The Only Clue

by Pamela Beason

  With a screech, a door behind her slammed down. Neema dropped the pail and rushed back, huffing. She slammed a hand against the heavy metal grid. The door made a loud noise, but it didn’t move.

  Outside, Kanoni crouched half-hidden under a bush. The whites of her eyes showed. She whimpered. Neema stood on her hind legs and put her fingers through the wire squares. She pulled. The wire bent a little, but the door didn’t open. She tried using her feet. More bending, but not open.

  Kanoni came out of the bush and tried to pull, too, her baby mouth wide with fright. The door between them did not move.

  Chapter 7

  “Please describe all the vehicles you can remember in the staff parking lot,” Finn asked Sierra Sakson.

  His brain felt fuzzy. He’d had only five hours sleep, and judging by the purple shadows under Grace’s eyes, she hadn’t been to bed at all. They’d compared notes over coffee. He told her about Tony Zyrnek’s pickup.

  “Thousands of people have vehicles that gorillas could fit into,” she’d retorted. “How about my van? Someone might have borrowed it while I was at your house.”

  Grace was right. He should inspect her van, too. But she agreed that locating a vehicle with traces of blood and gorilla fur might be the quickest way to find whoever had broken into the barn.

  Sierra, a twenty-one-year-old college student, was one of Grace’s most trusted staff members. Her roommate and fellow Animal Rights Union activist, Caryn Brown, perched beside her on the faded black futon couch in their apartment. The decor was garage sale chic. Finn and Grace sat on old-fashioned red canvas director’s chairs, separated from the students by a couple of cheap round metal and glass tables of the type normally seen on patios. Movie posters in red, white, and black covered most of the wall space.

  Both college students seemed to have added several piercings to eyebrows and ears since he had met them last year in court. Finn couldn’t stop staring at the ruby-colored stud in Sierra’s left nostril. Was it held on by a backing like a pierced earring? Did she have to stick her finger up her nose to fasten it? Did it get gunked up when she had a cold?

  Sierra ran her fingers through her burgundy-streaked black hair and wrinkled her nose, twitching the ruby stud. “What would cars back there have to do with a missing dog?” she asked Grace.

  “We just wondered if a stranger could have slipped in that way,” Grace told her. “Was the gate locked when you drove in?”

  The two young women shared a look. Caryn screwed up her lips for a minute as if considering, then said, “No, Z unlocked it for the porta-potty truck. We left it that way.”

  Anyone could have driven in after the staff arrived. Finn studied both young women carefully. Their faces and arms were unmarked, so they probably had not done battle with a gorilla. But that didn’t mean they hadn’t been involved; ARU was a big network and they might have directed an operation. He asked, “Has ARU pulled off any stunts lately?”

  All three women scowled at him.

  “We’re not answering that,” Caryn snapped. She picked up a bright blue pillow and hugged it defensively in front of her.

  “As for cars in the lot...” Sierra raised her eyes to the ceiling, thinking. “My VW bug, of course, and Grace’s old van. Some of the other volunteers came in a minivan. Hey, is your friend Scotty involved with anyone?”

  Scotty? “You mean Officer Scoletti?”

  “Probably.” Sierra gave him a coy look. “Blond brush cut? Freckles? Cute, in a farm boy sort of way. Does he have a girlfriend?”

  Finn didn’t know. “I doubt it,” he said.

  “What’s his first name?”

  He was embarrassed now. “I think it’s Rookie.”

  “Really?” Caryn said, running her chartreuse-colored nails through her white-blond pixie cut. “That’s kind of cool. With a Y or an I?”

  Grace gave him a dirty look. Finn cleared his throat. “Back to the cars, please, ladies.”

  Sierra volunteered, “Z drove a pickup that morning.”

  Finn perked up. Only Grace’s van had been parked in the lot when they’d discovered the gorillas missing, and supposedly Z had been there all night.

  “He usually rides his bike, but his dad loans him the truck if he wants to haul something,” Caryn said.

  “Jon volunteered to pick up the signs for the open house,” Grace told Finn.

  He turned to Caryn, his pen poised in the air. “Can you describe this pickup?”

  The student absently fingered one of her eyebrow rings. “All I remember is that it looked like a patchwork quilt, all different colors. His dad puts pieces together—recycling, you know. But the important thing is, they run.”

  “Open-bed pickup?” Finn asked.

  “It had a camper cover on the back,” Caryn said.

  Just as he suspected, Tony Zyrnek was involved in this, or at least his pickup was. He shot Grace a look out of the corner of his eye, but she was studiously ignoring him.

  Sierra continued, “They might be gas-guzzlers, but reusing them keeps all that metal and plastic out of the dumps. And do you have a clue what sort of carbon load it takes to build a new car? Gotta consider the whole equation, you know.”

  Finn didn’t really want to know what would be involved in that equation. He ripped a blank piece of paper out of his notebook, slapped it down on top of the left patio table. “Could you sketch where all the cars were parked?”

  Sierra grabbed a pencil from the top of a crate doing duty as an end table. Then she slid off the futon seat to sit on the floor in front of the paper. “You want this to show the parking lot before or after the open house? ‘Cause Z’s dad took the pickup with him when he left. I went out to the bug to get a bo—” Sierra’s gaze abruptly dropped to the tabletop before flashing back up to Grace. “Well, I went out there to get something, I forget now exactly what it was—after you guys left. So I was in the parking lot then, and the pickup was gone.”

  Bong? Bottle? Finn tried to complete Sierra’s sentence. It probably didn’t matter. “Before,” he told her. “And mark the location of the pickup.”

  Finn tried to tamp down his surge of excitement so it wouldn’t show on his face. The vanishing truck added weight to his theory that at least one Zyrnek was behind this. It was going to be hard for Grace to ignore.

  They worked their way through the rest of the questions. No, the volunteers hadn’t checked on Gumu because he was sleeping up in the net; yes, they had a good time at the party; no, they hadn’t heard anything from the gorillas after Neema’s initial hooting. Well yeah, there had been music and there had been some drinking and pot smoking. But nothing major.

  “We were all responsible,” Sierra assured Grace. That sounded to Finn like something a wayward teen would say to a parent.

  “Zyrnek was at the party all evening?” Finn asked.

  “You mean Z?”

  “Yes,” Finn said impatiently, “Jon Zyrnek.”

  “Yeah.” Sierra exchanged another look with her roommate as if to confirm. “At least, I think so. It got kinda hot in the trailer and we all went out on the porch to cool off once in a while, but everybody was around until after midnight.”

  “Except Brittany—she wasn’t there at all. She had to stay home with Ivy.” Caryn sounded like she felt sorry for the teen mom. Then she met Finn’s eyes with a smoldering gaze. “I can see what you’re thinking. But I don’t know why Z’s dad would steal a dog.”

  “Unless it was being abused,” Sierra suggested. “Then I’d steal it myself.”

  “I’d help you,” Caryn said. She pushed the blue pillow behind her.

  Finn stifled an urge to roll his eyes. The county still crawled with the white rats the ARU trio had liberated from a research lab a year ago. “Ever considered stealing the gorillas?”

  As if they’d rehearsed the move, both Sierra and Caryn leaned back on the couch and crossed their arms defensively.

  Grace frowned. “Matt!”

  “Hell no,” Caryn spat.
>
  Sierra added, “We never steal animals. We only set them free. But gorillas can’t survive on their own around here, so we’d never do that.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you asking about the gorillas?”

  He’d slipped up. “You just said you’d consider stealing a dog...” He let the rest of the sentence trail off.

  Caryn pointedly turned away from him. “Grace, that con artist is just trying to get money out of you. That dog probably doesn’t even exist.”

  Finn was afraid to meet Grace’s gaze for fear they’d both give away the truth of Caryn’s statement.

  The drawing Sierra handed him showed the pickup had been parked in the space in back of the barn door, the most convenient location for loading a gorilla or three. It also seemed convenient that Jon had forgotten to mention the arrangement for the pickup that morning. And Tony Zyrnek had gone out of his way to say he hadn’t been inside the barn, while conveniently forgetting to tell Finn that he’d gone to the lot behind the barn and taken his pickup out the back way?

  Finn stood up, calling an end to the meeting. “Thanks for your time.”

  “When should we come back to work?” Sierra asked Grace.

  “I’ll have to let you know.” She pulled on her jacket. “We have to make sure the incubation period has passed.”

  “But how about you?” Caryn asked. “Aren’t you worried about giving the gorillas the flu?”

  Grace looked momentarily flustered, but recovered quickly. “I got the shot; I’m still immune.”

  As soon as the apartment door had closed behind them, Grace locked eyes with him. “I forgot about the pickup and the signs, too, Matt. It’s not Jon.”

  “Did I say it was?”

  She aimed an index finger at his forehead. “I can hear the gears grinding away in there.”

  “Grace, you need to consider all the possibilities.” He beeped his car with the remote. “Jon is understandably loyal to his father.”

  “The timing doesn’t make sense. You heard them. The pickup left mid-afternoon, when Tony Zyrnek did. Neema was with me until you and I left after five p.m. And then Jon was at the staff party all evening.”

  He searched her face. “Jon could have gone outside just long enough to tranquilize the gorillas and let his old man into the barn through the back door.”

  “But the gorillas know Jon, and the blood...” She pressed her lips together, not wanting to finish the end of the sentence.

  “Maybe Tony Zyrnek got there first and things didn’t go as smoothly as they thought it would. And he probably didn’t come alone.” It would be hard for even two grown men to move one unconscious gorilla, let alone three gorillas.

  Grace shook her head. “You have no idea how upset Jon is right now. He feels so guilty that the gorillas disappeared while he was on duty.”

  Finn put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you want to believe Jon’s innocent. And I hope he is. But consider the possibility, Grace, that Jon might know something about his father’s involvement. He might feel guilty about that.” He opened his car door. “Meet you at the Morgan house.” They left in their separate vehicles.

  * * * * *

  “I’m feeling better, Dad,” Jon Zyrnek told his father. “And Grace is taking good care of me. But I don’t want to expose you, so I’m gonna stay here a little longer, okay?”

  “You sure that’s all? You sound depressed.”

  It sounded like his father had his head under the hood of a car. In the background he could hear the sound of an engine turning over and over without catching.

  “I’m okay.” He hated lying to his father, especially since they were still getting to know each other. It was absurd to think his father had anything to do with the gorillas disappearing. Wasn’t it? His dad had taken the pickup and left long before anything had happened to the gorillas. Jon had personally walked him to the back lot and given him the keys.

  “Hang on a sec.” There was a clunk, and then his father said, “Try it now,” to someone. A couple more grinding noises, and then he heard the engine fire up. There was another clunk and then less engine noise, so his father must have shut the hood or walked away.

  “Dad, did you notice anything weird in the back parking lot on Saturday?”

  “This about that Weimaraner? That detective seems to think I had something to do with that dog.”

  “I know you didn’t.” Jon was tempted to add because the damn dog doesn’t even exist. “But there was some damage to the back side of the barn, and I told Grace I’d ask you about it.” More lies.

  “Now she thinks I rammed the pickup into the barn?”

  “No, Dad, she doesn’t,” Jon hurriedly replied. “We just wondered if you saw anything at the back of the barn that could explain it.”

  “I didn’t even look at the back of the barn, and I sure didn’t hit it. I may not have driven a lot in recent years, son, but I still know the difference between reverse and drive. But I forgot to tell you: I didn’t have to use the combination you gave me, because the lock on the gate was undone when I drove out. I left it that way, ‘cause I thought there mighta been a good reason it was unlocked.”

  “That’s okay.” He’d forgotten that he’d given his father the combination to the lock on the gate so he could let himself out. “How long did it take you to drive from Grace’s place back to the salvage yard?”

  There was a long silence. Then his father said, “You think I mighta knocked off a liquor store on the way back to work?”

  “No, of course not.” He realized now what a weird question he’d just asked his father. Some detective he was.

  “I’m not like that anymore, son.” His father sounded sad. “I’m an average joe now, a working man. Speaking of which, I gotta get back to it. I’ll be home tonight if you change your mind and want to come back. I’ll be there tomorrow night, too. And the next. And the next after that. I hope you feel better soon.”

  Jon slid his cell phone back into his pocket, feeling like he’d failed some sort of family loyalty test. It was the fault of that shithead Finn for planting rotten thoughts about his father in his head. Of course a detective would suspect Tony Zyrnek was involved in the break-in. Cops were like that. They’d never give an ex-con the benefit of the doubt.

  His dad was so glad to be out of prison, so happy to have a regular job. It was a freaky thing to watch. The man was insanely happy. He talked forever about the glory of walking and driving where he wanted to. That was his father’s word, glory. And thrill. It thrilled him to shop and cook and choose his own clothes. And he acted so proud of his son working with gorillas like a scientist.

  Jon took a deep breath and relaxed his hands. He shook out his fingers and jiggled his shoulders to loosen them up. His father never meant to leave him the first time. He’d explained; it was all about needing money, Jon’s junkie mom had run off with every cent they had. He made bad choices; he had been a desperate man. But he wasn’t that man now.

  Tony Zyrnek would never do that to his son. Not again.

  * * * * *

  “A what?” Brittany Morgan wrapped a strand of her long strawberry blond hair around a finger.

  “Weimaraner,” Finn repeated, “A big silver gray dog.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

  Grace leaned forward from her chair. “Did you see Gumu on Saturday?”

  The teen’s brow furrowed. “Sure. He was sleeping in the net. What does Gumu have to do with the dog?”

  Finn touched Brittany’s knee with a finger to bring her attention back to him. “Why don’t you just tell me everything you did at the open house and maybe something will come back to you.”

  They sat in the family room of the Morgan house. In front of them, Ivy was banging a wooden spoon against a metal cooking pan, clearly delighted by the racket she was creating. The din made it hard to talk.

  He leaned toward Brittany and raised his voice. “Where did you park?”

  “In the front lo
t with all the guests. I figured the staff parking would be filled up.”

  So she’d be no help identifying vehicles in the back lot.

  Ivy found a metal ladle. The banging got even louder. Finn couldn’t take it any longer. “Ivy!”

  The toddler looked up at him. Her chubby face burst into a gummy smile. She tottered over, whacked him in the knee with the ladle and chortled, “Papa!”

  Grace faked a cough, covering up a snicker. Finn rubbed his knee. He should probably be grateful for anything that lessened the tension between two of them.

  Brittany blushed. She hauled her daughter into her lap. “Sorry, Detective Finn.” She pulled the ladle from Ivy’s fist, and just as the toddler was about to begin bawling, Brittany put the ladle to her lips and pretended to take a sip. “Mmmm. Good soup.”

  Ivy grabbed for the ladle and pressed it to her own lips, made an uum-uum sound, and then held it up toward her mother’s face. After another pretend sip, Brittany set Ivy back on the floor.

  “Go feed soup to Blueboy.” She pointed to a blue stuffed dog sitting in a nearby chair.

  Turning to Finn, the teenager said, “Ivy calls my dad ‘Papa.’ That’s her word for Grandpa.”

  Finn winced. He’d already been relegated to Grandpa status?

  “Is Z okay?” Brittany asked.

  “He’s not too sick, but he still might be contagious,” Grace told her. “He’ll be fine.”

  Brittany fingered her hair again. “I mean, I’m not sure he has health insurance or anything like that. He’s not a full-time student and his parents don’t have him on a plan. Well, he doesn’t really have parents with regular jobs, so I guess that’s kinda impossible anyway.”

  “Sounds like you’re close to him,” Finn observed.

  She shrugged. “That’s one thing we all have in common—not enough money.”

  Which could be a good motive for stealing gorillas.

  “At least Z has a job, sort of,” the teen continued. Then her cheeks pinked as she probably realized that might be a criticism of Grace’s pay scale. She rushed to say, “I can’t work while I’m still in school, my parents say. Because of Ivy. But as soon as I graduate, I’m getting a job and a place of my own.”