Footprints to Murder

by Marcia Talley

  Speech delivered, he fell back in his chair, arms wrapped around himself, sulking like a petulant child.

  ‘You may very well have encountered a Bigfoot, sir,’ Cloughly said gently, ‘and he may very well have been standing behind that tree, as you said, but a white-tailed deer rubbed up against the tree first.’

  From the rigidity of his back, the guy didn’t seem convinced.

  ‘Professor?’ This from a young woman, a bronze-colored ponytail protruding from the opening in the back of her navy blue ball cap.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m new to this so I’ll probably sound stupid, but there’s some words up there I don’t understand. What’s an almas? What’s a yeren?’

  ‘Almas is the Mongolian word for “wildman,”’ the professor explained, ‘and yeren quite literally means “wild man” in Chinese. ‘Bigfoot is a relatively new term, dating to 1958, I believe. As long as there have been campfires there have been as many words to describe these mysterious creatures as there are cultures,’ she continued. While cradling the laser pointer in her left hand, she ticked them off on her fingers. ‘In Kenya, it’s the Chemosit or Nandi Bear.’ She leaned forward conversationally. ‘It eats the brains of its victims. There’s the hibagon in Japan, which is smaller and cuter than Bigfoot, and a creature called mapinguari in Brazil. Mapinguari means either roaring animal or fetid beast – take your pick, although hunters in the Amazon report that the animal reeks of feces and rotting flesh so I’d plump for the latter. In Sumatra it’s the orang pendek, or short person, and in Australia they’re referred to as Yowies.’ She smiled and surveyed the audience. ‘Have I forgotten anything?’

  ‘Skunk ape,’ someone volunteered.

  Cloughly smiled. ‘Yes, primarily in the Everglades. Recently photographed. Anyone else?’

  ‘Hairy Bill!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Jacko!’ A woman’s voice, from the back and to my right.

  ‘Nuk luk!’

  ‘Wooly booger!’

  The woman with the ponytail, her head studiously bowed, scribbled frantically in her notebook.

  Someone else shouted, ‘Tsiatko!’ and the woman looked up, wondering, I suspect, how to spell the word.

  Professor Cloughly raised a hand. ‘Thank you all! You’ve made my point, I think. Many centuries, many cultures, many names. That’s what makes this study so fascinating to scientists like me.’

  She clicked forward to the next slide, a huge, stylized question mark. ‘How can all these people be wrong?’

  A murmur of agreement swept the room like a wave.

  ‘Remember, the absence of evidence we found here does not mean that such creatures do not exist. What it means is we do not yet have the evidence to prove it.’

  The tattooed guy in front chose that moment to stand, make his way clumsily along the row, stepping on toes, and into the aisle. I caught the distinct odor of hops as he stomped past me and out the door, muttering, ‘Bullshit.’

  On stage, Professor Cloughly waited, calmly observing his departure. When the last of his blue jean-clad butt had disappeared into the hallway, she smiled indulgently and continued the thought. ‘The analysis techniques scientists have developed here and elsewhere are rigid, accurate, definitive.’ She spread her arms wide, taking in the entire audience. ‘You, people like you, are the key. Keep bringing us samples. Perhaps one of you will discover something new, a sample that produces a genomic sequence that GenBank has never heard of. Now that would be something to write home about!’

  With a modest, my-job-here-is-done bow, Professor Cloughly unclipped the microphone from her lapel and left the stage.

  The audience sat quietly for a moment, as if in shock. Then someone to my right began to clap. I joined in (figuring it went with the job description, although the woman certainly deserved it) and before long the room erupted in applause, heads turning toward the back of the room to acknowledge the speaker. ‘That’s a slick way to avoid the Q and A,’ I whispered to the professor, who had come to stand in the aisle next to my chair.

  She smiled and bobbed her head, acknowledging the applause. ‘It’s show business, ladies,’ she whispered back. ‘Always leave them wanting more.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘In the Tian Shan mountains themselves live a wild people, who have nothing in common with other human beings. A pelt covers the entire body of these creatures except the hands and face. They run around in the hills like animals and eat leaves and grass and whatever else they can find.’

  Johann Schiltberger, The Bondage and Travel of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia and Africa, 1396–1427, London, Hakluyt Society, 1879, p. 35

  Even A-type personalities like me who’d be lost without their to-do lists need a little down time. My chance for a break came after I’d thanked Cecelia for her research, funded, she told me when I asked, not by the state of New Jersey but by the seemingly bottomless pockets of E. Gregory Gilchrist, the mining magnate and billionaire banker I’d met at the opening reception the night before. While I chatted with Cecelia, Leah Solat loitered nearby. I figured she would attempt another run at me, twisting my arm about sharing Jake’s crime-scene photographs, but by walking Cecelia to the elevators I managed to escape to my room without incident.

  Once there, I kicked off my shoes and flopped down on the bed, plumping all five of the pillows – soft, hard and decorative – behind my back. I closed my eyes for a few minutes, hoping for a cat nap, but my iPhone, still tucked deep down in my handbag, kept calling to me:

  I have some photographs you want to see!

  Sorry, no. I really don’t.

  C’mon, Hannah. You know that you do!

  Be quiet! I have a trash icon and I know how to use it.

  It can’t hurt to look, can it?

  I’m not listening to you!

  How silly you are. Photographs don’t bite.

  After five minutes, I caved and dug out my phone.

  Staring at the screensaver – a photograph of my grandchildren taken at Thanksgiving – I wavered. I could text my husband. I could watch Cosmos on Netflix. I could play Solitaire.

  Go on, just do it!

  I sighed, swiped the phone on and entered my password.

  There were no messages from Paul. Just as well, I thought. It wouldn’t matter if it took him a few more days to find out that his wife had turned up, once again, in the general vicinity of a dead body. The last time that happened he’d been downright grumpy about it.

  On my home screen, the rainbow-colored rosette that was the Photos icon seemed almost to pulsate: Tap me! Tap me!

  So I did.

  While I had sat a safe distance away like a mushroom on a log, Jake had photographed the victim from all sides. There were twenty-four photos in all. The first two made me cringe. The close-ups of Martin’s injuries made me wish my camera weren’t quite so robust, megapixel-wise. I groaned and paged on. By the time I got to five and six, I’d overcome my revulsion. Photos eight, nine and ten, from a forensic point of view, were fascinating. By the time I got to fifteen, I knew what had killed Martin Radcliffe, and what’s more, I knew that Jake did, too.

  Among the pine needles and moss-covered rocks not far from the mess that had been Martin Radcliffe’s head lay a broken tree limb the size of a man’s arm. Jake had zoomed in on the ragged end where the branch had been ripped away from the trunk of the tree. I was no expert, but in the clarity provided by the iPhone’s retina display, the dark smear on the pale, raw wood certainly looked like blood. There was no doubt in my mind, however, about the clump of blond hair that clung to the jagged tree fibers.

  Unless bears had evolved to use tree limbs as weapons, no gigantopithecus blacki had done the deed. Martin Radcliffe had been murdered by homo sapiens.

  I picked up the bedside phone and dialed the hotel operator, asking to be put through to Jake Cummings. After four rings, he picked up.

  ‘Cummings.’

  ‘This is Hannah. Do you have a minute?’ />
  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Harley and I are just watching America’s Funniest Home Videos. What’s up?’

  ‘I looked at the photographs.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘When you borrowed my iPhone, Jake, before you returned it, did you share the photos with the local cops?’

  ‘No, why?’ he said. ‘They have their own cameras and much better quality, too.’

  ‘Then why on earth did you take those awful pictures?’

  Jake snorted. ‘You think I was taking pictures of my victim as souvenirs like some homicidal maniac?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I said, ‘but you must have had a good reason, other than morbid fascination.’

  ‘I wanted time to study them, Hannah. You know what they say: use it or lose it. It’s been a couple of years. I don’t want my investigative skills to get rusty.’

  ‘You should apply for a license as a private investigator then,’ I suggested quite seriously.

  ‘As soon as I get the money together, Hannah. It’s not exactly free.’

  I sat quietly for a moment, staring at the last picture displayed on my screen, a closeup of the branch. ‘So, Officer Cummings, what do you think?’

  ‘You saw the branch?’

  ‘I’m looking at it now. Hard to miss.’

  ‘OK. From the damage to Martin’s skull, I figure he was struck from behind with a tremendous amount of force by a right-handed person. Picture a batter, warming up at home plate then knocking the ball clear out of the park.’

  I shivered. Let’s not and say we did, as my late mother was fond of saying.

  ‘Whoever it was dropped Martin where he stood,’ Jake continued. ‘I don’t think the poor guy saw it coming.’

  ‘So we agree it wasn’t a bear.’

  ‘No. Primates use tools. Grizzly bears, not so much.’

  ‘Or Bigfoot.’

  Jake paused thoughtfully. ‘Primates generally use tools to get food, not as weapons. We know three cases of gorillas in the Cameroon, however, who threw clumps of grass and tree branches at humans, so I don’t think Bigfoot can be entirely ruled out. But I think it unlikely.’

  ‘A human, then? You agree?’

  ‘Sadly,’ he said.

  ‘Disappointing in a way,’ I mused.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘I was thinking about something that Monique Deschamps said when I met her in the dealers’ room. How ironic would it be if Martin Radcliffe, the great debunker, had been killed by a creature he spent a lifetime denying existed.’

  If we had figured it out, the police probably had, too. They’d been at the scene, taken photographs and examined Jim Davis’s video and the tapes from the security cameras. Even as Jake and I chatted, an autopsy was being performed.

  As if reading my thoughts, Jake said, ‘Soon the whole world will know what you and I know. But in the meantime, it can work to our advantage.’

  ‘Our? You think we’re some sort of crime-solving team?’

  ‘Aren’t we, Hannah?’

  ‘I’m not a detective – I only play one on television,’ I said with a laugh. I thanked Jake for his professional opinion, said I’d probably see him at dinner and hung up.

  Then I deleted the photographs, one by one, from my iPhone. Those photos were the last thing I wanted my grandchildren to stumble over whenever they got bored playing Minecraft or Candy Crush.

  And I certainly didn’t need any aide mémoire. The sooner I replaced those graphic images in my brain with something more benign – like Facebook kittens decked out in Halloween costumes – the better.

  FOURTEEN

  Walker County, Georgia, 1889. ‘The wild man has again made his appearance … [He] was about 7 or 7 ½ feet high, hairy as an old bear and would weigh from his looks, 400 pounds; had a pole in one hand that looked to be ten foot long which he handled as easy as a stout, healthy man would a pipestem. His name was asked and the answer came in the shape of a large stone, which weighed at least 100 pounds, which was hurled at the inquisitive gentleman.’

  The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, GA), February 4, 1889

  Susan had asked to go over the following day’s program with me. After dinner, while almost everyone – including Jake and Harley – clustered on the patio around one of the fire pits drinking mulled cider and sharing Bigfoot encounter stories in a no-shame zone, I wandered into the lodge’s White Horse bar where Susan and I had agreed to meet. But either I was running early or she was running late.

  I skirted the bar, sat down at a small, round table for two and picked up the plasticized tent card that described the specialty drinks of the house. Adventurous whisky drinkers could order a Mountain Man-Hattan or a Fool’s Gold. Gin aficionados could drown their sorrows with a Silver Bullet; animal lovers with a Bighorn Cocktail or a One Good Buck. On Top of Old Smokey sounded a lot like Kentucky moonshine to me, but the Suspender-Free Zone, a blend of whiskey, lime and soda water, held promise. Tempting, I had to admit, but just to be on the safe side I sighed and ordered an alcohol-free spicy tomato juice concoction called A Bloody Shame.

  While I checked my iPhone for messages and waited for my drink, a couple wandered in and sat down at the table next to me.

  ‘Hi, Shannon,’ I said after they’d gotten settled.

  She looked up at me, her brow slightly furrowed.

  ‘We met at lunch. You were wrangling Kylie and a couple of other youngsters.’ I turned to the young man sitting across from her. ‘And you must be Colin.’

  He raised a dark eyebrow and looked concerned. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Kylie’s mother mentioned it. Carla Somebody or Other? She said you looked after the boys and she happens to have one of those.’

  He grinned. ‘Ah, yes, the irrepressible Jason.’ Colin ran a hand over his head, ruffling his tight blond curls. ‘Any gray you see here, it’s because of Jason.’

  ‘I’m Hannah, by the way,’ I said. ‘I help wrangle the presenters.’

  ‘Poor you,’ Shannon said. ‘Anybody giving you trouble?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s not too bad.’

  ‘What brings you two here?’ I said after a moment. ‘Excuse me for saying so but camp counselors of my experience tend to be more, uh, college age.’

  Shannon laughed, a bubbly, contagious sound. Even Colin seemed to relax and be drawn into it. ‘Brad Johnson got us the gig,’ Colin explained. ‘Shannon met him at a party in LA and we got to be friends.’

  ‘We were all “between jobs,”’ Shannon added, drawing quote marks in the air. ‘Colin starts at Sony in a couple of weeks but I’m still looking.’

  ‘What do you do?’ I asked Colin, genuinely curious about anything smacking of Hollywood, like most folks who devour People magazine while waiting for their hair to change color at the beauty parlor.

  ‘I’m a researcher for Jeopardy,’ he explained. ‘Every clue the writers come up with has to be backed up by two independent sources.’

  ‘You have to take a test to get the job,’ Shannon told me. ‘Just like the contestants do.’

  Jeopardy had been on the air since I was a kid in elementary school. I was going to ask Colin what Alex Trebek, the quiz show’s longtime host, was really like, but remembered he hadn’t started to work at Sony yet.

  Across from her, Colin was blushing modestly. ‘You’ll never guess in a million years what Shannon did.’

  I turned to Shannon, whose sly smile was daring me to take a stab at guessing anyway. ‘You must be an artist,’ I said. ‘I was super impressed by your face-painting talent. Did you hire out for parties?’

  ‘On the side,’ she said, ‘with BoomBoom the Clown, the Amazing Stefanini and a stripper named Tanqueray. But that wasn’t my real job.’

  ‘But you are an artist, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Did you work for Disney? Pixar?’ I guessed.

  Shannon laughed. ‘I wish!’

  The waitress delivered my Bloody Shame. After she went away with Colin
’s order for two Midnight Snowstorms, he took pity on me. ‘Ever watched Naked and Afraid?’

  I had to admit that I had wasted more time than I cared to think about on that silly television show, kind of a nude Survivor. Two naked strangers are dropped into a remote wilderness area with no food, no water and no clothes and have to survive for twenty-one days. Other than drawing clothing on the contestants, I couldn’t imagine what an artist could do for a show like that. It turns out I was half right.

  ‘I worked for the Blur Man Group,’ Shannon said. ‘It’s OK to show butts and butt cracks on the Discovery Channel but you have to blur out the boobs and the naughty bits.’

  I nearly choked on my drink, laughing. ‘It’s a family show, I take it?’

  ‘Go figure,’ Shannon said.

  ‘Isn’t it weird looking at naked people all day?’ I asked.

  Shannon shrugged. ‘Doctors do it. You get used to it.’

  ‘Shannon makes light of it, Hannah, but it’s painstaking work,’ Colin said. ‘They have to go frame by frame by frame, using computers and a stylus. You have to blur out the boob but keep the braid dangling down in front of it.’

  ‘It’s totally weird,’ Shannon said. ‘It’s the only job I know of where you can say, “Oh my gawd, look at that penis!” and not get fired for it.’

  ‘Blurred boobs have turned me into the sex fiend I am today,’ Colin said, patting her hand.

  ‘They’re gateway boobs.’ Shannon laughed. ‘Anyway, if I do my job right, everyone ends up with anatomy that’s as smooth as Barbie and Ken.’

  ‘I keep telling Shannon, she’s got a marketable skill. Who else can spot a bug on a nipple at five hundred paces?’

  ‘And ticks on dicks. It’s a glamorous job.’

  ‘So why did you leave?’ I asked. ‘Is the show going off the air?’

  ‘Are you kidding? There’s Buying Naked and Dating Naked. Next thing you know there’ll be Here Comes the Naked Bride and Groom.’ She sighed. ‘Two of the shows, Naked Vegas and Skin Wars actually use body painters but I’m aiming higher than that. You said it a few minutes ago, Hannah. Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks. Or Illumination Entertainment. They did Despicable Me.’