“Arlen,” he said to my father, “you have to promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
“Fine, fine, don’t worry,” he said, pulling a thick sock back up over the wounded ankle. “Zachary’s hanging in for a few days.”
The doctor grabbed his medical bag, headed for the door.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” I said.
We were approaching his black Buick, and I said, “Can I ask you something?”
“If you’re worried about your father, you shouldn’t be. He’s going to be just fine.”
“That’s good, but that wasn’t what I wanted to ask you about. It’s about Morton Dewart.”
“Awful thing,” Dr. Heath said.
“Did you do an autopsy on the body?” I asked.
“Of course,” said Dr. Heath. “I had to declare a cause of death.”
“And what did you determine that to be?”
Dr. Heath made a small snorting noise. “Misadventure, with a bear.”
“So that was your conclusion, that he was killed by a bear?”
Dr. Heath looked puzzled. “Of course. You saw him. Didn’t he look like he was killed by a bear to you?”
“But isn’t that just an assumption?”
“You heard what Mr. Wickens said. He made a statement that Mr. Dewart had gone out, specifically, to find that bear, and shoot it. Then he’s found as he was. It doesn’t take much to put that together, Mr. Walker.”
“But when you did your autopsy, did your examination of the wounds support the contention that he was killed by the bear? Did the bite marks match the size of a bear’s jaw, that kind of thing?”
Dr. Heath was shaking his head, getting irritated. “Look, I don’t understand what the point of your question is. We saw the body, we have Mr. Wickens on record as saying the deceased was hunting for a bear. I think you put all that together and you conclude that Mr. Dewart was killed by a bear. That’s what I did, and now the body is being released to his own family, not the Wickenses.”
I looked into the doctor’s face, made an awkward smile. It wasn’t my intention to be disrespectful. Dr. Heath seemed like a nice old gentleman. But I had to ask.
“You didn’t really conduct a thorough autopsy, did you? You figured it was a bear that killed him, as opposed to, for the sake of argument, a couple of dogs, so you didn’t look for any other possibilities.”
His face was getting flushed. “I totally resent the implications of that remark.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m asking you these questions with the utmost respect. But there’s another wrinkle to this I want to get your thoughts on, and I admit, it may be more in Chief Thorne’s area than yours.”
“And what’s that?” Dr. Heath said, his hand on the car door, eager to leave.
“Where’s the rifle?”
Dr. Heath’s brow furrowed. “What rifle?”
“If Morton Dewart ran into a bear while he was out hunting for one, where’s his rifle? I searched the woods this morning, went all around the area where the body had been found, and there’s no rifle, no shotgun, whatever you want to call it, anyplace.”
He opened his car door, tossed his case over to the passenger seat, and said to me, “I have no idea where it is, and it isn’t any of my concern. I’ve done my job and I’ve done it to the best of my ability, and you’ve got a lot of nerve questioning me this way.”
“Please, I mean no disrespect. It’s just, if it wasn’t a bear, and if it was, say, a dog, or more than one-”
“Your father’s a good man,” Dr. Heath said, “and he’d be ashamed of how you’ve just spoken to me. How dare you.”
And he got in his car and drove off, kicking up gravel as he drove up the hill.
As I listened to his car hit the paved highway with a squeal of the tires, I thought about the implications of the questions I’d been asking, what it was they might add up to. I was starting to wonder whether I wouldn’t feel more at ease with the notion of a murderous bear in the woods.
9
“SO WHAT WERE YOU AND THE DOC talking about?” Dad asked when I returned to the cabin. He was still on the couch.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“Look, if this is about Lana, I don’t need any lectures from my son about my sex life.”
I closed my eyes, but then, when the images started appearing, I reopened them. “God, no, I do not want to talk to you about your sex life.”
“Because it’s my business,” Dad said.
“I don’t want to talk about your sex life, okay? I can’t imagine anything I want to talk about less.”
“But in case you’re wondering, it’s pretty good,” Dad said. He made a fist and shoved it forward slowly. “I still got it. Although this ankle’s gonna slow me down a little bit for a while.”
“That’s great, Dad. I’m thrilled. You can do ads for the little blue pill.”
Instant umbrage. “Who said I need that? Did Dr. Heath tell you I need that, because he’s got no business spreading that kind of thing around. There’s such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality, you know.”
“Dad! I don’t give a shit about your sex life, okay? There are more important matters to discuss than that.”
Dad sat quietly, waiting.
“I’m not totally convinced that you’ve got a bear problem,” I said.
“Aww, jeez…”
“Listen to me. I couldn’t sleep all night, thinking about what Betty said. She’s seen a lot, you know, in her line of work. She doesn’t think it was a bear at all-”
“Okay, so maybe it’s a wolf or a coyote or something like that?”
“Have you seen a lot of wolves and coyotes? And when’s the last time you heard of them bringing down a man and killing him? But if it was dogs, like Betty seemed to think, well, you don’t have to look far to find a couple of those. You weren’t there yesterday, you didn’t see how those little beasts came after me, they were-”
“Look,” Dad protested, “Betty doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She means well, but really, I’ve known her a few years now, and she’s a worrier, that’s all. That was a bear that did that, and we’ve got our bear spray, so if he comes around again, we’ll be okay. And Lana was telling me that Orville, her nephew, is talking to the wildlife people, maybe getting some people to hunt down this bear before it hurts anyone else.”
“There’s another thing, Dad. I walked around out there this morning, where they found the body. The Wickenses, they say he’d gone out hunting for a bear, but if that’s true, then where’s the rifle? I don’t think Orville found one, and I kind of doubt the bear took it with him.”
“Aw, you’re full of it. Did you come up here to help me or make my life difficult?”
“You know what I think? I think you’d rather have a killer bear out there than a couple of killer dogs, because if it’s a bear, it’s out of your hands. But if it’s those dogs, acting with their owner’s blessing, living in a house that belongs to you, right up there on your property, it’s a problem you have to deal with.”
Dad said nothing. He bit his lip, looked away from me and out the window, toward the lake. I took a seat in a recliner across from the couch, leaned back, made no attempt to interrupt the silence. We sat there, the two of us, for about a minute, until Dad finally spoke.
“I got some coffee going over there. You mind getting me a cup? Help yourself if you want some.”
I got up. “Black, right?” Dad nodded. I poured us two cups of coffee, brought them back over, and plopped back into the recliner. I took a sip. “Good coffee,” I said.
Dad drank some of his. “Catch any fish with Bob this morning?”
“No. But Audrey hit my line.”
“Jesus, seriously? Bob’s been after Audrey for years.”
“Didn’t get her, though. We each caught a pickerel, otherwise nothing. Nice of him to take me out, though.”
“Yeah,” said Dad. “He’s a good guy, Bob is.”