The Only Clue

by Pamela Beason

  Finn pushed himself up in bed and rearranged the pillows between his back and the headboard. “Were you aware that he had a 1965 Mustang?”

  “Allen always collected vintage cars. They could have been nice if he’d ever restored them, but he didn’t take care of them. He emailed me to say he gave three of them away a couple of weeks before he died. He must have had a premonition or something. I hear another one is still up on blocks in the garage; you have any interest in a decrepit Camaro?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Well, in case you change your mind, I’m flying to Seattle to clear out the place next week. I could give you a great deal. Otherwise, it’s probably going to end up getting donated somewhere.”

  He yawned again. He needed to buy one of those coffeemakers with a timer so the caffeine would be hot and ready when he woke up. “Any idea who your brother gave the Mustang to?”

  “I have a note—sort of a will, I guess—that a doctor sent me. He wrote it in the hospital before he died. Hang on a minute.”

  While Finn waited, he rummaged in his bedside drawer for a notepad and pen.

  “Mustang ... Mustang... Here it is. Looks like Kevin ... Norton? No, I think it might be North, Kevin North? Hard to make out Al’s handwriting.”

  Who the hell was Kevin North? “Do you know the connection between Allen and Kevin?”

  “Not a clue. Like I said, we haven’t been close for a while.”

  “Thanks for your time. Sorry for your loss.” He laid the phone down, then pulled himself out of bed and padded to the kitchen to put the coffee on and feed his menagerie. The guest room door was closed. Maureen and Charles were still asleep.

  As the coffee perked, Finn booted up his computer to pull up North’s driver’s license on the DMV database. Turned out to be a fairly common name, but he did a more refined search and finally settled on the Kevin David North that had a past address in Renton—that had to be the Whitehead connection—and a more recent one on the outskirts of Evansburg. The license photo didn’t look much like the dead guy, but then, having your throat and half your face ripped off could really change a guy’s appearance.

  North had a few traffic citations and a drug conviction for possession, so his prints were in the system. Finn called the fingerprint expert’s voicemail and left a message for him to check the dead guy’s prints against Kevin David North’s as well as Ryan Connelly’s. He hoped the corpse would turn out to be this parolee instead of Connelly.

  His phone buzzed again. He didn’t recognize the number. He hit the TALK button and identified himself.

  “This is Kennewick PD Officer Lila Jones.” Her voice had a Southern lilt. “I’ve got the Corolla you listed pulled over here for reckless driving.”

  Finn’s uncaffeinated brain took a beat to catch up with this next zig of information. The gorilla case. Corolla. Ty Linero’s car. That was lightning fast; he’d posted the information only last night. “Is Tyrone Linero driving?”

  “That’s the rub, Detective. The driver’s license says Leon Shane, although oddly enough, he has another one that says Leroy Shane. Face matches the photo and description on both licenses. He also says the Leroy license was a mistake; he’s Leon. He says he has permission to drive his friend’s car. What do you want me to do with him?”

  Why was Shane driving Linero’s car? This might be the break he’d been looking for.

  “Detective? You still there?”

  “Does Mister Shane seem nervous?”

  “Sweating bullets. And it’s not actually that warm out here.”

  “Can you detain him a while? He might be the key to a big case I’m working on. I’m an hour and a half away.”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  He called the station to let the dispatcher know where he was before he pulled on his clothes. Then he trotted to his car and slapped his flasher onto the hood.

  * * * * *

  Grace’s dictionary defined hope as “to wish, to expect and desire.” It had been a week, but she still held out hope that they would find Gumu alive and bring him home. Could she communicate that to Neema? Should she try?

  Her sad gorilla sat alone at the top of the rope net, in the spot Gumu usually dominated as he surveyed his domain. Neema had wrapped herself in the old quilt that Gumu had used before he disappeared. She insisted on wearing it everywhere, draped like Red Riding Hood’s cloak over her head and shoulders. The blanket was caked with dirt, but Neema refused to be separated from it.

  From her position on the ground, Grace could hear Neema’s soft whimpers as the female gorilla stared at the distant horizon. Kanoni, plastered to Grace’s midsection, whined in response to her mother’s sounds of distress. Neema had kicked Kanoni away so often that the baby gorilla was now afraid to approach her. Instead, Kanoni’s eyes fixed on Grace’s face, looking for reassurance.

  “It’s okay.” Grace passed her hand over the baby’s head, smoothing Kanoni’s wild hair. “I’ll take care of you.” But baby gorillas usually nursed two to three years, sometimes as long as five. She’d had her mother buy some baby bottles, but bottle feeding was a poor substitute for the comfort of a real mother’s breast. “Pretty soon, your mom will be back to her old self, too.”

  She wasn’t at all sure of the last statement. Neema seemed even more depressed this morning, eating nothing and refusing to even look at Kanoni. Had she expected to find Gumu back at the compound? Could that mean she thought he might be alive, or was it some child-like expectation that he might come back from the dead?

  After Spencer, the other male gorilla Neema had been paired with, had been poisoned, his body had been taken away and Neema never saw him again. Did Neema assume that the same thing had happened to Gumu? Should she try to convince Neema there was hope?

  If she promised Neema that Gumu would come and then he never did, would Neema ever trust her again?

  If the gorilla had been a child, Grace could take her to a funeral, show her the dead body, describe how wonderful heaven was, and say that Gumu was looking down from that celestial paradise. But as far as she knew, gorillas had no concept of heaven or afterlife. Religion would make no sense to an ape, unless perhaps it was tied in with food. She could envision Neema worshipping a god who dispensed food on a regular basis. Or maybe not even that, since the gorilla was not eating now.

  Flies buzzed around the fruit and yogurt Grace left for Neema on the food shelf. Neema was oblivious even to the eager crows squawking overhead, waiting their chance to snatch a free meal.

  This morning Neema had signed only Gumu gone wet meat red, repeating those words in a variety of sequences. Although Grace couldn’t be sure, it seemed unlikely that Neema had witnessed an attack. Neema knew signs for man, hit, knife, stick, and various other words that she might use to tell the story. What was clear was that Neema believed Gumu was gone for good. Huddling under her blanket with her head down, the female gorilla was the epitome of mourning.

  “Grace, honey,” her mother called from outside the fence.

  When had her parents arrived?

  “It looks like Neema wants some private time,” her father suggested. “How about a cup of coffee?”

  Her mother added, “And your father insisted on bringing muffins. You have to eat.”

  After a last glance at the blanket-shrouded lump that was Neema, Grace reluctantly exited the enclosure, carrying Kanoni. Maybe her mother was right; maybe she just needed to leave the gorilla alone for awhile.

  When she opened the door to her personal trailer, Grace found she’d left the television on. Big mistake. As they entered, a clip of her interview was playing at the worst possible spot.

  “...knew that Gumu could kill someone, didn’t you?”

  “That’s why we don’t let most people get near him,” she responded.

  “But someone did get near him, didn’t they? And he killed that person, didn’t he?”

  On screen, Dr. Grace McKenna visibly recoiled.
“That person was an intruder. He broke in without permission. And we don’t know for sure that person is dead.”

  “But you knew you had a violent gorilla. And now—where is Gumu, Dr. McKenna?”

  She snapped off the television and sat down at the table with her mother and father. Her parents tried to overcome the awkwardness with polite chitchat about Finn’s ex-in-laws, Scott and Dorothy, and the places they’d visited yesterday—the county historical museum, the Cascade foothills, the sprawling farms. Grace shared an apple bran muffin with the baby gorilla in her lap.

  “It’s a nice area,” her father summed up.

  Then they sat in silence for several minutes. Finally, her mother cleared her throat and then began, “Grace, your father and I have a question. We’re curious about your project here.”

  Kanoni twisted in her lap, eyeing the rest of the muffins. Grace grabbed both the gorilla’s hands to keep the baby from sweeping the lot of them to the floor. “Yes?”

  “It’s a scientific question,” her father said.

  They were tag-teaming her. Grace sensed this would not be a question she wanted to hear. “Yes?”

  Maureen took her turn. “We don’t quite understand the goals.”

  Grace swallowed. “What do you mean?”

  Her mother continued, “Well, we know that apes can acquire sign language, thanks to your work and some of your colleagues.”

  Her father added, “And we know that they use sign language creatively, and that they even teach it to each other.”

  Grace selected a blueberry muffin from the basket. “Yes. They are thinking beings just like we are. Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to explain the idea of hope to Neema.”

  “Really?” Her father’s brow crinkled. “That does seem like a difficult concept to get across. There’s nothing point to, nothing to act out.”

  Her mother put a hand on his leg and scowled briefly in his direction before turning back to Grace. “But, honey, now that we know they can do all that, what is the possible scientific purpose of your project here? What benefit is there?”

  Grace’s anger was instantaneous. She’d heard this before, from every institution she’d ever been associated with. Most recently from the local college. Why should we fund your project? She pulverized the blueberry muffin in her fist to keep from pitching it at her mother.

  “Why did Anne Sullivan continue to teach Helen Keller, Mom?” Dumping the crumbs on the table, she wrapped her arms around Kanoni and abruptly stood up. The chair fell over behind her with a clunk.

  Her mother squirmed. “Oh, Gracie, we just thought ending the project might be easier if you considered—”

  “After Helen Keller made the initial connection of a sign with an object, Anne Sullivan had proved that a blind deaf child could learn sign language. So what could possibly be the point of teaching her anything more?” Grace slammed the door behind her as she left the trailer.

  Apes were so much easier to understand than people.

  * * * * *

  Leroy Shane had the demeanor of an abused dog, and the skin of a teenager who had never learned to wash his face. His cheeks were pebbled with acne scars and uneven beard stubble. He sat in the interview room, his right wrist handcuffed to the table, a half-empty plastic glass of water in front of him. In the few minutes Finn watched from the observation room, Shane picked his nose with his free hand, wiped the results on his pants leg, scratched his balls, and then coughed twice and spat on the floor.

  As soon as Finn sat down at the table across from him, Shane said, “I didn’t steal that car. My friend said I could take it.”

  “Then we can clear that up fast, Leroy.” Finn held out his cell phone. “Call him.”

  Leroy’s eyes skated across the phone, landed on Finn’s face for a minute, then bounced off the walls.

  “You high, Leroy?” Finn asked.

  “Not me.” Leroy sat up straighter in the chair and managed to look Finn in the eye for a full ten seconds before glancing down at his own lap. “And it’s Leon. Lee-on.”

  “That’s not what your brother says.”

  Leroy made a face and rolled his eyes. “He’s always trying to get me in trouble.”

  “Where’s Linero?”

  Leroy briefly looked perplexed, then chewed the inside of his cheek for a minute, then finally said, “Haven’t seen Ro for a while.”

  “Ro?” Heather had called him Ty. Ro sounded more like a street nickname. “You mean Tyrone?”

  “Ty-rone?” Leroy’s brow crinkled and he mashed his lips together as if thinking gave him a headache. Maybe he hadn’t ever heard Tyrone’s full name. He went back to studying his crotch, but his mouth twitched as he said, “Yeah, if you say so. Tyrone.”

  “Where’s the gorilla?”

  The pale eyes jerked back up for a second. “What kinda crazy question is that?”

  “I know you stole a gorilla.”

  Leroy muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘lawyer.’

  A spark of excitement ignited in Finn’s belly. Leroy definitely reacted to his mention of a gorilla. “Where’s the gorilla? Who’s paying you? How does Pinder figure into this?”

  A little louder this time, Leroy said, “Lawyer.”

  “Why are you driving Tyrone Linero’s car? Where were you going?”

  Leroy faced the mirror on the wall and yelled, “Lawyer! Lawyer!”

  The door opened and Officer Jones poked her head in. “Detective,” she said, “Can I see you for a minute?”

  Gritting his teeth, Finn picked up his notepad and pen and joined her in the hallway. The car Leroy Shane was driving had not been reported as stolen, and although Shane had quite a history of drug possession and one burglary, he had no current warrants and he’d passed the field sobriety test. They couldn’t hold him.

  “Get the data from his cell phone?” Finn asked.

  “Copied his contact list and his recent call list,” she told him. “It’s not a smart phone. No GPS. Does Leon want to press charges about the stolen ID?”

  “I haven’t been able to get hold of him.”

  “How about the owner of the car?”

  Finn shook his head. The number Heather had given him for Tyrone Linero also went straight to voicemail, which told him the phone was most likely turned off for the moment. He had left yet another message there.

  With no complaints from the possible ‘victims’ and Finn’s flimsy evidence about the relationship of Leroy to Pinder and Heather Clayton and thus to the missing gorilla, there was no way any judge would give him a warrant to put a GPS tracker on the car. The best they could do was charge Leroy Shane with speeding and let him go on his way, but leave the car on the list and hope to get further reports. While the local officers processed Shane out of custody, Finn checked Leroy’s cell phone information.

  A number of calls listed were to “Ro.” The number was different from the one Heather had given him. Looked like Tyrone had ditched his previous cell phone along with his life with Heather and Jenny. He tapped in the number for Ro.

  A deep voice answered. “Talk.”

  Finn tried his best to sound like a street tough. “Shit, man, where are you?”

  There was a short pause. “Fuck you.”

  The line went dead.

  So much for impersonating a slimeball. He began the ninety minute drive back to Evansburg.

  Chapter 18

  On the outskirts of town, as Finn’s thoughts wavered between a sandwich from the sub place and a full takeout meal from The Home Plate, he spotted a distinctive box-shaped car waiting to exit the parking lot of the Overnite motel. Hadn’t Kathryn Larson reported that someone called in a suspicious dark gray Kia Soul in one of the burglarized neighborhoods?

  The car made a right onto the street, two cars ahead of him. The light ahead turned green, and Finn slipped into the left lane and pulled up to get a better look at the Soul. The vehicle was an evergreen shade, not gray as Larson had reported, but the tw
o colors would look the same at night. Through the back window he saw splotchy, light-colored fabric. Flowered pillow cases. Sitting on end, lumpy, filled with hard-cornered items. Two young men up front. The driver had dreadlocks and wore rainbow colored sunglasses. He turned his head, saw Finn looking at him, shifted his gaze back to the road in a hurry. Had Finn been dressed in uniform, he would have thought nothing about that; police officers made even the most law-abiding citizens nervous. But he was wearing plainclothes and driving an unmarked car.

  Finn slowed and signaled right, ignoring the blaring horn of the following car, and pulled in behind the Soul. Dreadlocks, watching in the rear view mirror, held up his right hand, middle finger extended. Finn grabbed his mike, reported his location and described the Soul, and requested a patrol car to assist in a traffic stop. Then he rolled down the window. As he was slapping his light on top, Dreadlocks slammed down the gas pedal. The Soul roared ahead through a red light, barely dodging a pickup that had started across the road. Finn hit his siren and crept through the intersection.

  Not one, but two patrol cars closed on the Kia, one coming from each way, sirens blaring. Apparently it was a slow day on patrol in Evansburg; multiple uniforms had responded. They forced the Soul to the shoulder as Finn pulled up and threw open his door, swiveling his feet to the ground and pulling his pistol out of the holster. Scoletti was exiting his patrol unit when the doors on the Soul burst open. Both occupants decided to make a run for it in different directions. Scoletti took off in foot pursuit of Dreadlocks. The officer from the other unit was talking on the radio, then slid back in his seat to follow in his car. The other suspect dashed toward a vacant lot.

  Finn sighed—he wasn’t dressed for a run, but then neither was the typical police officer in Kevlar and service belt. He yelled, “Stop! Police!” and then, when the suspect inevitably didn’t slow down, he kicked into high gear after the fleeing kid, who zigzagged across the lot between tufts of overgrown grass and abandoned junk. Finn stuck to a straight line, leaping over obstacles and closing the gap, until his foot came down on a piece of pipe that rolled his shin straight into the edge of a rusted-out engine block. Cursing, he staggered on like Frankenstein, sticking behind the kid as he galloped to a barbed wire fence and tried to slip between the strands. He apparently was not a farm kid, because first he caught the back of his shirt and then the lower leg of his jeans and ended up wriggling like a fly caught in a web.