The Only Clue

by Pamela Beason

  Horror froze Grace in place. She stood with one hand clamped over her open mouth, and the fingers of the other twisted into her T-shirt.

  Neema wasn’t done. Moving her hand from the bird’s neck to its other wing, she stretched the crow out in front of her face, sniffed its breast, and then yanked, ripping a wing from the bird’s body. Dropping the pieces in the dust, she jammed a finger into the bird’s breast, then stepped in the feathers and blood as she ambled to the rope net and pulled herself up onto it.

  Grace watched, revolted, her heart sinking as the big gorilla slowly climbed the rope webbing. Neema had always hated crows, but she’d never hurt another animal before. Did she believe she was protecting Nest? Or did she simply want to kill something?

  Kanoni approached the bloody corpse with halting steps. After studying it for a few seconds, she thrust her stick forward to nudge the bird’s beak. Stepping over the mess of feathers and blood, Grace snatched up Kanoni with one arm and Nest with the other and carried them outside the enclosure.

  Jon Zyrnek stood just outside the gate. His expression was grim.

  “You saw?” she asked.

  “Nobody else did.” He put his hand on the gate, just above hers. “I’m going to clean that up. And then I’m going to get rid of all the blood in the barn, all right?”

  Grace nodded. She rested her chin on top of Kanoni’s head as she kept an eye on Neema at the top of the net.

  Neema’s eyes had been devoid of emotion while she ripped the bird apart. In her relatively short lifetime, the female gorilla had lost two mates, the only other members of her species she’d known before Kanoni was born. Unlike a gorilla in the wild, Neema didn’t have an extended family to comfort and support her.

  Humans scarred by tragedies could turn into monsters, but people might understand why. Mentally ill people sometimes got help. Mentally ill animals were usually exterminated.

  Was the gentle gorilla she loved gone forever?

  Chapter 21

  Finn woke up burning with fever. He called in to tell the desk sergeant he was going to be late.

  “It’s just as well, Finn, you’re not exactly the Captain’s favorite person right now. The reporters are driving us all bonkers.”

  Wonderful. He wasn’t anyone’s favorite person right now. Grace had certainly made it clear he wasn’t hers. Why had his offer of a sanctuary made her furious? He’d never understand women. He swilled down three aspirins and fell back into bed.

  When he regained consciousness three hours later, a cat was curled up on his chest, and another one was draped across his head. He found the dog in the living room chewing on a leather shoe, a woman’s slip-on. The McKennas had made the mistake of leaving the guest room door ajar. Now Grace’s mother would hate him, too, as well as thinking he was an uneducated hick.

  He limped to the guest room to return the shoe. The bed was made and the room was empty, except for the mate to the chewed shoe, which sat on a neatly written note in the middle of the dresser.

  We’re on our way home. I’m not sure we helped Grace, but surely she realizes we only want the best for her. And for you as well. We know you have been affected by our daughter’s troubles, too.

  Hope you’re feeling better. Do you know a one-legged woman who might use this shoe? We’d suggest giving it to Cargo, too, but you shouldn’t reward bad habits.

  Thank you for your hospitality, Matt, and please extend our gratitude to Scott and Dorothy for their kind company in this trying time.

  –Charles and Maureen McKenna

  He crumpled the note. Well, at least that was one complication removed from his life. Now for the others. Pulling himself together, he drove to the police station and limped through a small cluster of shouting wannabe reporters. Wading through that human barricade was starting to feel routine.

  On his computer, he found an emailed report saying that the corpse in the woods was definitely not Kevin David North. Damn.

  But, the report noted, the corpse did have the same blood type as Ryan Connelly, so further DNA testing was being done. Remembering the exhausted expressions of the parents, Finn wondered if Ryan’s death would be a mercy to the Connelly family. They’d grieve, but the anxiety of constant worry about their son would finally be over.

  That reflection, of course, shifted his thought to Grace and Gumu. What would her reaction be if Gumu was found dead? Or if the male gorilla was never found at all? There were support groups for parents of missing children, and for spouses of the deceased. But having a gorilla stolen or killed wasn’t an issue that a person could find a support group for.

  Ty Linero’s car had been reported abandoned beside the road between Kennewick and Moses Lake. There were no reports of other cars stolen nearby, leaving Finn to wonder if Leroy Shane had hitchhiked or been picked up by one of his buddies.

  Burglars Elijah and Octo hadn’t been able to raise bail and were in jail awaiting trial. Detective Finn would be notified when the trial date was set. He needed to work at matching the list of stolen items with their owners. In his current condition, comparing paperwork and doing notifications seemed easy and welcome tasks. At least those two criminals had been located and captured; he was tired of looking for missing people and animals. He was beginning to hate that word, missing. Usually people were not truly missing, but intentional runaways. Or simply absent, no-shows.

  Which reminded him, the truck driver at Grace’s had mentioned that a worker hadn’t shown up on Sunday morning to help remove the portable toilets after the open house event. He called the office of Samuels Sanitation. The dispatcher had to contact Nate via radio, but he called Finn within a few minutes.

  “Do you remember the name of the guy who didn’t show up for the McKenna job?” Finn asked.

  “Remember him, but his name? I’m bad at names, but I’ll have it here, hang on...”

  Leroy Shane. Tony Zyrnek. Finn was betting on Nate’s next words naming one of these. Instead, the man said, “Here it is. Ty Linero.”

  Ty? He swallowed. It fit. Ty had told Heather he was picking up a job to get more money. He hadn’t lied about that, anyway. “Was he the guy who was supposed to lock the gate when you drove out?”

  After a brief hesitation, Nate said, “Yeah. That’s right.”

  Finn thanked him and hung up. So both Ty Linero and Tony Zyrnek had access in the right time frame. Both knew their way up the back road to the parking lot in the rear of the barn. It seemed probable that Zyrnek had lied to him about knowing Linero.

  Mason hailed him from the other side of the room. As was so often the case, the tech had been surfing the internet. He pointed to a video clip on the screen. “Weren’t you looking for this guy?”

  The news clip showed Frank Keyes at the door of his apartment. At first he looked surprised to find a reporter and camera operator standing on his doorstep. He smoothed down his hair with his fingers as the reporter said, “Mr. Keyes, years ago you were convicted of killing a gorilla named Spencer who belonged to Dr. Grace McKenna.”

  “A gorilla is not a who,” Keyes snarled on the screen. “Animals are not people.”

  “Do you have any knowledge about Dr. McKenna’s current missing gorilla, Gumu?”

  The reporters looked like the usual college kids out for a scoop. This had to have been what Grace meant when she said she had an idea about Keyes.

  In the video, Keyes’s eyes gleamed with anger. He was practically frothing at the mouth as he said, “You are harassing me.”

  “Did you kill Gumu, Mr. Keyes?”

  Keyes took a step toward the camera operator, who backed up, jarring the camera, which briefly showed a close-up of the reporter’s hair and then the apartment building wall before focusing again on Keyes’s face.

  “I am not the criminal!” he yelled. “People who believe in talking gorillas are the criminals. They are the sinners! Satan rules the earth and tries to persuade good people that we are descendants of monkeys.” He turned toward the camera. “Armageddon is
coming, people. Are you ready to face Judgment Day?”

  The video ended.

  “Think he had something to do with all this?” Mason asked.

  “I’m going to find out. Thanks for showing me.” He returned to his desk and called Melendez’s cousin, weird Eddie who used the same sign maker as Frank Keyes. I am NOT a monkey’s uncle. Unfortunately, Eddie was out running errands, but his wife seemed willing to talk. “Yep, I’ve seen him carrying that monkey’s uncle sign. He and all the others are so proud of that slogan.”

  “The others?”

  “The Repentance Angels. Eddie was like a mangy bear that weekend, he was so mad because they said he needed to stay here and protest when they were all having fun camping out somewhere. But he’s a good soldier.”

  He thanked her, hung up, and dialed the officer who had checked on Keyes’s whereabouts. “Know anything about a group called Repentance Angels?”

  “Repentance Angels. They are a group of religious extremists who believe they’ll get extra credit in heaven for doing all sorts of wacko stuff. They are pretty much anti-anything that could be considered liberal or progressive or scientific. They write a lot of wacko letters to the editor. They like to break windows and spray paint “Repent!” all over the place. Their members have trashed businesses and thrown paint and manure at various people.”

  “Think they’d steal a gorilla?”

  “I don’t know why they would, but anything’s possible with these nuts. They’re not exactly rational.”

  “Great,” Finn groaned. “Can you check on the members on the weekend that Keyes was missing?”

  “I don’t have to. They had a big convention over close to Forks, on the Olympic Peninsula. I got a friend who’s a ranger over there, and he told me about a clash over the size of their bonfire. If Keyes was with them, it’s no wonder he didn’t want to admit it.”

  Finn thanked him for the information and hung up. So it looked like maybe Keyes did have an alibi after all. At least that was one door closed.

  His brain felt as swollen as his leg. All he had was circumstantial evidence, and he hadn’t located anyone. How could he get more information out of Zyrnek? Would it do any good to try Leroy or Ro or Ty’s phone again, using a different spoofed number? While he was pondering those questions, Miki strolled through with the mail cart. She delivered two faxed reports and a couple of stamped envelopes to his IN box and then slapped a USA Today down next to his keyboard. “Sarge wanted you to see this.”

  He unfolded the newspaper. Gorillas and Tigers in the Back Yard: The Dangers of Exotic Pets in the U.S. was the top news story. Crap.

  Yes, the case of Dr. Grace McKenna’s missing male gorilla was prominently featured, along with other instances in which a tiger was found walking down an Ohio road, a puff adder had killed a pest control technician, and a lion had mauled a trash collector to death after escaping from a private sanctuary. Apparently, Americans needed to watch out for wild animals from around the world even if they never left their own hometowns.

  * * * * *

  Jon Zyrnek watched his father’s face as he looked up at Neema, perched high in the net. Tony’s expression was worried. “And that’s all she does?” he asked. “Sit up there wearing Gumu’s blankets?”

  “Pretty much,” Jon told him. “She won’t eat. She won’t take care of Kanoni.” He wasn’t about to describe the crow killing.

  Tony shook his head and made a tsk-tsk sound. “Will she get over it? Can’t you distract her with candy or toys or something?”

  “I think the only thing that would help is for Gumu to come back. Otherwise, she might just die of grief.” He watched for his father’s reaction.

  Tony Zyrnek’s expression didn’t change much as he turned and put an arm around Jon’s shoulders. “I’m sorry you’ve been going through this. I know it’s hurting a lot of people. Detective Finn’s been over to talk to me a bunch of times.”

  Jon shifted away from his father to study his face again.

  “I know,” his father said, meeting his gaze. “Finn thinks I might be in on this. Do you think that, too?”

  He didn’t know how to answer that, not yet. He swallowed and said, “I need you to take a walk with me, Dad.”

  He led his father down the back driveway. At the spot he’d marked with three rocks set in a triangle, he stepped off the road. Picking up a small windfall branch still bristling with pine needles, he used it as a brush to sweep away the dirt he’d kicked over the bolt cutter, revealing the words Evansburg Auto Salvage etched into the metal handle.

  He watched carefully as his father squatted and bent close to look.

  After staring at the bolt cutter for a long moment, his father said, “Oh, crap.”

  So it was true. He was going to lose his dad all over again. He was going to be the son of a jailbird for the rest of his life.

  “There’s this, too.” Jon moved over another foot and swept the lock clean, too.

  Tony Zyrnek stood up, frowning. He waved his bandaged hand over the tool and lock. “Did you take a photo of these?”

  Jon’s throat was so tight, he had to swallow again before he could answer. “Several.” He hoped his father was not going to ask him to delete them.

  His father nodded his head. “Okay.” He studied the area for a minute longer, then said, “If I took the photos, they’d never believe me. They still might not.” He held out his hand. “I need to borrow your cell phone, son.”

  Jon handed it over and waited as his father punched buttons. Of course Tony Zyrnek would make a call to warn the scumbag friends who had helped him kidnap Gumu. Next he’d ask Jon to hide the evidence again. Jon steeled himself to refuse.

  But then he heard his father say, “Detective Finn? You need to get out here to Grace’s back driveway as soon as possible. There’s something you gotta see.”

  His dad hung up, patted him on the shoulder and said, “Good job, son.”

  The kind words made what was coming all the more painful. They spent the next twenty minutes talking about plans for the future. Hiking this summer. Road trips to places they’d always wanted to see. Rialto Beach. The San Juan Islands. Things that would never happen now. His dad was telling him about Palouse Falls when Finn roared up the drive.

  Tony pointed him to the bolt cutter and lock, and Jon told Finn the story of when he found them. Finn transferred his angry gaze from son to father and back again as if trying to decide who to hit first. Finally he grunted in disgust, and then squatted to inspect the items carefully, taking photos with his phone.

  “You need to look for a man named Keno,” his father told Finn. “We worked together at the storage yard until he got fired.”

  Finn returned to his car, snapped on some latex gloves, and then pulled out a baggie of little orange flags and a marker. He wrote numbers on two flags and pushed them into the soil to mark the locations, then he bagged the bolt cutter and lock and moved them to his trunk.

  “Am I going to find your fingerprints on these, Zyrnek?” he growled.

  “You might,” his father said. “’Cause of where they came from. But you need to look for Keno. Unless he was smart enough to wipe ‘em, his prints will be there, too.”

  “Right.” Finn slammed the trunk of his car. “And does this mysterious Keno have a last name?”

  “I don’t know it. Ask Grant Redd at the salvage yard; he’ll know.”

  “I will.” Finn aimed an index finger at Tony Zyrnek. “I better not find out you left town while I’m checking this.” He pulled open the driver’s door of the car.

  “You won’t. Hope your leg is better.”

  After Finn took off, his dad swatted him on the arm and smiled. “This is the first big break, and we owe it to you. We’re going to get Gumu back.”

  It sounded plausible. He wanted to believe. But he couldn’t forget that his dad was an excellent storyteller. And an even better con man.

  * * * * *

  Finn stopped at the salvage yard and si
ghted Grant Redd walking to his office from his shop, wiping grease from his hands with a rag.

  “Uh-oh,” said the owner on seeing him. “This can’t be good. Zyrnek’s not here. Monday’s his day off.”

  “Does the name Keno mean anything to you?”

  Redd twisted the rag in his hands. “Yep. That’s the guy I canned a couple of months back.”

  Finn pulled out his notepad. “Last name?”

  “North.”

  North? That was the name of the guy Whitehead had given the Mustang to. “Kevin North?”

  “Yeah. But he went by Keno.”

  “Kevin David North?”

  Grant put his hands on his hips. “Don’t know about the David part, but Kevin North is right.”

  “Why’d you fire him?”

  “I could never trust him to show up on time, and I saw him in town a couple of times talking to a pretty rough-looking dude. The two of them looked like they were cooking up something.”

  “Wait here.” Finn walked back to his car and pulled out his case file. As he walked back, he leafed through the pages and then held out Leroy Shane’s mug shot to Redd.

  The owner nodded. “Yep—that’s the mutt Keno was friendly with. He just looked like trouble, and you know ex-cons aren’t supposed to associate, so I just figured, you know, nip this situation in the bud before it comes back to bite my ass.”

  “You have good instincts,” Finn told him.

  “Another thing about Keno,” Redd added, “Seemed like a lot of things went missing when he worked here.”

  “Tools?”

  Redd squinted. “How’d you know? I lost a couple of pry bars, a blow torch, a bolt cutter, and probably some other stuff I didn’t notice. Each thing’s not worth so much, but it adds up, you know?”