‘I don’t want to hurt you. Stay back,’ I said to her, feeling foolish about reassuring her as if she was a person.
I dug my knife out of my pocketbook and cut through the rope, pushing the outside door open. I was in the outdoor cage in no time. But I wasn’t alone. Sultan was outside too.
The silverback was still furious. Jumping and bellowing, he glared at me. I guessed he’d come outside into the cold to get away from the gunshot only to find himself face to face with another unpredictable human. I held the cattle prod close to my side, thinking that if he saw it in my hand it might enrage him further. It would me. I’d seen farmers use electric prods on cattle and hogs before and it was obvious they were painful.
From the other side of Eshe’s cage door I heard her chatter and Mavis’ voice. I couldn’t understand what Mavis said but she must be inside the holding room with Eshe and Daudi. All she had to do was crawl through Eshe’s cage and through the door to the enclosure and I – and Sultan – would be trapped here with her. I didn’t see how I could escape. Of course there was an exterior door on the outside cage for the keepers to use, but I could see from where I stood it was fastened with a lock so huge it looked medieval.
Then there was the door from the outside cage to the big viewing cage inside the ape house, where the rest of Sultan’s family remained. It wasn’t a door, actually, just a heavy plastic flap, and if I used it I’d find myself penned in with three gorillas instead of one.
Sultan had stopped howling, his head cocked toward the door to Eshe’s cage, listening to her whimpers. He dropped to his knuckles and edged forward. Since I was standing right next to the door I moved too, working my away along the cage wall away from the door and Sultan. The volume of Eshe’s chattering increased and now I could hear Daudi whimpering. Mavis must be in their cage with them. I backed further away from the door and raised the cattle prod. Sultan saw it and paused, baring his huge teeth at me.
Mavis opened the door and crawled out into the cage, mink, Luger and all. For a second the absurdity of my predicament overcame me and I almost laughed out loud. I was trapped in a gorilla cage with an angry silverback gorilla and a woman wearing a mink coat who wanted to kill me. The three of us created quite a tableau. Mavis standing by one door brandishing a Luger, Sultan on guard in front of the entrance to the room where his family was and I, armed with a cattle prod, slinking along a wall to get away from both of them. The going wasn’t easy. The enclosure was crowded with rocks, branches, a climbing structure and a small rubber pond built to provide some sort of distraction for the gorillas, but about as far from resembling their African home as I could imagine. There were some human toys scattered about too, a couple of balls and, of all things, a baby carriage. On the far side of the cage was the feeding area and the heavy door to the outside.
Mavis had the gun trained on me, but kept an eye on Sultan. The gorilla crouched, watching us both. The muscles of his huge body rippled, as though he was ready to pounce but couldn’t decide which one of us to tear apart first. I thought of screaming, but I knew that then Mavis would shoot me – and maybe Sultan too, if he attacked her.
‘If you use that gun now people will come running,’ I said. ‘Just give up, please. Give me the gun. We can get inside, away from Sultan, and call the police.’
Mavis just laughed at me. A loud, ringing laugh that started Sultan prancing.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I’m a rich woman. I have no intention of losing anything that I have, not one thing, do you understand me? I’m going to kill you and escape. When I shoot you all I have to do is get out through the mother gorilla’s door into the ape house. From there I’ll be out of the park before the first police car turns into the front gate. It’ll be fun watching your dimwit friend Sergeant Royal try to figure out why you were shot with a Luger in a gorilla cage.’
The three of us stood there like gunfighters daring each other to draw first. Which was fine with me. The longer Mavis hesitated the more likely it was that someone, anyone, would come along, see us and sound an alarm. But she was a smart woman, and she knew she needed to act quickly.
I saw the resolution cross Mavis’ face just in time to fling myself to the ground, banging my head hard against the iron bars of the gorilla cage as I fell. I heard the bullet whiz by me overhead as I hit the concrete floor. The next one would get me for sure.
As I lay on the cold concrete, dizzy from the knock on my head, I heard Sultan roar. Then another gunshot, and Sultan bellowed in pain. But he wasn’t down, he kept roaring, and then I heard Mavis scream in terror. Before I blacked out entirely I heard a police whistle sound and the pounding of feet running from all directions.
‘Is she alive?’
‘Yes. I think she just bumped her head. She’s not bleeding anywhere and her pulse is OK.’
I heard Mavis sobbing a distance away. I struggled and failed to open my eyes.
‘The other woman?’
‘Sultan about ripped her arm off, but we’ve got a tourniquet on her. The ambulance is on the way.’
‘Sultan?’
‘Bleeding from his shoulder, but inside raising Cain. The vet’s coming with a tranquilizer gun.’ I was glad to know Sultan was alive; I could care less about Mavis. I struggled to sit up and speak.
‘Ma’am, you need to lie still.’
‘Has someone called the police?’ I asked.
My eyelids felt like they were weighted down with anvils, but I forced them open. A zoo guard and a civilian, I supposed a visitor to the zoo, were bent over me.
‘You want Sergeant Harvey Royal,’ I said. ‘It’s his case.’
The other customers in the zoo café studiously avoided staring at me. I didn’t blame them. It wasn’t every day that two women and a gorilla mixed it up the way Sultan, Mavis and I had.
Sergeant Dickenson had gotten me away from the gorilla cage before the press and photographers arrived, saving me from exposure on the front page of tomorrow’s newspapers. He’d wrapped a blanket around me and brought me to the zoo restaurant where a doctor who’d been touring the zoo examined me and said that, except for a goose egg over one ear, I was uninjured. My head hurt and if I moved it I saw stars, but the cup of hot chocolate warmed my hands and tasted wonderful. Dickenson had gotten me a piece of pie too, but I hadn’t eaten any yet.
Harvey came in the entrance and limped over to our table, sitting down next to me.
‘Would you bring the car around, please?’ he asked Dickenson, who nodded and left.
‘You need to eat some of that pie,’ Royal said to me. ‘You look very pale. Have you had lunch?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘no I haven’t. But I’m not hungry.’
Royal picked up a fork and cut off a piece of pie and held it up to my lips.
‘Eat,’ he said, ‘or I’ll take you to the hospital. You’re probably in shock and you need sugar.’
I took the bite of pie he offered me. ‘You can’t take me to the hospital,’ I said. ‘You know I work for a government agency. I need to stay out of this.’
‘Then you’d better eat something.’
‘At least give me the fork so I can feed myself.’
He was right. After I’d polished off the pie I did feel better.
‘Is Mavis going to live?’ I asked.
‘Not in the long run,’ he said. ‘She’ll hang. But she was still breathing when they put her in the ambulance.’
‘Sultan?’ I asked.
Royal raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean the gorilla? I think he’ll be OK. I heard one of the zookeepers say the vet dug a bullet out of his shoulder. That’s one big damn animal. I saw the size of his teeth when he was lying there on the concrete.’
‘You should see him when he’s angry.’
In the car on the way home I found myself growing sleepy. Dickenson was driving; Royal was in the back seat trying to keep me awake so he could pump me for information.
‘Look, I’ll come by tomorrow when you’re feeling better and
take a statement,’ Royal said. ‘But please, just give me the high points.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Mavis Forrester’s mother was a cleaning lady at the German embassy in the thirties. She had a key to the back door. After she died, Mavis found it when she was cleaning out her things. She used it to steal from the embassy after the German legation left.’
‘That took nerve.’
I shrugged. ‘She knew her way around. She was careful, and the Swiss believed the place to be secure. The residents had been evacuated so quickly that they left plenty behind. I mean, the Swiss were supposed to protect the building and its contents for the duration of the war. She stole jewelry, money, even the Luger. She sold most of what she stole.’
‘That’s how she could afford her own apartment.’
‘And a mink and an expensive social life. Anyway, she got overconfident and started stealing valuable objects that were in plain view. Stinson noticed they were missing and concluded someone was getting into the embassy, and it had to be someone with a key.’
‘Why didn’t he notify the Swiss?’ Royal asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. Another lie. Stinson was working for OSS and didn’t want to attract attention to the embassy. ‘Anyway, he ran into Al Becker at the Baron Steuben Inn one night. They remembered each other from when Al worked at the embassy too. Then I suppose one of them, or both, recognized Mavis. She had often accompanied her mother to work.
‘So Stinson contacted Mavis and told her of his suspicions. I don’t know what his plan was, maybe he was just going to ask her to stop burglarizing the place and give him her key. Anyway, she agreed to meet him at the Baron Steuben, hoping to come to some agreement with him. A key to the back door was hidden on the ledge above the door – all the regulars knew it. Mavis killed Floyd.’
‘She’s one strong woman.’
‘And has no conscience at all. She’s got ice water running in her veins. She didn’t hesitate to drive that knife right into Stinson. Cal almost ruined the setup. He came in to open the bar. But you know Cal: he was terrified. She offered him money to hide the corpse behind the bar until closing time, when she could dispose of it. She left through the back door and got rid of the knife and bloody clothes. Then she returned to the bar and ordered coffee with a shot of brandy. And was cool as a cucumber when Walt found the body. She killed Al when she found him skipping town, tossed him over the railing of the Taft Bridge and threw his suitcase after him. In broad daylight. Just because he might know Stinson suspected her of breaking into the embassy.’
‘Why did she come after you?’
‘I ran into her at the Baron Steuben Wednesday night. It had been a rough day and I had a couple of drinks. I guess she didn’t like the questions I asked her. Or me checking on her alibi for the night Al was murdered.’
We pulled up to the door of ‘Two Trees’, but Royal took a firm grip on my arm, preventing me from climbing out of the car.
‘You’re lying to me,’ he said. ‘There’s more to all this, I know there is. And you will tell me.’
We held a staring contest that ended in a draw. He continued to keep me from getting out of the car.
‘Talk,’ he said. ‘Louise, our friendship won’t survive this, and I’ll find out the truth anyway.’
I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t tell him Stinson worked for OSS, searching the old embassy for intelligence. If I did he’d have to tell the Swiss and that would be the end of that. The repercussions would be ugly.
‘I haven’t lied to you,’ I said. ‘Have I told you everything? No. I can’t. But I can tell you that you’ve got the right killer. And if you put any more of the story together I will verify what I can. That’s all I can do.’
Royal released me. I didn’t like the look in his eyes at all. The man was angry. And sad, too. The lame, tired old cop had trusted me. I suppressed an urge to take his hand and fought back tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him. ‘I had no choice. There’s a war on.’ I stepped out of the car on my own and walked as confidently as I could down the sidewalk to ‘Two Trees’.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
After Germany’s surrender in 1945, the US State Department seized the German embassy. When it was searched officials found three million American dollars in cash. The building remained vacant until it was demolished on November 24, 1959.
Louise's Lies Page 20
