’s very good to talk,” Robert said, and leaned back on his pillows again.

  “But I don’t want you to have the attitude of giving up,” said Jack, shifting in his space shoes.

  Robert didn’t answer. Was he giving up? He felt fragile as a small box of glass. What can I do, he thought, and the answer seemed to be nothing. “In most situations, there’s something one can do,” he said, “but in this one, I don’t see it.” His voice cracked in a hysterical way, and suddenly he thought of Jenny. It was his fault that she had taken her life. She had loved him, and he had made such a mess of things that she had taken her life.

  Jack patted his shoulder. Robert had his head down, his right hand clamped across his eyes. Jack and the doctor were talking, the doctor saying in a very matter-of-fact voice that of course Robert would stay at his house, for a day or so, if necessary. And Jack was taking the doctor’s name and telephone number. Then Jack was gone, and the doctor set on the coffee table before Robert a plate of scrambled eggs with toast, buttered and covered with marmalade.

  When he had eaten, his thoughts were less nebulous. Greg had an immunity, a sort of carte blanche until the dentist’s pronouncement tomorrow afternoon, which presumably would be that the corpse was not Greg’s, which presumably might inspire the police to look a little harder for him. Greg had tonight, in other words. But wouldn’t it be ironic, Robert thought, if the dentist said the corpse was Wyncoop’s, that the remaining molars in the upper jaw belonged to Greg? And wouldn’t it be a joke on himself, if the corpse really was Greg’s?

  “You’re feeling better,” said Dr. Knott. “I can see it.”

  “Much better, thanks. Dr. Knott, I shouldn’t stay at your house tonight, but thanks very much for your offer.”

  “Why not? You shouldn’t stay here in this isolated spot, surrounded by a lot of crabby neighbors. Had you rather go to your friend Mr. Nielson’s? He said you’d be welcome at his place.”

  Robert shook his head. “Not to anybody’s
house. I’ve a feeling I’ll draw another bullet tonight, and why should somebody else get hit? The logical place for me is either a hospital or a jail. A jail has thicker walls.”

  “Oh!” The doctor chuckled, but his smile went soon away. “You really think Wyncoop—or whoever it is—would dare? Again?” The doctor’s round, cocked head looked suddenly ludicrously civilized, sensible, logical, pacific. He plainly wasn’t used to bullets, or to people like Greg.

  Robert smiled. “What’s to stop him? I’m not going to bother asking for a guard tonight. I doubt if it would do any good at all.”

  Dr. Knott glanced around the floor, at their cleaned plates, then looked at Robert. “Well, the last place you want to be is here, isn’t that so, where Wyncoop knows you live. Now, Rittersville’s seventeen miles or so away. Bring your car there. I’ve got a garage big enough for two cars. We can both be on the second floor. There’s nothing on the downstairs floor but—but the living room and the kitchen.” He smiled, confident again. “Needless to say, I’ve a good lock on the front and back doors. Mine’s one of those old-time houses that used to be called manses. Built in 1887. I inherited it from my father.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” Robert said, “but there’s no need of it. I won’t necessarily stay here—I don’t know whether I will or not—but I don’t want to go where any other people—”

  “You don’t seem to realize,” the doctor interrupted, “I’m in a residential section, the oldest section of Rittersville. Lots of houses around. Not jammed, I don’t mean that, they’ve all got lawns, but it’s not like—like here,” he gestured, “where you’re as exposed as a sitting duck and anybody can just disappear in the woods or a field.”

  Robert was silent, trying to muster another argument, something besides a flat “No.”

  “Why don’t you call your mother? It’s getting on to ten.”

  Robert called his mother.

  She had been waiting for his call. She still wanted him to come out to New Mexico, and she wanted to know when he was leaving. Robert explained that he had to remain through Saturday because of the dentist, who was coming to look at the body that the police thought was Wyncoop’s.