Cecelia studied me seriously over the tops of her eyeglasses. ‘Sure. What about?’
‘I need your professional opinion.’
‘Take an aspirin and call me in the morning.’
A giggle bubbled up from somewhere. ‘Not that kind of opinion!’
‘Shhhh,’ she cautioned. ‘Save it for later. She’s about to start.’
For the folks in the audience not familiar with Zana’s sad life, Monique had prepared an illustrated slideshow. Her talk began with a photograph of the Caucasus Mountain range, enrobed in snow. Just looking at it made me shiver and wish I were wearing a sweater.
‘No photographs of Zana exist,’ Monique continued, forwarding to the next slide. ‘Just a pen and ink drawing done years after her death. Contemporaneous descriptions described her as an “ape woman,” but was she? One theory held that Zana was the last survivor of a tribe of Neanderthals living for millennia in a remote region of the Caucasus between Georgia and Russia.’
The drawing filling the screen was a close-up of a woman’s face in an eerie, Mona Lisa-like pose. Her slight smile revealed a row of small, even teeth. With her unusual blend of Negroid and Mongoloid features, how unlike the local population this wild woman must have appeared, I thought. The Caucasus. Isn’t that where the word ‘Caucasian’ – white people – came from?
‘Until recent times,’ Monique told her audience, ‘scientists could only speculate on Zana’s origins based on her physical appearance as described by people who had seen her. Reportedly, she stood six and a half feet tall with dark gray skin. Her body was covered with red hair and a mane ran along her spine. Zana had a broad face, close-set eyes, high cheekbones and ape-like, forward-facing nostrils. To her captors, she certainly seemed to be half woman and half ape. Some even claimed she was a yeti.’
Monique paused for effect. ‘Then along came DNA.’
All around us, heads nodded knowingly. After Professor Cloughly’s presentation the previous day, most of the audience probably felt themselves fully informed – experts even – on the role that DNA analysis played in the search for Bigfoot.
‘In 2013,’ Monique continued, ‘Professor Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford, pictured here with a supposed yeti scalp, reported that analysis of Zana’s DNA proved she was one-hundred-percent Sub-Saharan African in origin. Sykes speculated that she could have been a slave brought to Abkhazia by the Ottoman Empire.
‘Further analysis by Sykes in 2015, however, conducted on the saliva of six of Zana’s living relatives and a tooth from her deceased son, Khwit, caused him to rethink that theory. Sykes now believes that while Zana was one-hundred-percent African, her DNA did not match any known African group, speculating that her people may have migrated to the remote Caucasus approximately 100,000 years ago.’
‘Wow, just wow,’ I said under my breath.
Then Monique burst everyone’s balloon. ‘Some of the professor’s colleagues doubt his findings, questioning both the sources of his samples and his methodology. Others believe the press release was a publicity stunt timed to coincide with the publication of his book on the same topic.’
Next to me, Cecelia sniffed. ‘First time that’s ever happened, I bet.’
I had to smile, but not for long.
Listening for twenty minutes as Monique detailed the enslaved, often shackled, tortured life of Zana, a disabled, mentally-challenged outcast – local squires got her drunk and had contests to see who could mount her, for heaven’s sake! – I felt like I needed a bath. When she bore children – alone and unassisted, bathing the newborns in a cold mountain stream – they were taken away from her and raised by local villagers. Fortunate for the children, I thought. And also, more than a century later, for the geneticists.
‘Witnesses and residents of Abkhazia, including her descendants, establish Zana’s existence beyond any doubt,’ Monique continued, ‘yet experts still wrestle with her background and biological identity. Was she simply a victimized woman suffering from a disability, a runaway African slave or even a surviving Neanderthal?’
The faded photographs of Khwit and his daughter, Natalia, that had dominated the screen for several minutes dissolved. A photograph of a Red Army soldier – looking so much like the Russian president that I figured Monique must have a sense of humor after all – took their place. ‘Are there others of Zana’s kind living in the Caucasus, relics of an ancient African race of humans?’ she asked rhetorically.
‘A curious story. In 1941, shortly after the German invasion of the USSR, a wild man was captured somewhere in the Caucasus by a detachment of the Red Army. He appeared human but was covered, like Zana, with fine, dark hair. Under interrogation he was unable (or unwilling) to speak, so the unfortunate creature was shot as a German spy. We know no more about him.’
Monique aimed her pointer and the Red Army officer dissolved, returning to the haunting drawing of Zana. ‘Zana died over 125 years ago, but her unusual genetic legacy remains an enigma yet to be solved. Sykes is to be commended for applying scientific methods in an attempt to answer this question, but to the scientific world at large it is still far from resolved.’
In the flurry of questions that followed Monique’s provocative talk: have they looked for Zana’s bones? Yes. In the 1960s. Did they find them? No. Who were the fathers of her children? Nobody knows for sure, although Edgi Genaba’s wife raised the two youngest children and Zana was buried in the Genaba family cemetery.
I whispered to Cecelia, ‘I’m ready to go. Are you?’
Several minutes later the two of us were settled into chairs in a comfortable corner of the lobby, not far from the fireplace.
‘Cecelia, before we go any further, I need to clear something up.’
‘Go for it,’ she said, looking a bit puzzled.
‘I just spent a harrowing lunch hour up in my room watching a Martin Radcliffe video. You can probably guess which one.’
To my astonishment, Cecelia grinned. ‘I certainly can.’
Thinking she was simply putting a brave face on what had to have been a traumatic experience, I touched her arm and said, ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize the man was such an obnoxious bully. You looked like you were about to cry.’
‘I was good, wasn’t I?’ she said, still smiling.
I sat up straight. ‘What do you mean?’
Cecelia patted my hand where it rested on her arm. ‘I put Martin up to it, Hannah. As a scientist, I was getting rusty. I needed to get out of the classroom and into the field. I’d applied for a sabbatical but the university was digging in its heels. Budgetary constraints, teacher work load, yada yada yada. A bit of institutional embarrassment on national TV was a small price to pay to get them to finally sign off on my expedition.’
‘You devious wench!’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘It must have been one heck of an expedition to make it worth being humiliated in front of millions of viewers,’ I said.
‘Oh, it was. Totally.’
I jabbed her with my elbow. ‘So, don’t keep me in suspense. Where did you go?’
‘To the ruins of a Great House near Monument Valley, just on the Arizona side.’ Cecelia paused. ‘You’ve heard of cliff dwellings?’
‘My parents subscribed to National Geographic,’ I said, as if that answered her question.
Cecelia laughed. ‘Well, one thing I’ll bet NatGeo didn’t tell you about was “man corn.”’
‘Uh, no. What’s man corn?’
‘Think about it,’ she said.
I didn’t like where my mind was taking me.
Before I could say anything, though, Cecelia continued, ‘Archeologists from the University of Arizona discovered charnel deposits in this particular dwelling – food dumps dating back to the twelfth century. On analysis, the bones were determined to be human – men, women and children.’
I shivered. ‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’
‘I’m afraid so. There was unmistakable evidence on the skulls a
nd on the bones of butchering and burning, but in order to make a clear case for cannibalism, rather than a simple massacre, they asked me to come in.’
‘I thought your expertise was scat.’
‘Exactly. At one of the sites they uncovered fossilized coprolite, or desiccated human turds. Based on analysis techniques developed in the nineties for similar remains at Chaco Canyon, I tested the turds for traces of human myoglobin.’
‘I’m assuming the results were positive.’
‘They were.’
‘Yuck,’ I said.
Cecelia, still grinning, said, ‘I love my job.’
‘Speaking of jobs,’ I said as I dug my iPhone out of my bag, feeling confident that I could cross Cecelia off my list, ‘I’d like your opinion on something.’
‘Which hat am I wearing? Scientist, musician or girlfriend?’
‘Scientist.’
I tapped the Safari icon, brought Jim Davis’s website up on my iPhone and clicked the link to the YouTube video he’d posted. The tape began to roll.
Together we watched the creature as it strolled to the Metolius riverbank with the now-familiar two-legged, stooped, loping gait. How it turned, looked at the camera then skedaddled.
‘You’re a doctor, Cecelia,’ I said. ‘See how he walks? Does that look like an ape to you or a man trying to walk like an ape?’
Cecelia squinted at the screen. ‘Hard to tell. The quality’s not the best.’ At her request, I reran the video. After studying it for the forty-three seconds it took to run its course, she said, ‘We need Martin Radcliffe, you know. He was the pro when it came to video tape analysis.’
‘Right. But he’s not here, so who would people go to next?’
‘Brad Johnson, maybe? He’s been working with Martin for a while, I understand.’
‘I can track Johnson down later, I suppose, but right now I’m wondering what you think.’
Cecelia tapped the screen. ‘I notice that the arms are longer than normal for a human but they could be extensions.’
‘How about the feet?’ I asked.
‘Abnormally large, for sure. But if they’re fake I’d expect him to have more difficulty walking.’
‘Maybe he’s had a lot of practice,’ I suggested.
Cecelia seemed to be considering what I’d just said. ‘Practice doing what? Walking around in fake feet? Not something one does every day, Hannah.’ She paused. ‘Except maybe circus clowns.’
‘Can you train somebody to walk like an ape – convincingly, I mean?’
‘Absolutely. I saw a documentary once, I forget how long ago. They interviewed a guy named Terry Notary – an odd name, so that’s why I remember it. Notary is an actor and former Cirque du Soleil performer who starred in some of the Planet of the Apes movies. He ran a kind of ape school for the actors, billing himself as a movement coach.’ She drew quote marks in the air. ‘It was all very zen, as I recall,’ she said. ‘Humans are not that far from apes – I don’t have to tell you that. But, in order to play one convincingly, Notary had his students start with a blank slate, lying quietly in a hammock somewhere, presumably thinking ape-like thoughts.’
She paused then furrowed her brow. ‘I remember the arm extensions in particular because they so closely resembled the leg braces used by polio victims.’ She reached out a hand. ‘Here, let me have your phone for a minute.’
A minute later, we were looking at a video showing Terry Notary – young, handsomely appealing in a Patrick Swayze sort of way, a lock of dark hair falling oh-so-charmingly over one eye – demonstrating the use of his arm extensions to walk exactly, to my unprofessional eye, like an ape.
‘Don’t try that in high heels,’ I said.
‘You’d have to ply me with alcohol first,’ Cecelia said with a laugh. ‘Planet of the Drunken Apes.’
‘So, what’s your professional opinion of the Jim Davis video?’
She grinned. ‘You’re not going to let me out of this chair until I give it to you, are you?’
‘Not a chance.’
‘A guy in an ape suit. Well-trained but definitely a guy.’
TWENTY-TWO
‘Tennessee has another wild man, much more satisfactory than the last. He is seven feet high, covered with shaggy hair, very muscular, runs away from men with astonishing swiftness, but approaches unprotected women with wild and horrid screams of delight.’
The Elyria Independent Democrat (Elyria, Ohio), May 10, 1871
After she left to get ready for dinner, I sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking about what Cecelia had said. Planet of the Apes. Every time I turned around there was a reference to it.
How many Planet of the Apes movies had there been over the years? I wondered. Six? Seven? I decided to look it up when I got a moment to myself, perhaps in another year or two.
Fortunately I didn’t have to wait that long.
After dinner, I intended to make a brief appearance at the Bigfoot Encounters story session on the patio. Billed as a ‘no-shame zone,’ the session was run like a twelve-step support group. Some folks were reluctant to join in at first, but once they knew they were among like-minded friends they opened right up. No embarrassment. No judging. Just like an AA meeting. These people really understood.
I had been lured out to the fire pit not so much out of a desire to hear stories about Bigfoot but by the aroma of hot chocolate. Tina, the server, had clearly overcome her earlier shyness. She’d deserted the hot chocolate and mulled wine serving station and was, instead, the center of attention. Keeping her voice just low enough for those clustered around the fire pit to hear, she soon held the audience of fifteen in complete thrall. I grabbed a cup of hot chocolate and stood on the periphery of the crowd, sipping carefully and listening.
‘Me and my sister were visiting my grandparents on their farm near Chagrin Falls, Ohio,’ she began, ‘and we were playing on the swings near the edge of the woods. For some reason we both stopped playing and looked up, and there, in plain view about ten feet away, was a big, ape-like animal.’
‘She should read audio books,’ Susan said, joining me suddenly. ‘Lovely voice.’
‘Shhhh,’ I said, though I totally agreed.
Tina’s eyes flashed in the firelight. ‘It had a wrinkly face like a chimpanzee, with a widow’s peak at the hairline, you know, and really black eyes. I think it was about eight feet tall and covered all over with long, brown hair, like in those ape movies.’ She paused then looked from one audience member to the next before continuing. ‘We all just froze, you know, and stared at each other. Then it took off into the woods and we ran home. We told our grandparents that we’d just seen a monster but nobody believed us. Grandaddy said it must have been a bear. Gramma said we were staying up too late watching scary movies on TV so she sent us to bed early.’
As Tina continued with her tale, I was swamped by a wave of nostalgia for the summers I’d spent at that camp in rural Vermont, sitting around the campfire telling ghost stories. I leaned closer to Susan and rasped, ‘Who stole my golden arm?’
‘Stop it!’ Susan said. ‘You’ll make me spill my drink!’
‘I was only twelve then,’ Tina said, ‘and I’d never even heard of a Bigfoot. Then you know what happened?’
‘What?’ someone said.
‘Tell us! Tell us!’ chirped a tiny voice I recognized as seven-year-old Kylie.
Tina waited everyone out, building suspense like a natural-born storyteller. ‘I saw that Patterson and Gimlin film the other night, that’s what happened. I saw Patty.’ Tina’s voice, even after all the years that had passed since the sighting, quavered with excitement. ‘Patty was i-den-ti-cal to that creature I’d seen all those years ago in O-hi-o.’
She sat back in her chair and folded her hands primly at her waist. Her story was done.
Susan had quietly excused herself and gone off on some errand. I took several steps backward, merging into the shadows. As the next storyteller began his tale, I sneaked away and went to my room.
<
br /> I kicked off my cruel shoes, flopped down on the bed and began massaging the cramps out of my toes. When I thought I would be able to walk again, I grabbed my iPhone off the bedside table and swiped it on.
Finally, there was a text message from Paul. The Resolute had reached Cape May and the crew were enjoying crab cakes, beer and long, hot showers ashore.
I texted back, ‘Wild and crazy times. More later.’ I didn’t mention poor Martin.
Before allowing myself to be distracted by a game of Words With Friends – my sister, Georgina, was cleaning my clock so thoroughly with seven-letter words like ‘quizzify’ and ‘jukebox’ that I suspected her of cheating – I got down to business.
How many times had the Planet of the Apes been mentioned, just today? I had already been thinking about its significance, and then Tina, of all people, mentioned it again.
I powered up Google and had a look.
Starting in 1968 with the classic starring Charlton Heston and including the 2001 remake by Tim Burton, I counted nine films: Beneath the, Escape from, Conquest of, Battle for, Rise of, Dawn of and War for the.
But the fact that made me gasp, fall back against the headboard and squeak ‘Ohmahgawd’ was this. The Planet of the Apes franchise was owned by Twentieth Century Fox.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes had been filmed by Fox in 2011, about the time I figured Brad Johnson would have been interning there.
I grabbed my phone with the intention of texting Jake, until I remembered Jake didn’t ‘do’ texting on his prehistoric clamshell. I used the bedside phone to call his room but he didn’t pick up. I left a message for him to call me back.
When he did, five minutes later, I picked up on the first ring.
‘Brad Johnson worked at Twentieth Century Fox about the time they were filming Rise of the Planet of the Apes,’ I told him. ‘Do you think he would have had access to the ape costumes?’
‘That’s quite a stretch, Hannah. You don’t have to work for Fox to have access to ape costumes. Any popup Halloween costume shop would do nicely.’
I made a rude noise. ‘I don’t think so. Those are obvious fakes. Even seen at a distance on a blurry, jittery video, you’d be able to tell.’
Footprints to Murder Page 17
