The Only Clue

by Pamela Beason

  What? He frowned at the Bluetooth readout on his car radio. The Sarge—and the Captain—would have a lot more to say than “Rein in your girlfriend” if Grace did that.

  “I’m kidding, Matt.”

  He blew out the breath he’d been holding. “Thank God.”

  “But only because I haven’t identified any more local animal seller sleazebags. If I find one and your brothers in blue choose not to do anything again, I’m not making any promises.”

  He thought about explaining reduced budgets and lack of manpower and priorities, but that would likely make Grace even more determined not to involve the police. “Can you at least tell me first?”

  “Maybe. Depends on the situation.”

  “I see.” Crap, he was driving twenty miles over the speed limit. He removed his foot from the accelerator and flipped on cruise control.

  “I thought I’d spend my day researching more zoo acquisitions. And return Pepito as soon as I can.”

  He wanted to solve at least one mystery. “Grace, who is Richard?”

  For a long moment, he heard nothing but road noise. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked. It was still early in their relationship. Grace had a right to her past; he certainly had baggage that he was still dragging around. It was just that he’d never heard her mention another man before. He expected her next words to be, “None of your business.”

  But instead, she finally said, “He’s just someone I used to know. It’s a long story, and it’s not important.”

  “Why is he sending you presents?” He felt a trickle of fear in his gut. Maybe he was supposed to be giving Grace presents. Maybe that was the normal course of things these days. Damn, he was so out of practice with the whole dating scene.

  “Matt, I don’t want to get into that right ... Oh, joy, Mom and Dad are here. Have a nice day.” She abruptly ended the call.

  The weather was clear over Snoqualmie Pass, and for a little while Finn managed to push complicated women and missing gorillas out of his mind. The jagged peaks of the Cascades, still capped with heavy snow, stood crisply outlined against cerulean skies. These brilliant blues and whites were reflected in the shining surface of Keechelus Lake, a long reservoir bordering the highway that was straining at its banks with snowmelt. Firs and cedars wore chartreuse gloves of new growth on their long spiky branches. In three locations, Finn stopped to take pictures, longing for his watercolors and time to paint the scenes before him.

  At the third stop, just as he was focusing on a shimmering waterfall streaming over lichen-dotted rocks, his phone buzzed. It was the Evansburg station operator. “I know it’s your day off, Finn, but I thought you might want to talk to this officer from Renton. He says it’s a follow-up call.”

  Renton. The body in the woods. “Put him through.” A large black bird flapped past overhead. Crow? Raven?

  The officer identified himself, then said bluntly, “Allen Whitehead is dead.”

  Finn was tempted to say “Duh!” like a teenager, but restrained himself. “Yes, I know. We have his corpse in the Evansburg morgue.”

  “Not possible. Allen Whitehead died in the Renton Hospital of complications from Hepatitis C a couple of days before you called. He’s already been cremated.”

  “You sure?” Finn watched the bird circle and then land on a nearby branch.

  “You need me to repeat what I just said, Detective?”

  Crap. “Then we got an unidentified dead guy who was driving Whitehead’s Mustang.”

  “Looks that way. I’ll email you Whitehead’s next of kin contact info; maybe they have some clue about who’d have the car. Ball’s back in your court.”

  “Thanks.” Finn shoved the phone back into his pocket. Why couldn’t he close at least one case? He toyed with the idea of calling Melendez to tell her that the missing schizophrenic might be lying in pieces in the morgue, then decided to wait until he heard from Whitehead’s relatives. They might have different information about the dead driver. He didn’t want to put the Connellys through any unnecessary anguish.

  Based on the odd clicking calls the black bird made, Finn decided it was a raven, supposedly a very smart bird with a sharp memory and a large vocabulary of sounds. He wondered what this one was trying to tell him. Get away from my waterfall? The winning Lotto numbers for the week? He’d never thought much about animal communications before meeting Grace and Neema.

  He climbed back into his car and joined the traffic streaming down the west side of the mountains toward Puget Sound. Traffic was light, and even after stopping for lunch, he arrived at Monroe Correctional Complex in the early afternoon.

  Jarvis Pinder was an average sized man with a wiry build. He had the same café au lait skin as his sister Heather, but he was definitely not the same pleasure to look at. Pinder’s nose was askew from a break that hadn’t been properly set and his left eye didn’t open all the way, thanks to a scar running through the eyebrow above it.

  His first question to Finn was understandably, “What’s this about?”

  “Tony Zyrnek.”

  Pinder raised both eyebrows. “Tony? What about him?”

  “You call him every week.”

  The inmate squinted. “So? Since when is that illegal?”

  “What do you two talk about?”

  He shrugged. “What’s happenin’ in here. What’s happenin’ out there. Baseball.”

  “What did you talk about last Sunday?”

  “We didn’t. I called but he had somethin’ else goin’ on.”

  “What did you want to talk about?”

  Pinder inspected his fingernails. “Can’t remember. Those calls’re recorded; you can get ‘em if you want. Why we doin’ this dance?”

  He was right; it was a dance. This conversation would make a hell of a lot more sense if Finn could just admit that the gorillas were missing. But who knew where that would go? He decided to pretend he was enlisting Pinder’s help. He lowered his voice and put his hands on the table. “Do you think Tony Zyrnek can be trusted?”

  The chair squeaked as Pinder leaned forward and matched Finn’s tone. “Is he in trouble?”

  “Not yet, but I think he might be up to something. Did he ever talk to you about gorillas?”

  Pinder’s gaze fixed on Finn’s face for a long minute. A smile played around his lips before he finally said, “Yeah. His kid worked with some apes; and Tony told me all about ‘em. Pretty weird shit, signing gorillas. Hey man, gift a poor prisoner a twenty for some smokes?”

  “Five,” Finn said.

  The convict made a face. “Every teensy bit helps.”

  Finn suspected that Pinder knew more than he was saying. “Did Zyrnek ever talk to you about stealing a gorilla?”

  Pinder threw back his head and laughed, displaying several gold crowns on his back molars. Then he looked at Finn’s face. “Oh man, you’re serious? Who’d want to steal a gorilla?”

  “I hear they’re pretty valuable.”

  “No shit?” Pinder’s eyes reminded Finn of Cargo’s after the dog had stolen something off his plate and thought Finn hadn’t noticed. Placing both elbows on the table top, the inmate leaned forward again and asked in a low murmur, “What’s the going price?”

  Finn shook his head. “What would you guess?”

  The convict shrugged again. “Never tried to sell a gorilla. You think Tony stole a gorilla?” Pinder seemed pleased about the idea. “Man, I can’t wait to see that on the news.”

  Shit. “I didn’t say he stole a gorilla; I just wondered if he might be thinking about it.”

  Pinder smiled again. “Now why would you wonder that?” He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and grinned as if he’d scored a point in a debate.

  A muscle twitched between Finn’s shoulder blades. This conversation was going nowhere. If only Grace had been willing to go public, he could ask questions that made more sense. “I’ve heard you and Zyrnek like exotic animals.”

  “Lotsa people like animals.”

  �
��I hear you used to have an ocelot and a couple of boa constrictors,” Finn said.

  The inmate perked up. “Yeah, they were gifts from a friend. That cat was a beautiful thing, man. Her name was Lupita. Her fur was like velvet, but she had claws an inch long.” He held up a forefinger and thumb as a measure. “And FYI, one a them snakes was an anaconda, not a boa. Boas hang out in trees. Anacondas swim in rios, you know, like in the Amazon; they dig agua. They’re water snakes.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Sorta close though, I guess, if you don’t know snakes.”

  “Which friend gave them to you?” Maybe Zyrnek had been in contact with the same exotic animal enthusiasts.

  “Let’s see... It’s been a while.” Pinder looked at the ceiling for a minute as if trying to recall, then lowered his head to meet Finn’s gaze. “Nope, can’t remember. I got lots of friends and I had lots of animals. I’ve always been into wild things.” He drawled the last two words, smirking.

  Finn ignored the insinuating tone. “What happened to those animals?”

  “Sold ‘em to a dealer over in Idaho.”

  That figured. Idaho few regulations on any sort of business. But Pinder might have shared the dealer’s name with Zyrnek. Finn pulled out his notepad. “The dealer’s name?”

  Pinder’s expression turned wary. He rubbed at the scar that bisected his eyebrow. “I’d have to find it again on the internet. Not like I got my file cabinet here.”

  “Look it up.”

  The inmate gave him a cold stare. “What’s in it for me?”

  “Cooperation could get you a favorable vote next time you come up for parole.”

  “Yeah?” Pinder sneered. “You gonna come and testify for me, Detective?”

  Finn didn’t respond.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “What is Leroy Shane up to these days?”

  The unscarred eyebrow rose. “Why would I know what Leroy’s up to?”

  That sounded like yet another evasion. “His brother Leon’s on your visitor list.”

  Pinder’s mouth twitched. “So? Leon and me, we don’t talk about Leroy—that bastard done me wrong.”

  “Who is DeeDee Suarez?”

  The convict’s head jerked back. After a moment, he snarled, “A damn fine looking woman, and a sweet friend of mine.” Twisting in his seat, he signaled the guard. “I’m done talking to you. Say Hi to Tony for me. And whichever gorilla he’s shacked up with.”

  “I don’t think Heather would appreciate being called a gorilla.”

  Pinder faced him again. “Who?”

  “Heather Clayton.”

  “Zyrnek’s shacked up with my sister?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “What happened to that fucker Ty?” A burly guard positioned himself behind Pinder and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “You’ll have to ask her about that.”

  “I will. Remember that ten you promised for the smokes.” The guard led Pinder away.

  Finn clenched his jaw in frustration. He was pretty sure that Jarvis Pinder knew more than he was saying about Zyrnek and the gorillas, and the inmate had gotten downright hostile after he asked about Leroy and DeeDee. But he had no leverage here.

  He dropped off a five dollar bill at the visitors’ window, asking that it be added to Pinder’s account. “Anyone else signed up to see Pinder today?”

  The guard checked the list. “Nope.”

  “Who else has visited Pinder in the last couple of weeks?”

  The guard pointed down the hall. “Superintendent’s Office keeps those records.”

  The clerk in the office had the same voice as the gal he’d talked to on the phone. After asking for Pinder’s recent visitor records, he pulled a bar of dark chocolate out of his pocket and laid it on the corner of her desk.

  She eyed it. “That’s not necessary, Detective Finn. This is my job.”

  “It fell out of my pocket.”

  She smiled and slipped it into her desk drawer before turning to her computer. Inside of a minute, she’d printed out the list of Pinder’s visitors in the last month: Leon Shane, Mary Lou Pinder, DeeDee Suarez.

  Mary Lou, Finn remembered, was the inmate’s mother. “Do Leon Shane and DeeDee Suarez visit on a regular basis?” he asked.

  The clerk swiveled her chair away from him again to search the files on her computer. After a few minutes, she said, “Shane was added three months ago; he’s visited five times since then. DeeDee Suarez was added to Pinder’s list only six weeks ago. She’s been here three times. Before those two, Pinder didn’t have any visitors except for family.”

  Interesting. Heather Clayton had named Leroy Shane as a bad guy, so maybe his brother Leon was not so “straight up,” either. Criminal behavior tended to be contagious within families. She’d told him that Zyrnek didn’t know Leon or Leroy, but maybe she’d been covering for her new boyfriend. DeeDee Suarez was a new name to investigate.

  His visit to Monroe hadn’t lasted as long as he’d allowed for, so he decided to spend a couple of extra hours and drive to Tacoma to surprise Frank Keyes. He’d always wanted to lay eyes on the man who had poisoned Spencer, Grace’s first male gorilla.

  After placing some calls, he determined that Keyes was at work. It took Finn a while to find the particular grocery warehouse within a maze of giant storage facilities, but he finally tracked it down. The manager handed Finn a hard hat and walked him to the loading dock where Keyes was using a forklift to shift pallets of canned goods to a waiting truck.

  Frank Keyes didn’t look like a murderer. He was a slight man with sloping shoulders and thinning hair. His jumpy manner combined with the overalls he wore made him look like more of a prison inmate than Jarvis Pinder.

  “Why are you people harassing me?” he hissed in Finn’s direction, his gaze fixed somewhere over Finn’s left shoulder. “I haven’t touched any of those stupid apes.” His eyes darted nervously to his manager standing a few yards away. “You’re trying to ruin me.”

  Finn pulled his notepad out of his pocket. “Where were you last Saturday?”

  “I already told your other jackbooted thug. I was on the Olympic Peninsula, camping.”

  “Alone?”

  Keyes’s jaw clenched. “It’s none of your business. I’ll associate with anyone I want to. I don’t have to tell you anything!”

  “Do you still want to kill gorillas?”

  “I have my rights! I can belong to any groups I want to. I can go where I want to.”

  “You called Dr. McKenna two nights ago.”

  Keyes’s pale eyes rounded with alarm for a second before his face dropped back into a scowl. “You can’t prove that.”

  “With cell phones and GPS these days, you might be surprised.”

  The other man didn’t respond, just stared at the cement floor, his fingers tugging at the zipper pull on his overalls. Up, down, up, down, up.

  “You cannot go anywhere near Dr. Grace McKenna’s property,” Finn reminded him.

  “I haven’t been near her or her damned apes!”

  “Then give me an alibi I can believe. Give me someone who can corroborate your story.”

  “Corroborate? Alibi?” Keyes spat the words back at him. “I don’t need an alibi! I’m not on parole any more, and you have no right to treat me like I am!” Keyes shook his fingers in Finn’s direction as if he was hexing him. “I don’t want to be within fifty miles of that witch. She says she talks to apes and they talk back! When the Rapture comes, she’ll...” He glanced sideways at his boss again. Whatever he saw there made him leave the rest of that sentence unsaid. His hand dropped back to his side, and his voice dropped to a normal level. “I’ve got to get back to work, Detective. My parole was up more than a year ago. Please respect my rights and leave me alone.”

  Finn stepped close, backing Keyes up against his forklift. “If you ever contact Dr. McKenna again, I will find a way to put you back in jail. If you show up anywhere near her or her gorillas, you might end up with a bulle
t hole between the eyes. Do you understand?” He waited until Keyes’s chin dipped slightly before he backed away.

  Keyes climbed back on his forklift, maneuvered the tines into position and lifted the next pallet. As he turned the machine, Finn noticed a familiar sticker on the back: I am NOT a monkey’s uncle.

  Maybe there was a connection between Keyes and the events in Evansburg after all.

  * * * * *

  As he drove back over the mountain pass, Finn’s Bluetooth system announced a call. He pressed a button on his steering wheel to answer.

  “Yo, Finn,” said a familiar female voice.

  “Yo, Larson.”

  “I thought you might want to know this. Miki dropped your lab report in my IN basket by mistake.”

  Uh-oh. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel as he waited for a remark about ape blood. Instead, she read aloud, “Enclosed test results reveal that the blood sample submitted is human, not animal. Please advise if further testing is required.”

  Human?

  “You working that llama case?” she asked. “I thought that was County’s.”

  “Llama case?” Were animals being stolen all over the county? Was someone collecting for a private zoo?

  “Yeesh, Finn, don’t you read the reports? Black and white llama disappeared from the Bar T a week ago.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, “Didn’t the owners think it got out of the pasture? Isn’t Fish and Wildlife looking for it in the mountains?”

  “Yep. But we all still need to keep an eye out for it. So, what’s this report about?”

  The dog, he reminded himself. Pursuing one goal while pretending to be after something entirely different was a tricky business. No wonder criminals slipped up so often. “That visitor I told you about; the guy who claimed his purebred dog went missing after the open house at Dr. McKenna’s. There was a patch of blood near his car, so we decided to test it.”

  “Looks like you got lucky. Maybe the dog bit the SOB. You can’t match the dog with that sample, but now you can match the dognapper.”