It only exacerbated things. “God, Norman, please don’t play detective with me.”
“Diantha, I am not playing anything with you. You told me before that he needed the gun to protect things on his boat. Now you say he wanted it because he felt threatened by Max and Merissa.”
“I thought I told you that before.”
“No, you didn’t. But isn’t Max well off if not wealthy?”
“Yeah, maybe. But Heinie told me he had found out through friends that Max had lost a bundle on some sort of Franklin Mint coin deal. You know, a replica of an old gold dollar. He didn’t lock it in when the price of gold was a lot lower than it is now. It kept rising, making the thing too expensive for most collectors. The ones that watch television ads. Anyway, he lost his investment.”
It all fit neatly. Max loses a bundle. He takes up with Merissa, and then murders Heinie for his money. It fit too neatly. “I’m not sure it signifies,” I said. “Still, I wish you had told me.”
“I suppose I should have.” Her tone, like mine, had grown conciliatory. Then she said, “Norman, I think I’m going to take Elsie and spend some time at the cottage.”
I nodded, not wanting her to say what she said anyway.
“I really can’t stand being around you when you’re like this.”
“Like what?”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know. You don’t trust me anymore. You don’t look at me anymore. You don’t touch me or smile. I feel like a … leper. In my own house.”
I wanted to protest, but I knew she was right. Better than I, she understood that this latest betrayal revived the other one. Although our life together had resumed quickly and facilely after her affair, the wound had yet to heal completely. Now it opened again, magnified into something allied with the tangible consequences I faced.
I understood what she meant because I could barely stand being around myself. I felt like the road of my life had turned into a dead end after all. Worse, an ambush. I stood and took her by the hands. “Let’s not lose each other,” I said. “Go, but don’t go.”
She collapsed against me tearfully. “I’ll go and not go,” she repeated. “Just for a while. If you need me, I’ll be there. I’ll wait for you.” She turned away, wiping away tears, and I already missed her.
We began the sad task of splitting up, however temporarily, sorting through stuff for her and Elsie to take with them for an extended stay at the cottage. I helped Diantha load her big vehicle. It tore at my heart and almost made me relent, to watch her and Elsie drive away.
So I’m alone in this great shack of a house, licking my wounds like some trapped and dying beast. I did make a large and powerful martini to assist me in my self-pity. But I only took a sip before placing it in the freezing compartment of the refrigerator. Because …
Because I have found self-delusion is preferable to self-pity — if only because the former can lead to action whereas the latter leads to more of itself. Thus, for a few heady moments, I saw myself as the character who, falsely accused, must venture forth to prove his own innocence. I made a mental note to drop by the Coin Corner and have a chat with Max Shofar.
At least for now the reporters have gone. It appears there’s been a suicide that the police are investigating. According to the Bugle, the body of Martin Sterl, who recently sold his high-tech firm for a tidy bundle, was found slumped over the wheel of his Mercedes by his young wife of some six months. “Although an apparent suicide, police are treating it as a suspicious death.”
That may be a sop to the man’s children by his first wife. In a tearful appearance at a press conference I happened to watch on television, the man’s grown daughter vehemently denied that her father had committed suicide. “I talked to Dad the day before. I’d never seen him happier. Except for that … woman …”
As for that woman, the news clip showed a petite, pixie-haired gamine in black averting her eyes from the camera. How well I know that response. At the same time, I realized that I had seen her before. The name Stella Fox did not ring a bell. And I had met but did not know her late husband, who had been much older than she. But where had I seen her? The recollection tantalized. I racked my memory. I cut her picture out of the Bugle. I went online and copied the news footage of her in dense shades as she hurried away from the blaze of lights. I studied them. Of course it may be just that my detecting instincts had been triggered. Not, I told myself, that I didn’t have a far more pertinent mystery to solve.
8
Alphus has come to stay with me for the time being. Despite our best efforts, no suitable place has been found to lodge the animal, a word I use with inner quotation marks. I went over to Sign House with every intention of telling Millicent Mulally that Alphus would have to go back to the Pavilion with the other chimps. I was going to tell her that she and other members of Sign House could have visiting rights, could even come and take him out for afternoon forays. But I now understand exactly what she means: It would be like sending an innocent man back to jail.
It’s not simply that he and Millicent exchange signals at a rapid and decisive pace; he responds appropriately whenever I say anything vocally to him. I did some signing, but I couldn’t follow all of his deft answers, a problem I have when practicing my awkward French on native speakers.
In person, the first impression Alphus gives is of a hairy, good-natured individual. His clear, amber eyes are deep-set beneath thick supraorbital ridges. His brow slopes back to thick, coarse hair, which he parts in the middle and which might be reminiscent of an old-fashioned style except that he combs it over his ears to minimize their marked protuberance. He has freckled skin that ranges from tawny to dark, an insignificant nose with small nostrils, and a prominent upper lip that bows out over a wide mouth set in what appears to be a permanent smile. A bristly beard, flecked with gray, frames his face and covers his slightly receding chin. The habit he has of resting an index finger against his cheekbone makes him appear thoughtful.
Which I found him to be. Indeed, Dr. Simone had told me not to be surprised at his intelligence. It turns out he had been involved in a risky procedure conducted by the demented Dr. Gottling when he was trying to genetically engineer a new human prototype. The operation, something called peripheral vascular angioplasty, killed two of Alphus’s fellow chimps but apparently worked for him. It is a procedure in which a catheter is inserted into the main artery leading to the head. A balloon is then introduced into the catheter and inflated in successive stages along the artery, enlarging it and concomitantly increasing the flow of blood to the brain.
One of his Pavilion mates went utterly mad and had to be euthanized in the recovery room. One died of a brain hemorrhage, and Alphus, already a very bright animal, underwent what one researcher called an increase in intelligence of several magnitudes. Once he had recovered from the procedure, it became obvious to everyone involved that he had become not merely smart but smart by human standards. Indeed, it was this enhanced IQ that allowed him to escape.
We were sitting in the small parlor of Sign House each with a cup of tea when I told them what my original intentions were. They both listened gravely. Then, when I said I had changed my mind, they gave each other that raised slapping handshake you see athletes using.
We discussed practical details. Alphus understands that if he leaves the house unattended he will be apprehended, forcibly if necessary, by the authorities. Millicent told me in simple signage that Alphus had friends at Sign House who would be willing to come over from time to time, especially during the day, to keep him company and take him for walks.
She then quickly wrote a message on what looks like a pocket computer and showed it to me. It read, “A. has a very close friend named Ridley living here. He is a very nice young man, but he is still not quite mature enough to have him be responsible for A.”
She showed the communication to Alphus. He nodded.
At that point we went around the house, meeting some of the residents, including Boyd Ridley. A st
ocky young man with blondish hair, a handsome broad face, and blue eyes touched with glints of manic mischief, Ridley, as he likes to be called, hails from a prominent and quite wealthy family in Tennessee. He is also mathematically gifted, according to Millicent.
We packed Alphus’s belongings — a lot of CDs, books, and clothes, including some shirts, two ties, and a suit jacket. When I noticed him carefully wrapping a bottle of expensive single-malt Scotch, I looked quizzically at Millicent. But she just shrugged.
I won’t deny I found it unsettling to have a chimpanzee sitting next to me in my ancient Renault with his seat belt buckled on. But then, even with people gawking and pointing at us, it quickly grew to seem normal. Especially when, indicating the radio and signing “okay?” he tuned in the local classical station and we listened to a Brahms clarinet trio.
“Nice place,” he signed as we entered my empty house.
I had planned to let him have what had been, in my parents’ day, the maid’s small room. Located toward the back of the house, it has its own minimal bathroom and a narrow stairway leading into the kitchen.
Alphus looked at me dubiously. He shook his head. He pointed to the door leading up to the attic. “Can I look?” he signed.
I said why not and led him up. I didn’t want to give up my own eyrie. But he wasn’t interested in that. He went directly across a jumbled storage area to a door that opened into a small round room, the upper part of the turret that had been stuck on the house in Victorian times. “Okay?” he asked.
I said fine. An hour later, we had the room, also full of odds and ends, cleared and even cleaned using the vacuum and a damp rag. There was an electrical outlet and a table, but not much else.
I took out a notebook and wrote, “We can get you a mattress for the floor, if that’s okay?”
He shook his head. From a duffel I hadn’t noticed, he took a hammock and two strong screw-in hooks. With admirable skill and real strength, he twisted the hooks into the sloping rafters of chestnut high above the floor. On these he slung the hammock, which was made of closely netted cord. On this he spread a down comforter with a leaf-green cover. He turned to me and signed “leopards.” When I didn’t get that, he signed “big,” hands together then pulled apart; “cat,” hand pulling at figurative mustache; and “spots,” closed fist held next to face, then pointing with index finger. When I didn’t quite get that, he spelled it out for me, letter by letter.
I explained to him that there were no leopards loose in Seaboard. And that, even if there were, they wouldn’t be able to get into the house at night as all the doors and windows are secured.
He wagged his finger at me and shook his head. The tedium of having to explain the obvious came across in his signing, which had slowed down and become exaggerated. Patiently, he told me that there were leopards everywhere, we just don’t see them. Not only that, but there was virtually no place they couldn’t get into. He told me he remembered how they were even in cities, right in people’s houses.
I nodded as though I understood.
Now all I had to do was explain to Diantha that we had a fellow primate living with us. Despite our tearful departure, our telephonic relations had not gone as well as I had hoped. Long-distance reconciliation between a loving couple lacks the opportunities for those more convincing expressions of body language.
After stalling around, checking e-mails and other stuff, I finally called the cottage. No one answered to my great relief, as the possibility of a cold response made me timid. The relief proved short-lived.
“Norman!” she exclaimed in calling me back. “I was just thinking about you. We miss you. Elsie told me this morning she wants to go home however much she loves the lake. And Decker’s been asking about you.”
“Of course, darling,” I said. “But I’d like to come out there. For a weekend.”
“But that’s three whole days away.”
I hemmed and hawed. I played detective. Casually, as though it had just occurred to me, I said, “I don’t want to bring up a sore subject, but could you tell me exactly what Heinie said when he asked to borrow the revolver?”
Into her silence, I quickly added. “I think it’s important because, as you know, the coins in the collection he gave the museum have turned out to be fakes.”
“Well, let’s see. He did mention that he was using the boat to store some valuable things. I mean as well as sailing into dangerous waters. He said he couldn’t get a license for a gun. But you know that.”
“But he didn’t say what the valuables were?”
“No. Why?”
“I was just thinking. Perhaps that’s where the originals are.”
“What would it prove?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to figure this thing out myself. I’m wondering how it might tie in with a motive.”
When she fell silent again, I went on, “By the way, you saw the news about the apparent suicide of Martin Sterl?”
“I did.”
“Did you recognize his widow at all? Have we seen her anywhere?”
“No. Why do you ask?” Her voice had cooled. She knew me well enough to know I was delaying telling her about something important or unpleasant.
“Because I’ve seen her before and I can’t remember where.”
“You see lots of people, Norman. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people come into the museum every week.”
A tiny, muffled bell rang in my mind, but then I was distracted as Diantha sighed audibly and said, “Oh, Norman, are we going to be all right?”
“I hope so.”
“We want to come home. We miss you.”
It was my turn to sigh. I said, “I know. But there’s been another development here that you should know about.”
“I don’t care …”
“Well, it’s Alphus.”
“Alphus?”
“He’s the chimp that has been living at Sign House. You know, the one who got loose about year ago.”
“The one that killed and ate what’s-her-name’s dog?”
“Right. Well, it seems that the young woman, the deaf one, the one that took care of him, is getting married. And he really is a remarkable animal. I mean, there’s no way, really, we can put him back in the Pavilion …”
“What are you trying to say.”
“I’m saying that he may have to spend some time here.”
“In our house?”
“Yes.”
“For God’s sake …”
“Diantha, listen, he’s not …”
“You’re going to have that ape living in our house …?”
“It’s not …”
“Norman, did you see what he did to that little dog …”
“Yes, but …”
“You want to subject Elsie and me to that … that animal?”
“Diantha, I’m looking for an alternative situation. It will only be for a short time …”
“God, Norman, sometimes I think you’re just weird.” And hung up. Or punched off. Or whatever people do these days to disconnect.
That’s it, I thought. I made my way up the stairs. I was going to let the poor creature know that he couldn’t stay. But there he was in his little room, sitting at the table on a chair I had provided for him, bent over his laptop and slowly, painfully, with one finger, tapping out a message to someone.
Over the next few days, I found living with Alphus to be both more challenging and more rewarding than I could have envisioned. To start with basics, I would like to report that he keeps himself very well groomed. He likes to shower and I’m sure the electric bill will reflect the amount of time he spends using the blow-dryer. He goes through a lot of shampoo and other toiletries. Not long after his arrival here, I found that a bottle of expensive cologne that I keep in the bathroom, a gift from Diantha, had been nearly depleted. Small wonder he has been shuffling around the house smelling like a royal pimp.
At meals he sits at the table and dines with a knife and fork. He likes his steak
rare, but is perfectly happy with pasta and the house tomato sauce with lots of cheese on top. He is capable of making himself a respectable sandwich, which he eats carefully, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. But it will be awhile before I let him use the stove unattended.
Alphus is a voracious and eclectic reader, and he often has the television on with the sound off while dipping in and out of a book. Yesterday I came home to find him watching something called the Jerry Springer show while perusing Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy. He was quite taken by the antics of Mr. Springer’s guests, two obese white women fighting over an equally obese black man. “Look, look!” he gesticulated. “They’re worse than chimpanzees!”
He spends a lot of time listening to classical music when he doesn’t have the television on. He is particularly taken with Schubert, especially his chamber music. The String Quartet in D can move him to tears, or his equivalent thereof. He has one of those pod devices barely larger than a deck of cards into which he has packed hours of music, which he plays through a set of small but powerful speakers. At the same time it is unnerving to see him bend over and lope along on all fours.
He certainly has a mind of his own. For one thing, he is not nearly as tolerant as one might expect. He has a low opinion of dogs — “fawning curs” he spelled out for me on his laptop. And he is downright bigoted about gorillas. “They have no class. They are the primate equivalent of bovids. What have they ever contributed to the world? All they do is sit around eating vegetation and shitting. Koko gets all that attention, but she’s nothing special.”
When I gently suggested that people might say the same thing about chimpanzees, he grew visibly indignant. “You must be joking. Chimps played a leading role in the American space program. Not only that, but we have made our mark in Hollywood and in other forms of entertainment. The advance of modern medicine is impossible to imagine without our participation. After elephants, we are the most visited exhibit in many great zoos. No less an authority than Jared Diamond has suggested that chimps and humans be classed in the same genus. We didn’t just come down out of the trees. And what have gorillas contributed? King Kong?”
The Counterfeit Murder in the Museum of Man Page 10
