The Cry of the Owl (24 page)

“All right, fine,” Robert said just as chattily. “Just a minute till I get my coat.” Robert went back into the drafting room, passed his own table, then had to turn, because his coat was on his chair and not in his locker. Jack looked at him inquisitively, and Robert shook his
head and made a negative sign with his hand. Robert went directly back to Lippenholtz.

Lippenholtz looked him up and down as they waited for the elevator. “Why a trench coat? It’s not raining,” said Lippenholtz. “The sun is shining brightly.”

“I like trench coats,” Robert said. Lippenholtz was as happy, Robert saw, as if he’d solved the case.

They drove in Lippenholtz’s black police car to Rittersville. Lippenholtz said he didn’t mind at all driving Robert back to L.A., or one of the patrolmen could do it.

“Did you see Miss Thierolf’s parents?” Lippenholtz asked as they drove.

“No.”

“Didn’t try to?”

“No.” Robert added, “I’ve never met them.”

“Nice people.”

Robert sighed, angry and miserable.

In Rittersville, Lippenholtz parked in the lot beside the station, and they went in together. With a movement of one finger, Lippenholtz dismissed a white-haired police officer who had been going to accompany them, and beckoned Robert down some wooden steps at the back of the room. There were six enamel tables, but only one held a corpse, covered with a gray-white sheet. A police guard was reading a magazine in a corner, and paid no attention to them.

“This is it,” said Lippenholtz, lifting one end of the shroud, drawing it back.

Robert was braced, but even so he jumped a little at the sight. Even the lower jaw was gone. Bones of the skull, bones at the shoulders were exposed. Pale, ragged, bloodless flesh clung to the skeleton. The corpse looked old, old in years. “The teeth,” Robert said. “There’re some teeth left in the—”

Lippenholtz looked at him brightly. “Yes, we’re trying to get Wyncoop’s dentist. Unfortunately, he’s out in Utah visiting relatives. Worse, he’s on a hunting trip or something out there.” Lippenholtz looked as if this fact amused him. He was still holding the sheet back for Robert to see.

Robert motioned for him to cover it. “I can’t tell any more by looking at that.”

“You look pale, Mr. Forester.”

And he felt like throwing up. Robert turned away toward the door, lifted his head, but that only made the smell of the place more noticeable. Robert deliberately walked slowly, not hurrying, toward the door, so that Lippenholtz reached the door first.

“Charley, thanks!” Lippenholtz called to the officer behind the magazine, and got a grunt in reply.

“How long do you think it’ll take to get hold of the dentist?” Robert asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Aren’t his records here? Can’t anybody else get at them?”

“He’s a little dentist in Humbert Corners. Everything’s locked up.”

“Did you tell him in Utah that it’s urgent?”

“We haven’t even reached him in Utah. Just his relatives. He’s away.”

“What’s his name?”

“McQueen,” said Lippenholtz. “Thomas—or Theodore.” He kept watching Robert. “What do you think about that corpse? It’s six feet two and one half. Slender build—”

Robert only gave him a look, feeling too unsteady even to consider the question. Lippenholtz was coming outside with him, but he paused to talk to an officer at the foot of the stone steps, and Robert went round to the parking area and quickly got rid of the few swallows of coffee he had had that morning. Robert had lit a cigarette by the time Lippenholtz appeared, smiling, with the officer.

“This gentleman will drive you back to Langley,” said Lippenholtz, gesturing toward the big officer beside him. He said more quietly, “There were a few questions I might have asked you this morning, Mr. Forester, but you don’t look as if you feel very well.”

“Questions such as what?” asked Robert.

“Well—suppose we wait until we hear from the dentist, eh?”

Robert said, “I wonder if I could have a police guard tonight—say, one man in a car in front of my house?”

“A police guard?” Lippenholtz smiled more broadly.

“You asked me if I wanted to go to jail a few minutes ago. A one-man guard is really less trouble and expense, isn’t it?”

Lippenholtz hesitated, smiling, apparently trying to think of something witty to say.

“I’m not armed and whoever’s trying to plug me is,” Robert said.

“Oh, come now, aren’t you making too much of—”

“You’re not the
chief
of police here at this station, are you, Detective Lippenholtz?” Robert felt a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Lippenholtz’s smile went away. His pale eyebrows came down in a tense, horizontal line. “You’re in no position—”

“You don’t seem to think it’s Wyncoop who’s potshooting at me because you don’t want to think it is. Maybe because he hasn’t a gun permit?” Robert gave a laugh.

Now the big cop beside Lippenholtz was growling like a dog awaiting orders from its master.

Lippenholtz stuck out his pitted chin. “Listen, Mr. Forester, you’ll talk yourself into a bigger mess if you don’t watch out. Who do you think you are? You’re a troublemaker from the word go! You deserve arrest on a prowling charge, do you know that? And you’re by way of getting yourself arrested for murder. And you can stand there and—”

“Yes, sure I can! And so what?”

Lippenholtz twitched and glanced at the big man beside him. “All right. We’ll put a man out there. What time would you like?”

“Any time. The sooner the better.”

“All right,” Lippenholtz said with a smug smile, as if he were indulging Robert.

“Can I count on that? He’ll be there tonight, at least?” Robert asked.

“Yes,” said Lippenholtz.

Robert wasn’t sure he could believe him.

“Take him back to Langley,” Lippenholtz said.

The officer took Robert’s arm and Robert jerked his arm away. Then the officer motioned him toward a black car, and Robert followed him. Lippenholtz was going back into the building. Maybe to drool over the corpse, Robert thought.

During the ride to Langley, the officer was stonily silent. Robert relaxed a little. It was his first contact with the law, the law getting
tough, and he had always heard about people being treated tough and talked to tough, so why get excited about it? Traffic cops often behaved the same way, only it was over less important matters. He was glad he had finally talked back. And he had, he supposed, because he knew he had nothing more to lose by it.

“Where are you going?” the officer asked as they entered Langley.

“Langley Aeronautics,” Robert answered.

The officer stopped his car at the parking gate, and Robert went in and went directly to his car, got in, and drove home. He would call Jack Nielson later. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone now. He was nearly packed up, except for a few items in the kitchen. His suitcases lay open on the floor, nearly full. He was supposed to move in two days, on Sunday the 31st, and he had been planning to go to a hotel in Philadelphia. Now all that was out, all except his moving, as he had promised his landlord to move on the 31st. And nothing was keeping him from moving out now, he thought, nothing maybe but a hope of seeing Greg, a wild hope of bagging him dead or alive and carrying him to the police station, because who would believe him, if he simply said he saw him? He drank a Scotch-on-the-rocks to steady himself. He found himself thinking of Jenny’s parents. What kind of work had she said her father did? Robert felt an impulse to write them, to try to explain—not to exonerate himself, but to try to explain as best he could why what had happened had happened. Or would her parents really care why? Wouldn’t the death be all that mattered, all that counted? Jenny’s funeral was tomorrow, he had read in the papers, in Scranton.

Robert sprang up at a scratching sound outside his front window. He moved quickly to the window and stood at one side of it.
Bright sunlight made him half close his eyes. Then he saw down by his mailbox a brown-and-white dog trotting away with its nose to the ground, a dog like a collie. Robert thought he had seen the dog around before. On an impulse, he opened his front door and whistled to it. The dog stopped and turned, took a step toward Robert and stopped again, questioning. He whistled again, walked out on his porch, and stooped on his heels.

Then, with head and belly lowered, tail wagging, the dog came slowly toward Robert. Robert patted its head, grateful for the dog’s friendliness.

“There’s a good boy. Are you hungry?” What a question, Robert thought. The dog’s ribs showed through its long-haired coat.

Robert went into the kitchen, found the remains of some steak in the refrigerator, not much, and opened a can of corned-beef hash. The dog was waiting on the porch, too shy to come in, and Robert put the food on a plate and took it to the porch. The dog wolfed it down, its ribs expanded, and it glanced up at Robert now and then, maybe with suspicion, maybe with gratitude. Robert smiled, pleased to see it eat. Then the dog came in the house. The rest of the afternoon, the dog slept, waking when Robert moved, following him as if afraid he would leave. The dog was a female, Robert noticed.

At five, Robert went out for the papers, and called the dog outside, thinking he shouldn’t lock her up, if she had a home to go to.

Lippenholtz might have stopped the papers from printing the corpse story that morning, but it was in the evening papers, on the front pages. “Authorities are awaiting final confirmation from the dentist of Gregory Wyncoop, Dr. Thomas McQueen of Humbert Corners, who is
temporarily out of town.” “Final” confirmation, as if they had a dozen other facts confirming that the corpse was that of Gregory Wyncoop.

The dog was waiting on the porch, and she whined as Robert came up the steps. Robert had meant to stop at a grocer’s for some dog food, and had forgotten. He gave her a couple of raw eggs and a bowl of milk, then put two eggs on to boil for himself.

And then the telephone rang.

The night was coming soon. Robert looked wearily around at his three living-room windows, thought he must pull down the shades, at least, and right away, because he hadn’t seen anything that looked like a police guard or a police car on the road when he went out for the papers. He picked up the telephone.

“Lippenholtz,” said the curt voice. “Dr. McQueen’s coming back Saturday afternoon. Thought you’d like to know.”

“Thanks. Good.” Saturday afternoon was nearly forty-eight hours off.

“Staying home this evening?”

“Yes,” Robert said. “Have you set a man to watch the house?”

“Mmm—yes. He should be out there soon.”

“Thanks,” Robert said flatly. “I hope so.”

“Be talking to you,” Lippenholtz said, and hung up.

Robert pulled all his shades down, and turned the writing-table light on. The eggs were boiling. He turned them off, then ate them standing by his sink. He thought of going to a movie tonight—strictly to get out of the house. He resented having to do it, resented it so much, he wasn’t going to do it. He glanced at the windows in the living room, then at the dog, who had her head down on the floor
between her paws, watching him. All evening, he supposed, he’d be glancing at the dog to see if she had heard anything.

“Bark, will you, if you do?” He stooped and patted her lean ribs.

He wondered why Jack Nielson or the Tessers, out of curiosity, hadn’t called. Was this possibly the last straw for them, the corpse? Did they all assume he’d be in jail? The papers, Robert realized, hadn’t even mentioned his name this evening. The items in the papers had been only four inches long, telling mainly where the body had been found and by whom.

Robert called the Nielsons. Betty answered, kind and concerned, because Jack had said he looked bad that morning. Robert assured her he was all right. Then Jack came on the telephone.

“I’m glad you’re still home,” Jack said. “When I saw the paper at five o’clock—about this corpse—I didn’t know where you’d be.”

“Jail might be safer, as I said to my friend Lippenholtz this morning. He’s the plainclothesman you saw. He took me to see the corpse this morning, and after that—” He stopped.

“What did they say about it?
Is
it Wyncoop?”

“I don’t think so.” Robert told him about the bullet of last night. “I think Wyncoop fired the shot,” Robert said tiredly, “and therefore I don’t think the corpse is Wyncoop.”

“I see. My paper didn’t mention the bullet. No wonder you looked pale around the gills this morning.”

They talked for ten minutes, and the effort made Robert collapse in his armchair. He smiled a little bitterly: Betty hadn’t been able to keep her suspicion out of her voice. She hadn’t mentioned the corpse. Her words had all been platitudes, Robert felt, phrases to fill silence with. When Jack had begged him to come and stay
the night with them, Robert thought—though he wasn’t sure—he had heard Betty saying, “No—no,” in the background. Robert had thanked Jack and declined the offer of a safe house.

The telephone rang.

This was Peter Campbell calling from New York.

“Thank God you’re there,” Peter said. “What’s going on down there?”

He wanted to know more about the corpse, of course, and Robert told him the gruesome state it was in, and told him of the denouement that was supposed to come Saturday from Wyncoop’s dentist. “I have one ace in the hole still,” Robert said.

“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.