The Only Clue Page 11

  Tim studied her face for a minute, his reptilian gaze sending a chill through her. Maybe a typical exotic pet buyer wouldn’t have asked about an ape’s birthplace. She popped her gum and asked, “I mean, does he have an American name? Does he understand English?”

  Tim relaxed. “Yeah, sure. His name’s Blackie. Zoo didn’t want him anymore; said they had too many. I got papers here somewhere.” He turned his back to her and slid a bag of dog chow off a file folder, then sorted through the papers inside and held one out.

  The form was a bad copy that practically screamed forgery. Blackie was listed as a “Large Monkey.” As she studied the piece of paper, she caught a movement from the other cage in her peripheral vision. An animal was inside the coffee can.

  She pointed. “What’s in there?”

  “Ah,” he said. “You might like this baby even better.” He opened the door of the cage and reached into the coffee can. “And I’m only asking four thousand for it.”

  He pulled out the tiniest monkey she’d ever seen, as small as a newborn kitten. “Hold out your hand.”

  He placed the animal into her outstretched left hand.

  “Hold on tight. It can jump a long way.”

  She cupped her right hand over the little body and then peered between her fingers at the miniature creature. A pygmy marmoset, the first she’d ever touched, stared back, its eyes huge and liquid. A thin white exclamation mark decorated its forehead.

  “It’s adorable,” she cooed. “What’s its name?”

  “Tinkerbell.”

  Pygmy marmosets were rare, and individuals with white exclamation marks even rarer. She’d bet ten thousand dollars the marmoset’s name was Pepito, and a little girl was crying for it in Spokane. Its tiny heart beat wildly against the palm of her hand.

  Her own heart was hammering, too. No way could she leave this defenseless little beast here. Who knew how long the police would take to come? When the grinder started up again, the marmoset’s heart might give out from sheer terror. “Would you take three thousand five hundred?” she asked, stalling for time to think.

  He squinted. “Three seven fifty. Can’t go lower than that.”

  “Does that include the cage?” Could she do it? Just take him?

  “Nope, I need the cage. Just wrap the monkey in your jacket and then stick it in the trunk of your car. Or you could put it in the glove box or something.”

  “My wallet’s in my van.” She clutched the marmoset to her chest. “Come on, Tinkerbell, let’s get the man his money and go home.”

  She hated to leave the bonobo there, but she had no choice. Walking rapidly toward the door, she said over her shoulder, “My boyfriend’s going to be so excited!”

  Tim trailed her toward her van; she could hear his booted steps behind her. She pushed the monkey under her jean jacket. Holding his miniscule warm body against her chest, she abruptly bolted, running for all she was worth. Leaping into the driver’s seat, she managed to click the door lock button an instant before Tim grabbed for the handle.

  “Hey!” He slammed a hand against the window. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  She started the engine.

  “Give me my money, bitch!” he yelled. “You owe me four thousand dollars!”

  “Call the cops.” She moved her hand to the gearshift.

  His next blow shattered the window next to her head. She instinctively turned away from the flying glass as she slammed the van into reverse.

  His nails gouged her neck as Tim latched onto her jacket collar. “Fucking bitch!”

  Grace jammed her foot hard on the gas pedal. Her erratic steering made the van violently fishtail backward as she dragged Tim, his boots plowing through the driveway gravel. His hold on her jacket pulled her toward the open window. Only her grip on the steering wheel kept her in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t let go of the wheel to fasten her seat belt. She couldn’t let go, period. Her foot was sliding off the gas pedal. In another second, Tim would yank her out the window.

  Ducking her chin, she sank her teeth into his hand. The taste of grease and blood flooded her mouth.

  “Bitch!” he shrieked. “Fuck! Fuck you!”

  The back wheels of the van bumped violently up onto the asphalt highway, finally jarring Tim loose. He fell to the ground, cursing. Out of the corner of her eye, Grace saw the graying woman run out of the house. She’d traded her oven mitt for a rifle.

  Grace yanked the wheels around as a loud blast slammed into the side of the van. She shoved the van’s gearshift into drive and laid down rubber as she peeled out, watching the rear view mirror and praying her gas tank had not been hit.

  Fifteen miles down the road after she had caught her breath, she removed one hand from her death grip on the steering wheel, and slid her shaking fingers gently inside her jacket. Yep, the marmoset was there, now sitting in her lap, nestled against her abdomen. She felt fingers as tiny as bird claws curl around her index finger.

  “Hang in there, Pepito,” she whispered, staring at the rearview mirror, watching for a vehicle racing after her. The highway was empty.

  She’d stolen a marmoset. It was so rash, so unlike her. But it felt good. She had saved this monkey.

  Oh, Kanoni, why couldn’t it have been you? Or Neema. Or Gumu. Were her gorillas imprisoned in torturous conditions like that? She dialed 9-1-1 and told the operator to dispatch some officers to rescue the poor bonobo. The operator asked what that was.

  “It’s an animal?” the operator clarified. “Then it’s a job for animal control, not the police.”

  “It’s being abused. It’s a victim,” Grace argued, then realized that might not mean much to the operator. “That little ape is most likely stolen property or imported illegally.”

  “Most likely?”

  Grace clenched her teeth in exasperation. “Watch out, they have weapons in that house.” She hung up.

  * * * * *

  A few aspects of the accident scene bugged Finn. He’d never seen a body half-in, half-out of a door before, especially on a rollover. How often did that happen? Seemed like the car had gone over the embankment, and the driver hit the windshield on the first impact against rock, then flopped around inside as the Mustang rolled. Why did driving like a maniac always go together with not wearing a seatbelt?

  Then the door popped open and the body would have been flung out, except for the foot caught under the dashboard. It seemed odd that the vic had no ID or money or anything in his pants pockets. But Finn had known a few guys that carried their wallets or money clips in different spots, so maybe the ranger was right about animals carrying it off. Dusk was already setting in here in the shadows between the hills. With daylight tomorrow morning, they might find more items scattered throughout the woods.

  Had the guy been still alive when the animals attacked? Finn shuddered, considering. Probably not. There didn’t seem to be much blood except for some streaks in the windshield webbing. But then again, most of the vic’s face and throat had been eaten. And there’d be even less of him left tomorrow if they didn’t move the corpse now. Finally, he pocketed his camera. “Go ahead and bag him.”

  It took all three of them to extract the body from the car and stuff the stinking corpse into the body bag. Adams slipped on a loop of intestines, which popped underfoot, releasing an indescribable stench. The ranger abruptly dropped the legs he held, and quickly turned aside to vomit. Finn nearly lost his grip on the limp arms, and the corpse’s head banged the rocky ground. The neck vertebrae snapped and the vic’s skull separated from the body. Finn joined Adams in hugging a tree and giving up his lunch to the slugs.

  “Weenies,” Nagel commented, holding open the body bag when Finn and Adams finally arrived to slide the headless body inside.

  Finn and Adams glanced at each other and then looked back at the jawless head on the forest floor. Adams swallowed. “I’ll flip you for it.”

  Nagel snorted. “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Letting go of the body bag, she trotted to
the head, knotted her fingers in the hair and carried it back. Adams opened the bag and she dropped it inside. She looked a little green, but proud of herself.

  Over the years, Finn had noticed that most women dealt with disgusting messes better than most men. Probably something to do with babies and diapers. Nagel probably had a couple of rug-rats at home. He wondered if she’d share this gruesome experience with them. Guess what? Mommy carried a man’s head around today!

  Nah, probably not. Although most kids would think that was a pretty sweet story for show and tell.

  They strapped the body bag onto the portable stretcher. While Adams climbed the slope, Finn pulled a tiny flashlight out of his pocket and searched the car. Candy bar wrappers, paper fast food sacks, plastic straws and drink cups, receipts, a couple of empty beer bottles, but no owner info or insurance card that he could find. He had just finished copying down the VIN number from inside the door well when Adams shouted from above.

  The male ranger attached a come-along to the haul rope, ratcheting it to help Finn and Nagel haul the dead weight up over the rocks. Everyone except for Severn was sweating by the time the stretcher slid over the embankment onto the road.

  Severn unzipped the bag and studied the contents for a long minute, fingering aside the fabric sides to find the head. “Yikes.”

  Then he zipped it back up, stood and wiped his hands on his shirt front. He waddled to his Chevy Tahoe, opened the tailgate and motioned the rangers to slide the body inside. Finn helped them unstrap the corpse from the stretcher and flop the body bag inside the tailgate. He was glad the corpse would not be riding with him. Severn extracted a clipboard from his front seat and sat in the driver’s seat, writing notes.

  Finn asked, “Where are you taking the body?”

  Severn answered without looking up. “Funeral home.”

  “No autopsy?”

  Severn’s chin rose and he frowned. “What’s the point? He obviously crashed over the embankment, rolled, killed himself, and then got eaten to boot.”

  “But we don’t know if he was drunk, or high, or what he was doing out here. We don’t even know for sure if he’s the owner of the car.”

  “What does it matter now?”

  Good point. But the Sarge was concerned about covering bases, and in Finn’s experience, leaving I’s undotted and T’s uncrossed often came back to bite a detective in the butt. He was damned if it was going to be his butt that got chewed. “You’ll have to wait until next of kin is identified.”

  Severn rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Yeah, guess that would be a good idea. Otherwise the poor sucker won’t get a service of any kind.”

  And the funeral home would get only the minimum payment for body disposal. Finn guessed that was the foremost thought in Severn’s mind. “Can you shove him in a cooler for a couple of days?”

  “He’s not looking so good.” Severn grimaced. “And his condition is not likely to improve.” He laughed and slapped his thigh.

  “Well, keep him for a couple of days, anyway. I’ll send someone to get his prints and take a DNA sample, and I’ll alert the police in Renton to contact next of kin.”

  Severn sighed heavily. “All right. You got forty-eight hours. Evansburg Hospital; the morgue’s in the basement.”

  “I know the place.” Finn turned to the rangers. “Where will you tow the car?”

  They blinked at each other for a few seconds before Nagel answered. “We have ‘em towed wherever the owner wants ‘em to go. We don’t have a budget for stuff like this.”

  Few government agencies did these days. “I’ll contact the Renton PD and let you know what I come up with,” Finn told them.

  “It’ll stay down there until we hear from you.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Severn honked the horn of his Tahoe and flashed his lights at them. He was blocked in by Finn’s SUV and clearly in a hurry to leave.

  “Can’t wait to shower,” Nagel commented.

  “I second that,” Adams said.

  “Amen,” added Finn. He slid into his SUV. The reek of decomposing flesh was stronger with the door closed. Shit, was that dead guy goo on his shoes?

  Chapter 10

  Neema stood upright and roared in frustration, banging her hands and feet against the metal sides. Loud loud noise. Kanoni ran away screeching, and climbed to the lowest limb of a tree. The baby didn’t come back until after Neema had curled up near the grid, signing to herself. Scared. Grace come. Sad.

  Kanoni tried to bite the wire between them. Neema whimpered and poked her fingers through the wire to touch her baby. Kanoni cried herself to sleep in a ball on the other side of the door while Neema stroked her foot with a finger.

  Then Neema licked all the syrup from the pot, bit into the net around the bread to get the hard bread. Then the food was gone and she was thirsty. She wanted out. She needed out. She signed Grace come. Neema good. Good Kanoni. Come now.

  Getting dark. Thirsty. Noise in the bushes. Then she smelled a new smell. Neema rushed to the other end of the tunnel to look. There. Not Grace. Animal. Black fur came out of the woods, nose first, swinging its head. Smelling her. Smelling Kanoni. Not gorilla. Big. Bad.

  Neema grunted loud to scare it away. It stopped. She pounded on the metal sides of the tunnel. It stood up on hind legs, smelling the air. Long yellow claws. It looked at her with tiny brown eyes, down its long nose. Big big. It opened its mouth. Sharp teeth. Then it dropped to all four feet and began to trot toward her cage. Toward her baby.

  She ran back to the stuck door where her baby whimpered, clinging to the wire. Neema shrieked. Run! Run now! Find Grace!

  Kanoni dropped to the ground and, after a last look over her shoulder, loped hard on all fours, disappearing through the trees. Neema smelled Teeth-Claws as he rushed by. Close. Too close. Teeth-Claws crashed through the bushes along the side of the tunnel.

  No! Neema shrieked, banging on the metal. Stay away! She cut her fingers pulling the metal grid. She couldn’t see Teeth-Claws.

  She slammed her fists against the metal sides of her cage and roared as loud as she could.

  Then she saw him. Grunting with excitement, Teeth-Claws loped into the woods after her baby.

  Chapter 11

  Jon, his eyes glued to his cell phone, caught up with Grace as she opened the door to her personal trailer.

  “Caryn and Sierra and Brittany and the others have all been calling. I have to tell them something. This is the third day we’ve put them off.” He looked up at her. “Jesus!” he yelped. “What happened to your lip? And your neck?”

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand. It came away with a red smear. Tim’s blood. Ugh. “That blood’s not mine.”

  She spat on the ground and wiped her mouth on her jacket sleeve. Then she pressed her fingers to her neck, felt the burn of the long scratches there, pulled her hand away to see more blood. Hers, this time.

  “What attacked you?” He studied her more closely, noticed the way she cradled her arm against her chest. “Something wrong with your arm?”

  She pushed open the door with her free hand. “Come in. I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to.”

  When she’d finished the story and settled the marmoset in a cat carrier with food and water, Jon held up his hand for a high-five. “Way to go, boss! Now you’re one of us.”

  He was right; she’d joined the animal liberators. The criminal animal liberators. She didn’t clap hands. “Keep that under your hat.”

  His face fell. “Are you kidding? That was heroic; it should be on YouTube. We should go get that bonobo. Caryn and Sierra could help.”

  “I alerted the local police. Let’s wait and see what they do.”

  “Oh, right.” He waved a hand in a gesture that dismissed the idea the police would do anything.

  She sometimes forgot what a kid Jon could still be. “The gorillas are out there somewhere,” she reminded him. “We don’t want word to get around that there could be commando raids
on exotic animal keepers.”

  He inhaled deeply. “I get it,” he said. “They’ll tunnel even deeper underground. Later, then, after the gorillas are back; we can go into action then.”

  She had to ask. “Z, is there any chance that ARU could have taken the gorillas?”

  “No way.” He looked stricken, as if she’d slapped him, and let his hands drop down to his sides with an audible slapping sound against his jeans. “We work here. And you always stand up for animal rights.”

  “I know it wasn’t you, Z. But maybe it was something you told someone else, something that Caryn or Sierra—”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’d know if ARU had the gorillas. But I could send out a message to watch for gorillas for sale.”

  “That would defeat the purpose of keeping this quiet, wouldn’t it? But maybe you could send a message asking members to be on the lookout for exotic animal dealers. Maybe ARU could compile a list of people to check on. That would help.”

  He looked relieved. “Done.”

  “Can you keep the staff away for at least one more day? Tell Caryn and Sierra I’ll pay their regular wages.” Although that would make a sizeable a dent in her miniscule checking account.

  “I’ll try.” He stuck his phone in the back pocket of his jeans.

  “If nothing breaks in the next two days, I’ll go to the police and tell them that the gorillas were stolen.” She searched his eyes. She didn’t want to mention his father, but could he suspect something he wasn’t telling her? “Jon, if you have any ideas about where to look—”

  His head jerked up. “Believe me, I’m trying to think of some way to find them, some hint of what might have happened, but so far...” He swallowed hard. “I’m gonna go walk the fence line, okay? I’ll yell for Neema and Gumu while I do it.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take a quick tour through the woods before dark.” She also needed to call Finn and let him know what was going on, find out if the bonobo had been rescued. She picked up her cell phone and headed for the trees while Jon strode off down the back driveway, his shoulders sagging.