Border Prey

by Jessica Speart

“You lead, I’ll follow.” I’d be damned if some human Smokey the Bear was going to scare me.

  I knew we’d arrived when I caught sight of three enormous red rock outcroppings eerily rising out of the desert. Kitrell pulled alongside one, and I parked next to him.

  “Let me know if you need any help,” he offered, and clambered up the rocks with the skill of a billy goat.

  I hate it when someone older than me is much more agile. I pulled myself up by grabbing onto the huecos, or basins, in the boulders, then placed each foot in the indentations as though I were climbing a ladder.

  I’d spent my formative years riding elevators up and down skyscrapers without ever giving it a second thought. Yet stick me on the side of a rocky precipice, clinging on for dear life, and I suddenly discovered I had a nauseating fear of heights. I tried to ignore that by concentrating on the pictographs carved into the rocks around me. I passed men riding noble stallions, dancing torsos, and writhing snakes. Then the stony gaze of a mythological figure nearly caused me to lose my balance. He had the horns of a devil and a bird’s large hooked beak, and wore an amulet for protection and strength around his neck. Three concentric rings formed each eye, which locked onto mine, refusing to let me pass. It was almost as if the warrior had sprung to life, his mission to scare the hell out of me.

  You don’t belong here. Tempt fate and the price is your life.

  I dug my heels in, gritted my teeth, and continued to climb. Kitrell was enjoying the view by the time I reached the summit, panting like an out-of-shape poodle. It really was time to dig out the Richard Simmons exercise tape and do more than just watch it.

  “Congratulations. You made it to the top,” Grizzly said, and threw me a Power Bar.

  I ripped open the wrapper and took a bite. Boy, he had no idea of how to reward a gal. The very least I deserved was some chocolate.

  “Look over there.”

  I followed the direction of Grizzly’s finger, grateful that I hadn’t been asked to speak yet.

  “That’s where Hueco backs onto Fort Bliss. Come up here on the right night, and you get a free fireworks show compliments of the military. It’s one of the little known bonuses that comes with being a resident of this place. You get to kick back and celebrate the Fourth of July a lot more than once a year.”

  “You live here?” I asked in surprise.

  “Yep. That’s home, sweet home right down there,” he replied, pointing to one of the many broken down trailers in the area.

  Interesting as this was, it wasn’t what I was here for. “I believe you have a story to tell me,” I reminded him.

  Grizzly looked at me for a moment before he spoke. “I checked you out, you know. Just to make sure you’re honest. That’s the only reason you’re here.”

  This was a new twist; I was used to it being the other way around. “And how did you do that?” I inquired.

  “It was easy,” Kitrell replied with a smile tugging at his lips. “I asked Juan Hernandez if you were somebody I could do business with. He thinks I want to buy a black market chimp.”

  So, Fat Boy hadn’t been lying to me when he’d passed on that information.

  “Why would Juan think you’re shopping around for a primate?” I pounced.

  “Because I told him so. I am looking for a chimp—but one that was stolen, not smuggled,” Grizzly replied.

  “So what did Juan say about me?”

  “He said you were a real pain-in-the-ass. That’s how I knew you could be trusted.” Kitrell smiled.

  Then he looked out over the horizon and his entire demeanor changed. He exuded the intensity of a fiery prophet consumed with a burning passion. “Have you heard of a project that teaches chimps to use American Sign Language to communicate with humans?”

  An unexplained chill tickled my neck, though the temperature hadn’t budged below a torrid ninety degrees.

  “That’s what I used to do,” he disclosed. “I worked as a behavioral scientist at a university center for primate behavioral awareness. We started with the concept that it could be physical rather than mental differences which kept chimps from forming spoken words. In which case, they should be able to correspond with us through sign language.”

  “I remember hearing something about it when I was a student. But I thought that research was over and done with years ago. I had no idea it was still going on,” I responded.

  Kitrell gathered the loose strands of his hair and pulled them back into a ponytail as a drop of sweat rolled down his cheek and got lost in his beard. “Well, it is. Studies like this tend to go on for the lifetime of a chimp, so we’re talking up to sixty years. I spent nine years of my life doing that research.” Kitrell’s voice grew thick with emotion and caught in his throat.

  I silently waited.

  “My job was to do hands-on training with a group of six chimps. The way it worked was that I signed to them, and observed their signings back to me. And you know what I learned, Porter?”

  “What’s that?” I asked, my own voice a whisper.

  “The line that divides humans from chimps is a whole lot slimmer than anyone can imagine.”

  I shivered, thinking of the chimps at Maynard’s place.

  “There were no random signings, or monkey-see, monkey-do imitations. These chimps formed complete sentences on their own. They were fully able to communicate their wants and needs and feelings to me. Granted, it wasn’t the same level on which you and I are talking. But the seven of us broke through the language barrier that divides us as species. Within the first five years, most of the chimps were using a good one-hundred thirty signs, and were able to understand hundreds of others. We actually spoke to one another. The feeling was something I can’t even begin to describe.” Kitrell turned away, his eyes filled with tears.

  “It’s obvious you loved your work,” I said sympathetically. “So why did you leave it?”

  Kitrell’s mouth compressed into a hard, thin line. “I’d never have voluntarily left those chimps for anything in the world. Our funding dried up, and the university threatened to shut down the center. I pleaded my case by pointing out how prestigious the project was for the university’s reputation, and was finally told that there was only one way we could continue to operate. Cutbacks had to be instituted.”

  “Don’t tell me they fired you?”

  Grizzly shook his shaggy head. “No, the university wanted me to stay, but my efforts were to go into other areas of primate research. They decided to get rid of my chimps.”

  Kitrell’s body slumped at the memory. “Obviously, I turned the board down. There was no way I could ever desert the chimps I’d raised and with whom I’d spent so much time. They were no longer just research subjects; they’d become friends who had entrusted their lives to me.”

  “So, what happened?” I was dying to find out.

  A derogatory grunt escaped the man’s lips. “The university promised I’d be allowed time to raise the money to move the chimps someplace safe, where I’d be able to continue my work. While I was off on my first fund-raising trip, word leaked out about the situation. A number of people immediately expressed an interest in the chimps and offered the university a decent price for them.”

  “Then someone else is working with them now?” I hazarded a guess.

  Kitrell caught my gaze and held it prisoner in an invisible vise. “They wanted the chimps for biomedical research.”

  I stared at Kitrell in stunned silence.

  “You have to understand, I’d raised these chimps by hand, as one would a child. They slept in their own beds, and had their own special toys. Their daily routine was to laugh and play games as they learned and ran around outside. Suddenly, not only do I disappear, but they’re torn from the only home they’ve ever known, and thrown into isolated cells without even a blanket on the floor. Now tell me, how would you have reacted to that?” he demanded.

  “How did you find out?” I wanted to know every detail.

  “Someone at the universit
y tipped me off, but by the time I returned, the chimps were already gone. Even worse, the university refused to tell me where they’d been shipped to.” Grizzly snorted. “They were afraid I’d go after the new owners and make trouble—which is exactly what I would have done. So, there I was. The most important beings in my life had been snatched away because I wasn’t there to protect them.”

  This time I was the one brushing away tears. “But the board gave you their word!” I futilely protested. As a federal employee, I already knew how much that was worth.

  “Yeah. Isn’t that great? Welcome to the backstabbing world of academia.”

  “How long ago did this happen?” I was already trying to figure out if there was any way to rectify the situation.

  “It’s been three years. Needless to say, I immediately resigned from the center—after vowing to castrate every member on the board. I hear they still wear athletic cups at all times.” He grinned. “Anyway, I swore to devote the rest of my life to tracking down the chimps and freeing them, no matter how long it took.”

  Kitrell scratched his beard, and I almost expected him to let out a chimp-like hoot. “Oh, yeah. I should mention that there actually is a good part to the story.”

  “Which is?” I anxiously prompted.

  “I managed to obtain a list of all the scientists’ names who’d expressed interest in acquiring the chimps.”

  “Great! So, did you track them down, then?” I wanted to hear that the story had a fairytale ending in which each creature lived happily ever after.

  “I did manage to track down most of them. Three of the chimpanzees had been sold to a biomedical lab in Maryland. I found another two locked away in stainless steel boxes in a research facility in Pennsylvania.”

  I had a whole new set of questions, but Kitrell cut me off with a warning glance.

  “It took a good deal of threatening, but I finally managed to convince both labs that the press would have a field day if they happened to get their hands on the story. Especially since I’d be more than willing to give my own heart-rendering version of what had actually taken place,” he continued. “By the time I was through, the labs couldn’t hand the chimps back to me fast enough.”

  “Where are they now?” I inquired, wondering if they were holed up in his trailer below.

  A bittersweet smile flitted across Kitrell’s face. “After all they’d been through, I felt they deserved to spend the rest of their days in a place where they could live as naturally as possible. So I managed to relocate them to a sanctuary specifically designed for primates.”

  “That still leaves one chimp unaccounted for,” I said, figuring out loud.

  “That’s right,” Kitrell somberly verified. “And this last one, Gracie, is truly special to me. Not only was she the first primate I ever worked with, but we had the strongest bond. Gracie was the most loving of chimpanzees, along with being the brightest of the entire bunch.”

  “But you said your chimps were sold to research labs.” I was still trying to make sense of it all. “If that’s the case, why would either Maynard or F.U. have anything to do with the chimp you’re looking for?”

  “They don’t. They’re just conduits leading to the man I believe is really holding Gracie captive,” Kitrell grimly informed me.

  My adrenaline began to accelerate. “And who would that be?”

  “Dr. Martin Pierpont.” Grizzly announced in a voice of doom.

  Dr. Scissorhands? What would he want with a chimp? “If you’re really convinced Pierpont has Gracie, why haven’t you approached him directly about it?”

  Purple shadows had begun to glide in, draping themselves heavily over the mountains like a dark, funereal shroud, the air palpably thick with a sense of mystery.

  “I tried contacting Pierpont in the past, but he always let me know through others that he was resistant to being approached. I nearly tracked him down once before; the next thing I knew, he’d packed up and disappeared. I can’t take a chance on that happening again. Not when I’ve finally gotten this close.” The intensity in Kitrell’s voice slashed through the canvas of dusk.

  Maybe I was being dense, but I still had a problem understanding what this hide-and-seek game was all about. “Granted, Pierpont is strange. But what makes you think he’s the one who has Gracie? After all, he’s making plenty of money off F.U. with his claim of being able to clone Lizzie Krabbs’ dog.”

  Kitrell’s eyes blazed like twin meteors set on a crash course. “There’s one other contact we had in common which you don’t know about. You weren’t the only one Tyler was spilling his guts to,” Grizzly revealed. “He’d heard I was nosing around for a chimp and went out of his way to get in touch with me. Tyler said he didn’t have any chimps on hand at the moment, but planned on getting a shipment in soon.

  “I mentioned that I’d heard there was a scientist working for Krabbs who had a chimp, and asked Tyler if he knew anything about it. He said Pierpont had purchased some primates from the admiral. I offered to pay for any information he could dig up on one chimp in particular, one that hadn’t been obtained from Maynard. I told Tyler that Gracie had been stolen from me.”

  “Was Timmy Tom able to get the information for you?” I asked, wishing he would hurry up.

  Grizzly scratched his beard, as if the answer lay hidden inside his forest of facial hair. “That’s the strange part. Tyler left a message a few days ago saying he had evidence that Gracie was here. He’d even come up with a way for me to steal her back. The catch was that he wanted more money. That was no big deal; I’d have been willing to negotiate. I’ve sworn to bring Gracie home no matter what.”

  Kitrell’s words floated on the mantle of twilight which swiftly began to descend. “But there was no answer when I tried to return his call. It turns out Tyler phoned me right before you found him dead.”

  A cold chill settled on my shoulder, and began to nibble at my ear. I tried to brush it away, but the incubus clung on, softly laughing at my fears.

  “Say all this is true—that Pierpont has your chimp. What type of research do you think he’s doing?”

  Kitrell shook his head, his profile softened by the dwindling light. “Whatever he’s up to, Pierpont’s doing his best to make sure nobody knows about it. That alone puts me on guard.”

  He leaned forward with his shoulders hunched and his hands tightly clenched into fists. “What you’ve got to remember is that the difference between humans and chimps is merely a matter of degree. We share 98.6% of the very same genetic material, which is why they’re considered the perfect test specimens. Chimps are the best thing scientists can experiment on, next to human beings.”

  Dan rhythmically thrust his fists together and pulled them apart, like a boxer caught in a private prayer. “But chimps are intelligent beings who possess the ability to reason and communicate. They deserve to be considered more than test tubes with a pulse.”

  I reached inside my pocket and pulled out the papers I’d taken off Timmy Tom’s corpse. Then I handed Panfauna’s business card to Kitrell. Even the fading light couldn’t conceal the expression which swept over the man’s face.

  “You know something about this company!” I pounced.

  But, Grizzly shook his head as he continued to stare at the card. “No. But look at the name. What does it say?”

  I wasn’t in the mood for guessing games. “Exactly what’s there: Panfauna Associates. Or is something written in invisible ink that I’m supposed to be seeing?”

  “Let me try to make it clearer for you,” Grizzly retorted. “You do know that pan troglodyte is the scientific term for chimpanzee, right? Well, fauna means animals of a specific region.”

  My head felt as it if had been whacked by a hammer as the significance began to sink in.

  “Oh, my God,” The words left my mouth before I even knew I had uttered them. “It sounds like a company that’s smuggling chimps in from the wild.”

  I handed Kitrell the second piece of paper. He unfolded the n
ote as if it were a map of buried treasure. For a moment I thought that’s exactly what it was, as his eyes scrutinized it.

  “I’ve found her!” Kitrell finally exclaimed in a trembling voice. “Tyler was right; Gracie is here. Pierpont has her.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, caught up in the excitement.

  His finger stabbed at the paper. “One set of these numbers is the identification tattoo Gracie was given at the university.”

  Maybe this was crucial information for Kitrell—but how did I fit into the picture? Tyler wouldn’t have called me that morning unless there was something he’d wanted me to know, as well. My old boss Charlie Hickok’s words came back to haunt me.

  You gotta learn to look at every nitty gritty detail if you’re gonna solve a case, Bronx. Otherwise you’re just an agent sitting on your ass, wasting valuable time. The piece you don’t look hard enough at is usually the one that’s gonna solve the puzzle. It may take a few whacks in the face with a skunk, but eventually you’ll find the clue to the case is sitting right there in front of you.

  I tried looking at the whole picture now, but Pierpont’s face kept looming before me.

  “Pierpont used to work for the government. Do you think that could play into this?” I asked, attempting to jiggle the pieces together.

  “No. This isn’t The X-Files, if that’s what you’re getting at. Pierpont was the head of an upstart biotechnology company when he came to check out my chimps at the university. I’m sure the research he’s doing isn’t funded by federal grants. As for cloning the Krabbs dog, that sounds like nothing but pure bunk to me.”

  “Okay. Then let’s figure out what it could possibly be,” I suggested. “Aren’t lab chimps basically just research subjects for HIV testing these days?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Kitrell retorted in amazement. “There are scientists who plan to use chimps not only as living blood and organ banks, but for invasive studies for spinal injury. Chimps are already guinea pigs for respiratory diseases, malaria, and parasite research. That’s aside from all those who’ve been infected with hepatitis C, in the hope of finding a cure.”