The Only Witness

by Pamela Beason

  "Really?" Brittany said. "Like in the movies?"

  "Yep," Grace said. "That is real gorilla behavior. Climbing to the top of the Empire State Building to catch planes is not."

  Talking helped pass the time. She asked, "What's Neema's favorite food?"

  "Hmmm, there are so many." Grace considered. "Oranges. Jell-O. Yogurt. Lollipops would top the list, I guess. Neema calls them 'tree candy.'"

  "That's smart." Neema sounded like an especially bright gorilla. She'd be the key to finding Ivy.

  They went on walking for another twenty minutes, scrambling over logs and slipping on pine cones and zigzagging among the trees. Brittany occupied her thoughts by trying to imagine Ivy sleeping in her bassinet, her little lips pursing in and out as she dreamed. No, better yet—Ivy sleeping in her arms, her velvet cheek nuzzling against her breast.

  "We're here." Grace's voice interrupted Brittany's reverie.

  Nothing looked different. Trees and more trees.

  "Well, we're close by," Grace corrected, glancing at her GPS device and then at the surroundings. "We'll have to do a big spiral out from here. Look for apple trees, an old homestead cabin, a big willow."

  Brittany turned to her left to begin, but Grace's hand stopped her. "Hang on a second."

  Grace stared into the darkness and yelled, "Neema! Gumu!"

  They waited and listened. Brittany flashed her light around. Just the tall straight trunks of Douglas firs. "I don't hear anything but water," she said.

  Grace perked up. "You hear water?"

  Brittany nodded. "Like a stream or a waterfall or something."

  "Lead on, MacDuff!"

  Brittany fumbled her way toward the water sounds. What was a MacDuff? In a few minutes, they found a little stream and followed it until they literally ran into the branches of a big willow. At that point, Grace got very excited and trotted around among the trees while Brittany waited, leaning against an apple tree. Were there gorillas out there in the dark, watching?

  Her heart was beating fast. Neema. Then Ivy. When Grace returned, Brittany whispered, "Are they here?"

  "Not now," Grace said.

  The gorillas were not here? They'd driven that clunky old van, bouncing over miles of rutted roads, and walked all this way in the middle of the night, and the gorillas weren't even here? Oh, what was the fucking point anymore? Nothing worked. She couldn't stand it any longer. The heavy pack, the pitch-black darkness. She slid down to the ground. Bringing up her knees, she rested her forehead on them, wishing she could just disappear. Just stop being. Why couldn't she make that happen?

  Grace knelt next to her and threw an arm around her shoulders. "Neema and Gumu are not here right now, Brittany, but they may not be far away."

  May not? Might as well say Ivy may not be far away! The 'Poor Brittany' crowd had been saying that to her for weeks now. The 'Damn Brittany' crowd said Ivy was dead.

  "Neema and Gumu were here, Brittany. And not very long ago."

  She lifted her head. "What makes you say that?"

  Grace's headlamp shone in her eyes for a second, then Grace turned away, casting the beam onto the drooping willow branches. She parted the leafy greenery with her hand and shifted her head to light up some broken branches and—

  "Is that poop?" Brittany asked.

  "Gorilla feces," Grace confirmed. "They're relatively fresh." She shrugged off her backpack and crawled deeper into the shadow of the willow. "C'mon. We're sleeping here."

  Brittany pushed herself to her hands and knees and crawled after her, making a wide detour around the poop. "Why? You said the gorillas weren't here."

  Grace was already rolling out her sleeping bag. "Because," she said, "I think they'll be back."

  Chapter 23

  Eighteen days after Ivy disappears

  As he walked from the police station to the courthouse the next morning, Finn could see that Reverend Jimson's press conference had been effective. Dozens of people milled about, divided into two factions. The pro-ape contingent was into individual expression. LISTEN TO THE ANIMALS read one poster carried by a student wearing an ARU T-shirt. HUMANS ARE THE ONLY DUMB ANIMALS read another. The inevitable I DON'T EAT MY FRIENDS from the vegetarians. And a few signs held simple marker messages such as Go Gorillas! and Half of My Friends Are Apes.

  On the opposite side of the square, the anti-ape faction was seemingly more organized. Their posters were all the same matching white and came in only three varieties: I DID NOT DESCEND FROM APES, GOD GAVE MAN DOMINION OVER ANIMALS, or TEACH THE CONTROVERSY.

  The college news crew was egging all the protesters on, of course, filming one side and then the other. Then they spotted Finn climbing the steps.

  "Detective Finn! Detective Finn!" They all rushed him. "Is it true that you're using testimony from that gorilla lady?" "How is this related to the Ivy Morgan case?" "Why have you targeted Jimson Janitorial Service?" "Are you anti-Christian?" "What's the latest news on the gorillas?"

  He wished he knew the answer to the last question. He tried to call Grace several times, but her cell phone just went to voicemail. She no doubt had it turned off to save battery power. Or there was no service wherever she was. According to Josh, she was still out in the national forest searching for Neema and Gumu, with Brittany Morgan in tow.

  Finn plowed through the barrage of reporters with one arm upraised, trying not to break his teeth or bloody his nose on any of the outthrust microphones. They didn't belong only to the college news crew; some of the mikes bore ID tags of stations in Seattle and Spokane. Great. Just great.

  They followed him to the metal detectors, where the security officers pushed them back. Then he was finally through the gauntlet and into the quiet marble hallways.

  He'd expected the reverend himself, but instead, Jimson's HR Director, Lisa Dvorak, awaited him in Sobriski's office. She was surprisingly pretty, in a tailored navy suit and heels, her blond hair cut into a chin-length bob. She was, however, just as bitchy in person as she had been on the phone.

  "Detective Finn, ape whisperer, I presume," she said on first meeting him.

  Finn smiled. "Play nice, this could take awhile." Barracuda.

  "Got that right." She stepped out of the way to reveal a stack of four white cardboard boxes. "Have fun. When you've identified the records you want to keep, I'll be back."

  "Wait!" Finn yelped. "What sort of order are these in? I may need your help."

  She bared her perfect teeth. "We have obeyed the subpoena, Detective. We are certainly under no obligation to help you persecute our employees."

  Finn looked to Sobriski, who shrugged. Damn.

  "And the records do not leave the courthouse, correct, Judge?" The woman locked eyes with Sobriski, who said, "I've reserved a conference room for your use, Detective." Swiveling back to Dvorak, he said, "It will be locked at all times."

  "It better be." She turned and abruptly left.

  "Sweet woman," Finn murmured. Sobriski pretended not to hear.

  A bailiff transferred the boxes to the conference room. Finn opened the first box. Inside were hundreds of personnel records in alphabetical order, each file labeled neatly with name, address, social security, skills, assignments, salary information, and one facial photo. Nothing on criminal history. No names of parole officers.

  The records were in alphabetical order, not grouped by work location. Jimson had no doubt done that on purpose. Sweet mother of humanity, this was going to take years. They'd have to match employees to work locations, then match social security numbers to criminal records, and try to find links to vehicles and Charlie Wakefield.

  Finn flicked open his cell phone. "Send Mason over here," he ordered.

  Brittany woke up to a gentle warm breeze blowing across her face. When she opened her eyes, she nearly screamed. A leathery black face was only inches away from hers, so close she could feel the hot breath coming out of its nostrils. Red-brown eyes burned beneath a heavy black brow. The gorilla was gigantic.

  "Grace!
" she whispered. The ape hooted and reared back on its hind feet, then bared startlingly long, sharp teeth. Gorillas had fangs! Oh god, there was another huge black monster on the other side of Grace's sleeping bag. "Grace!" she squeaked.

  Grace finally rolled over, said, "Wha—?" and rubbed her eyes. Opening them, she took a look around. "They're he-re!" she said in a singsong, obviously happy. She sat up. "That's Neema, beside you."

  The gorilla tapped herself on her chest and waved a huge black hand.

  "Neema fine gorilla," Grace said.

  Neema was talking? Brittany pushed herself upright. "Ask her where Ivy is."

  The larger gorilla on Grace's left side made what seemed like an obscene gesture. Fuck? Prick? Was there swearing in sign language?

  "Gumu wants a banana." Grace watched the animals. "And so does Neema."

  Banana, not penis. Thank god she hadn't said anything out loud.

  Neema leaned close, her breath hot on Brittany's neck. She stretched out a long black finger and touched Brittany's hair where it lay on her shoulder. "They have fingernails!" Brittany said. She looked down. "And toenails!"

  "I don't know why that always surprises people," Grace said. "We have practically identical DNA."

  Neema was still gesturing. "Yogurt, Jell-O, cucumber, banana, cabbage, milk," Grace translated.

  Gumu repeated his earlier sign. Brittany pointed. "He just wants a banana."

  Grace laughed. "Oh, believe me, he wants a lot more than that; he just doesn't know the signs for the other foods yet."

  Grace pulled her backpack into her lap and extracted two bananas. She was immediately rushed by both gorillas. They snatched the fruit and plowed through the drooping branches.

  "Quick," Grace said, "Get dressed and don't—"

  A black hand snaked back through the branches, caught Brittany's backpack, and then was gone.

  "Shit!" Grace yelped.

  They both ran out into the daylight. "Hey!" Brittany shouted. "Bring that back!"

  Hooting like jackals, the gorillas vanished into the woods on the other side of the clearing.

  By noon, Finn was bleary-eyed after pawing through the files in the four boxes. Mason had come over and set up a computer and a scanner.

  "OCR is your only hope," Mason said.

  Finn briefly considered slapping him with a file folder to make him speak English, but instead laid it on top of the stack.

  Mason noted the dirty look. "Optical character recognition," he informed him. "It turns scanned documents into text files that you can use with a word processing system. So, in other words, you can scan these pages and then search for names or terms on the computer."

  Finn groaned. "Sounds like a hell of a lot of work."

  Mason nodded. "It is. And OCR is notoriously buggy, so it won't work perfectly, but it'll still be faster to match names or social security numbers against NCIC." He made a face at the stack of files on the table. "You want to scan all those?"

  Finn had pulled out the files of personnel working at the three schools in Evansburg, Coeur d'Alene, and Portland. "To start."

  "Yeah, right." Mason headed for the door.

  Finn panicked. "Where are you going?"

  "To get another computer, and to shanghai Miki into scanning. Any objections?"

  "Good plan." Finn waved him out. He shook his cell phone out of his pocket, speed-dialed Grace's cell and held his phone to his ear as he walked to the window. The demonstrators on the court steps had diminished in number, but when Mason appeared, they became more vocal. A reporter and cameraman, lounging against the side of an SUV, glanced his way with interest.

  The computer technician plowed through the crowd, then turned and flashed a sign that looked suspiciously like an upraised middle finger. Thank heavens it was fast and Mason didn't wear a police department uniform.

  "This is Dr. Grace McKenna. Please leave a message."

  "It's Matt again. Hope you're okay." He flipped the phone closed. Damn. According to Josh, she and Brittany Morgan had not yet returned from their search for the gorillas. Was he going to have to mount a search for the two women, too?

  Grace turned in place in the middle of the woods, gritting her teeth in frustration. Neema and Gumu had simply vanished. Again. She'd always been afraid of what the gorillas might do if they were freed, and now she had her answer. They'd run; they'd climb; they'd be wild gorillas within minutes. She couldn't blame them; who wouldn't choose racing through the woods over being locked up in a pen? They might last until their food supply ran out, the first snow of winter fell, or they were killed by a hunter.

  She and Brittany spent hours spiraling out from the homestead site, looking for any sign of frolicking apes. Grace was fully dressed and wore her backpack, afraid to leave it behind in case the gorillas raided their campsite in their absence. Brittany wore the T-shirt and shorts she'd slept in, along with her hiking boots. The rest of her clothes were in her pack, wherever that was.

  "Along with my new cell phone," the girl kept reminding her.

  A helicopter buzzed overhead, and Grace pulled Brittany into the cover of a Douglas fir. "What are you doing?" Brittany screeched. "Why don't you want them to find us?"

  The girl seemed on the edge of hysteria. Grace explained her reasoning. If the media found them, if anyone found them, the resulting barrage of helicopters and people would make the gorillas bolt for new territory.

  "If we just stay here, I think they'll come back," Grace said.

  "But you don't know that," Brittany retorted. "You don't know what will happen next. They could be gone for good and then I'll never find Ivy."

  Grace had no answer for that. She barely had enough food for herself and Brittany to spend another night in the woods, let alone to lure the gorillas back.

  By noon, they'd found Brittany's jacket and water bottle. By dark, they found a pair of jeans and the remains of her backpack. The gorillas had ripped it open, breaking the zipper, to get at the food inside.

  No cell phone. That seemed to upset Brittany more than losing the gorillas. She knelt by the shredded backpack, sobbing. "What's the use of trying anymore? We're never going to find the gorillas and I'm never going to get Ivy back."

  Wonderful, Grace thought. She was stuck in the woods with a teenager who had already tried suicide once. She didn't have any weapons or pills, but she wondered if she should remove the shoelaces from their boots before turning in. Or stay up all night to keep watch on the girl.

  "C'mon, Britt," she gestured to their makeshift camp beneath the willow, trying to sound light-hearted. "Let's eat dinner and turn in. Tomorrow will seem brighter." Please let it be so, she prayed.

  Grace left the girl under the branches, sitting on her sleeping bag, despondently rummaging through their meager food supplies. Stepping outside of the umbrella of branches, she turned on her cell phone and called Josh. She related the events of the day, and told him that she and Brittany were okay but would not be back today.

  "I'm betting Neema and Gumu will show up again tomorrow morning," she said.

  He'd been out with the search crews all day, he reported. She could hear television news in the background. Her cell phone blinked, warning that the battery was getting low. She hadn't had a chance to recharge it before hopping on the helicopter yesterday. "Can you call Brittany's parents for me?" she asked.

  "Uh," he said.

  "Josh? Did you hear me?"

  "How far do you think you are from the highway?"

  Her heart lurched. "Maybe a mile and a half. Why do you ask?"

  Josh's voice was tight. "A semi driver reported hitting two large animals on the highway. The camera is…uh… showing these two black … lumps in a ditch right now."

  "Oh please no," she said, "Are they—?"

  "What?" Brittany, eavesdropping on Grace's side of the conversation, had crawled out from under the willow and now tugged at her arm. The girl's eyes were already filling with tears in anticipation of bad news.

  "Can't tell,
" Josh told Grace. "They're filming with a spotlight from a helicopter, and waiting for highway patrol to arrive. And now they've gone to commercial."

  Her phone blinked again.

  "You have internet on your phone, don't you?" he said. "Check KEBR's website; they'll have the latest." His words were clipped and there was no trace of his usual humor.

  "Tell me," Brittany begged at her elbow. "Just tell me."

  Grace's cell phone flashed its warning again, then the message Shutting Down appeared. "Gotta go, Josh," Grace said. "See you tomorrow, whatever happens." The readout went black. Grace stuck the useless phone back into her pocket. Thank god the GPS was a separate device; she needed it to get them back to the van.

  "Just tell me," Brittany moaned. "Is Ivy dead?"

  "That was nothing to do with your baby," Grace told her.

  "The gorillas are dead, then?"

  "No. Neema and Gumu are not dead." Grace hoped she was telling the truth.

  Chapter 24

  Nineteen days after Ivy disappears

  After a day spent pawing through hundreds of files and scanning anything that appeared promising, Finn had a list of Jimson employees who had worked in the last six months at the three schools where babies had disappeared. With the help of Miki and Mason, the pertinent data had been scanned in and compared with police records. True to the New Dawn philosophy, most were ex-cons with records of petty but repeated drug or theft offenses. None was considered violent.

  Finn paced the floor of the courthouse conference room while the other two were at lunch. What now? Interview all the staff at all the schools, ask if any of them had snake bracelets and if they knew Charlie Wakefield? Yeah, right. The Captain would go berserk with a request for that much time and manpower. He had to link Jimson employees to Jimson cars somehow.

  He stared out the window, willing a solution to come. The protestors had already dwindled to only two on the anti-gorilla side, which he now thought of as the anti-Finn side, because the department switchboard received a dozen calls a day to poke fun at the gorilla man or to complain about Finn's harassment of Jimson.