"Well," I grumbled as I raised myself with Herculean effort. I levered into a sitting position on a couch that was covered in rough tartan fabric. "I don't think you'll get any action like that out of me. But we'll see how I'm feeling later." I opened my eyes. Elmo knelt close by, beside a coffee table stained with pale cup rings. A thin weedy individual crouched on the other side of it. He wore a stethoscope around his willow neck. From the slow cautious way he climbed to his feet, I could tell he was dead.
"Dr. Forrester, I presume." I rubbed my temples. The Maruichi band seemed to have taken a break. "You'll have to forgive that one. I've been waiting a long time to use it."
"Yes, Avery Forrester. You had quite a moment there, Mr. Wildclown. You're very lucky to be alive." He smiled. The doctor was one of those lengthy, angular people. He was all bone and skin. His legs and arms grew on and on, as though he had some procrastination gene for growth that could never get around to finishing off the project. The skin on his face was sagging somewhat in a dead man's jowl, but aside from that he appeared quite youthful. He had thick black hair, and long rubbery ears to match his nose, which continued to point accusingly at me. Dr. Forrester's mouth was wide, and eyes deep and dark. He wore denims, a plaid shirt and a comfy wool cardigan.
"I haven't been eating well." I shook my head. "Do you have a drink doctor?"
"Certainly," he said, turning to Elmo. "Friend?"
"Yes sir," Elmo said in his Sunday school voice.
Dr. Forrester disappeared through a door he had to duck to get through. I looked around. Elmo still stared at me worriedly. I smiled at him then scanned the room. It was a cozy little place. Two walls were completely covered in books, and the far end was a fireplace. I looked at some of the titles. Great Expectations, and Last of the Mohicans sat uncomfortably cheek and jowl with medical texts: Treating Fatalities, Advanced Rigor-Treatments to Prolong Flexibility in Dead Connective Tissue, Psychology of the Deceased and Health for the Exhumed.
The doctor reappeared with a crystal decanter and three glasses on a tray. "It's brandy." He sat down across from me and poured us a drink. "Take it easy." He handed me a half-full glass of the ruby liquid. "You don't want to go too fast."
"I just need a little anesthetic, Doc," I mumbled, then threw the tumbler's contents into my guts. They jumped, but steadied themselves around the burning liquor. I held my glass out. The doctor started to shake his head but poured me another anyway. I socked that one away, then felt around for a cigarette, pulled one out and lit it. Human again. I felt Elmo's worried presence pressing the seat springs to my left.
"I'd like to ask you a few questions about the daughter of Wilson and Helen Hawksbridge. Their son, Robert, is still looking for her." I pulled the smoke into my lungs and slowly let it out. My vision was clearing. I really didn't want to talk about the episode on the porch. I still had to sort that out. "Julie's disappearance is linked to a case I'm working on."
Dr. Forrester's look of confusion was replaced by amusement as he read from my tone that I had just become a closed book. "Certainly. You understand I no longer work for them. They died so suddenly-and finally. Their son, it seems he was unnerved by my condition." He pointed at his chest with both open hands then made one beating wing motion down toward his knees as if to say 'look at me I'm dead.'
"I understand he was unnerved, but I don't understand why," I said in way of consolation. "Tell me, Doctor. Julie had become pregnant a number of times after the Change. You're supposed to tell me how that is impossible."
"Again?" The doctor leaned back and studied me for a moment. "Am I to go through this again?"
"I see." I leaned forward, felt my bowels turn to water, leaned back again. "Authority was here. They questioned you."
"Yes, numerous times, in fact. The day after the Hawksbridge's met their end. You see, I remember it all so well, because it was the day I died."
"How did that happen, if you don't mind my asking?" I was eyeing the brandy.
"Oh, it was stupid. I was painting my main hallway there-you can just see the ceiling, up those stairs. It's still unfinished. The last or what I hoped would be the last of the Inspectors left at around five-thirty. I tried to hurry and finish my painting, climbed a ladder carrying a big can of paint, got to the top of the ladder, and the next thing I remember was waking up dead."
"You don't remember falling?" I crushed my cigarette in a blue ceramic ashtray shaped like a puma.
"No. I don't. It was probably a combination of fatigue, paint fumes and bad luck. I blacked out." He fell silent. "I must say I thought that would be the end of the questioning. Of course, I had thought the same thing after that detective, what was his name-oh, damn I'm usually good with those things. Grange, or… what was it."
"Grey, you talked to Owen Grey." I watched his eyes light up.
"Yes. He was a large fellow, about your height. Short dark hair, kind of a plain dresser. Grey showed up about ten days before I died. He was looking for Julie, and asked me about her pregnancies. I still feel bad about that. I told him that, well in the strictest confidence, that she had had miscarriages. I compromised my Hippocratic oath, but I felt that under the circumstances anything might help. Julie was missing, after all, and this Grey fellow was here by permission of her parents. And they were so worried. I sometimes wonder whether that didn't figure into my dismissal. Then a little over a week later the Hawksbridges died and Authority came here and questioned me about that. They gave me a warning too."
"Which was…"
"Actually, Authority told me to speak to no one about my relationship with the Hawksbridges while things were under investigation. But I suppose two years is long enough for that." He topped up all our drinks, then leaned back and slipped into a professional pose. "Julie Hawksbridge, contrary to all current medical statistics, continued to ovulate after the Change. You see what seems to have happened was that women ceased to ovulate, and men to produce sperm. For as yet undetermined reasons, normal meiosis has halted in the human race-meiosis being the division of sex cells. But here we had Julie, a woman with a pre-Change age of 26 producing ovum."
"If men don't produce their part, then how?"
"That's not entirely true either, and I did say 'normal meiosis has halted,'" the doctor corrected. "Some men produce a minimal amount of sperm-in very substandard quantities and those grossly mutated. Nothing healthy enough to create normal offspring, but one learns in medicine that there are always exceptions."
"How many miscarriages did she have?"
"Three that I am certain of. But for some reason, she would not tell me who the father was. At first I thought it was because she couldn't be sure who he was, then I realized there would not be enough men producing sperm for her to know more than one. The chances against it were astronomical."
"So that was it. And the…the offspring?"
"None viable. They terminated in the second month-though my post mortem examination showed they had been developing normally. Julie would just begin to suspect a pregnancy and it would be over."
"And, did you save any specimens?"
Forrester produced a smile then let it drop off his face. "Normally, I would. But the Hawksbridges' were tremendously concerned about their privacy. As a professional courtesy to them I destroyed any specimens I had."
"So, no one in the medical establishment found out about it."
"Mr. Wildclown. I assume a detective has a certain responsibility to his clients. I take my Hippocratic oath quite seriously. Talking to Grey, and Authority, well, those were unique situations. Julie was missing and remains so."