Behind her, the alarm shrieked continuously. Within seconds, the din was joined by high-pitched shouts of “TSA! Stop! Security! Stop!”
Another voice joined the first. “Stop, lady! TSA! Security police! Stop!”
And then someone else was shouting “Security breach! Security breach! Tarmac Gate five!” Which must have been radio talk, because she heard a burst of static afterwards.
She didn’t hear “...or I’ll shoot” and could only pray they didn’t have guns. It seemed like a marathon run, and she could see the first casket was already on board and the second was on the front-loader’s tines when the whole crew stopped and turned in her direction. When she finally reached the jet’s loading zone, she was so breathless she could hardly talk.
“What the hell?” the front-loader operator muttered.
The two employees loading the conveyor belt stared, their fists on their hips.
“Stop loading ... the caskets!” she gasped the words.
Footsteps thundered behind her, and then something heavy and solid slammed into her back. As she hit the tarmac, her breath was knocked out of her lungs. She found herself face down on the asphalt with a hand or an elbow or maybe a knee between her shoulder blades. Then an overweight man straddled her buttocks. He wrestled her hands behind her back, nearly dislocating her right shoulder. The cold metal of handcuffs encircled her wrists, and she felt a pinch as he ratcheted them down tight. In the distance, she heard the wail of a siren join the blaring security alarm.
Finally, two men—they both wore the black uniform of TSA officers—used her elbows as convenient handles to jerk her to her feet.
“What the fuck, lady?” puffed the younger one. He held one hand against his chest as he tried to catch his breath. She knew the feeling.
The older one patted her down from behind and reported, “No weapons.” Stepping around to face her, he swiped at his gray moustache and said, “Wanna tell us what the heck you think you’re doing?”
She licked her lower lip, tasting blood there. A piece of gravel was stuck to her cheek beneath her left eye. She tried to rub it off with her shoulder, but couldn’t reach it.
“One of these caskets has a gorilla in it,” she said.
All five men looked at each other, and then back at her. “And you know this how?” said the younger TSA agent.
The front-loader operator chuckled. “Gorilla probably called her on his cell phone.”
The silver-haired TSA agent took her arm. “Lady, you violated about seven different laws running out here. What the hell is going on?”
The sirens slowed to a growl and then abruptly went silent as a Moses Lake police cruiser and a port authority SUV parked next to the jet.
The older TSA agent peered deeply into Grace’s eyes. “Are you by any chance a psychiatric patient?”
“She probably should be,” she heard a familiar voice say behind her.
* * * * *
“I hesitate to admit that she’s with me.” Finn strolled into the tense gathering. He flashed his badge around the little circle.
He stepped in front of Grace. A trickle of blood ran from her lower lip down her chin. “You okay?” Reaching up, he flicked a piece of gravel from her cheek.
“I am now,” she said, licking her lower lip.
The alarm still shrieked from the terminal’s outdoor speakers, making it hard to think rationally and speak calmly.
“Set the casket down,” Finn shouted at the front-loader operator, pointing to the ground. He turned to the TSA officers and tilted his head toward the terminal. “Can you turn that blasted thing off?”
Another patrol car screeched into position near the jet, and two additional Moses Lake police officers warily approached, hands resting on their holstered guns.
“It’s okay. I’m a police detective,” Finn hollered, slowly panning his identification badge from one to the other.
The younger TSA officer turned to face the building and made a slashing motion against his throat. The alarm died, leaving only the sounds of the creaking conveyor belt and the front-loader motor, and a ringing that still lingered in Finn’s ears.
The officer who had silenced the alarm inspected his badge. “You’re out of your jurisdiction, Detective.”
“I’m working an active case and I need to inspect the contents of these caskets.” He hoped that would be enough. Usually the counties and city departments cooperated with each other. He wasn’t so sure about the feds.
He nodded toward Grace. “She’s the crime victim. Uncuff her.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? She...uh...said that she believes there’s a gorilla in that casket.” The officer tapped his finger on his temple and gave Finn a meaningful look.
He nearly laughed at the absurdity of the situation, but he managed to maintain a sober expression and said, “I’ll take responsibility. Just uncuff her.”
The older TSA officer complied. Grace rubbed her wrists and gave him a shaky smile.
Finn turned to the casket on the front loader’s tines and bent over to read the papers attached to the crating.
“Velasquez family,” he muttered. He avoided looking at Grace as he straightened. If she was wrong about this, they’d both be in deep manure here.
He looked up at the worker standing in the jet’s cargo bay. “What’s the destination of the other one?”
“Just a sec.” He disappeared from view, but was back in a few seconds. “Says Maravilla Enterprises, Caracas.”
“Yes!” Grace pumped a fist in the air. They all turned to look at her with curiosity. She lowered the hand back to her side.
“I need to inspect that one,” Finn told the worker. “Get it back down here, please.”
“Crap,” the guy said. “I just got it set.”
One of the workers on the ground hopped onto the belt and walked up. “I’ll help.”
As the two THR workers wrestled with the crate, Finn nervously watched the security officers who still gazed at Grace, their hands resting on their weapons. Would she be arrested for this? The charges could be federal, and serious. If Grace’s hunch didn’t pan out, he’d be visiting her in jail for a while. Maybe she’d be charged even if her hunch did pan out.
But she’d say it was worth it if she saved Gumu. Because saving Gumu would mean saving Neema, too.
Finally the first crate was back on the ground. He confirmed that the papers were addressed to Maravilla Enterprises.
“I need to borrow a crowbar,” Finn said. “Let’s open it up.”
The other men’s faces twisted into expressions of disgust. “You do know there’s a corpse in there,” said the front-loader operator.
One of the security officers bent to read the form taped to the crate. “The export docs say it’s the remains of Marisela Antonio Benitez, 95 years old, going back home to Caracas.”
“I have good reason to believe this is a shipment organized by a drug cartel leader,” Finn told the cluster of uniforms.
The security officers studied Finn for a minute longer, then one waved the THR employees to move away from the area. “Take fifteen, guys.”
The THR employees shut off the conveyor belt and front-loader and reluctantly walked away, casting glances backwards over their shoulders. With a crowbar and a couple of screwdrivers borrowed from the trunk of the police cruiser, Finn and the two TSA officers dismantled the crate around the coffin.
“Ready?” Finn asked everyone. Nods all around.
He held his breath as they pried open the heavy lid. He could tell that Grace was doing the same.
Then they all stared in silence at the waxy perfection of a very small corpse lying against a satin pillow.
The old woman’s makeup was perfect and her hair was starched into sleek white waves. She looked utterly at peace, as if she’d simply fallen asleep in that elegant position, her tiny gnarled hands laid gently on top of a white leather Holy Bible, labeled in gold lettering.
“No,” Grace moaned.
>
“Uh-huh,” grunted the younger TSA agent. He pulled his handcuffs from his belt again and took a step toward Grace.
The port authority officer frowned. “Detective?”
Finn was absolutely mortified. He was never going to live this down. Worse than that, he was going to be jobless and then homeless.
“She’s no bigger than a mosquito. Why’d they put her in such a big casket?” a security officer wanted to know.
“Plenty of room for drugs?” suggested a Moses Lake police officer.
“Who ships drugs from the U.S. to Venezuela?” the first argued.
“Money, then.”
Then Grace surprised everyone by saying, “Take her out.”
She stepped to the head of the casket and shoved her hands underneath the corpse’s shoulders. Afraid that she might simply flip Great Grandma out of her satin bed if he didn’t help, Finn moved to the corpse’s feet.
After he carefully tucked the satin sheet around the little body, the two of them hefted her from the casket as the security officers glanced nervously at the terminal. The body was much lighter than he’d expected, but so limp they had a hard time not dropping her.
After laying the corpse gently on the tarmac, he leaned into the casket and pulled aside the satin quilt she’d lain on. He found a handhold in the corner of the bed board and yanked the board up and out.
The gathering gasped and stepped back, then quickly surged forward again to stare at the contents of the bottom compartment.
“It is a gorilla!” someone said.
Gumu’s eyes were taped shut with adhesive tape, his hands and feet were bound together with cruel zip ties that cut into his flesh. A plastic mask was strapped over his mouth and nose. Finn wondered where the kidnappers had found one that big. A hose led from the mask to a tank beneath the gorilla’s left arm, and Finn could hear a soft hissing sound.
Grace pulled off the mask, then curled the fingers of her left hand around the gorilla’s broad throat. Was it possible to feel a pulse through all that thick muscle? She placed her right hand flat against the black leathery skin of the massive chest and leaned in.
“Gumu?” she said softly.
Nothing.
Shit. If Gumu was dead after all this, Finn didn’t know what would happen. Grace might become a psychiatric patient after losing two gorillas to murder.
The massive chest finally rose and fell.
Grace stepped back, turned and threw her arms around Finn. “He’s alive! Gumu is alive!” Then she turned back to her gorilla, leaning into the casket to rub her hands over his inert form.
One of the security officers threw his arms in the air. “Now I can retire. I’ve seen everything.”
Looking back over Grace’s head, Finn saw a crowd at the window of the terminal, and he suddenly realized what a macabre sight this was. A group of law enforcement officers ogling a casket, a corpse on the ground beside them.
He squinted. Among the faces at the window he identified Leroy Shane’s mug. Close to him stood two other men, a tall thin one, and a man with a shiny bald head. Most likely Linero and North. It looked like all three wore blue coveralls; they must have dressed as janitors or maintenance workers. The three seemed to be arguing. When one glanced his direction, he quickly looked away.
“Three men in blue overalls at the window back there,” he hissed to the airport security officers. “Detain them ASAP. They’re my suspects.”
The officer made a quick phone call. The three men disappeared from the window. They all waited impatiently for a few minutes before there was a radio message back that the three men had been stopped in the parking garage and were in custody.
Finn finally blew out the breath he’d been holding for what seemed like days. Bright flashes from the terminal window indicated that spectators were taking photos. Or maybe the student reporters had succeeded in trailing him all the way.
Either way, he knew he would forever be known as the Great Ape Detective from the modest town of Evansburg.
Chapter 25
Grace couldn’t bear to leave Gumu at a Moses Lake large animal veterinary hospital, but she needed to get back to Neema. She had to show her a photo of Gumu, to tell her to hang on, her mate was going to come back.
Jon Zyrnek volunteered to come and stay with the male gorilla for as long as it took. Brittany would drop him off at the vet’s, he said. When Grace left to return to Evansburg, Gumu was still unconscious, strapped to an operating table generally reserved for horses, his nose and mouth still covered with an oxygen mask, and his arms and legs punctured with multiple IV lines. His skin looked more gray than black and he was so limp and breathing so slowly that he seemed dead, but the vet assured her, “He’s most likely only severely dehydrated and starved. And deeply sedated. There will probably be no brain damage.
“Only?” she asked. “Probably?”
Gumu had bruises and deep cuts on his hands and feet where he had been bound, as well as a gash on his head and several across his back. The vet couldn’t make any predictions about psychological damage. She was anxious about the frame of mind the gorilla might be in when he regained consciousness. Would he wake up terrified? In a rage? Most likely both. She didn’t want to think about what he might do.
After being reassured that Jon would watch over him every minute and that both the doctor and the vet tech had experience with animals as large and ferocious as bears and bulls, she finally let Finn drive her back to her compound. Jon could drive her van back.
Exhaustion overtook her. It was hard to put one foot in front of another. Finn might be used to the adrenaline rush of chasing down a suspect, but she wasn’t. She was just so, so grateful that the THR jet had slammed into the tarmac last week. That probably wasn’t a kind thought, but if that hadn’t happened and Gumu had been shipped out, the odds of ever getting him back from Venezuela would be practically nil. In the midst of fretting about how he’d been kept prisoner during all this time and the drugs he’d been given, somehow she fell asleep on the drive back.
It was dark when they arrived at her compound. With the help of airport security, they’d managed to evade the reporters, so Gumu was safe and nobody knew where she and Finn had gone. Grace guessed the whole airport escapade was already on the news. At her gate, there was still one car with an expectant looking young person in the driver’s seat, but Caryn was guarding the entrance and locked the gate after them.
The light was on in the barn. At the top of the net sat Sierra. The bonobo explored the rope web nearby, a leash stretched out between them. Caryn walked across the yard to greet them, Kanoni clinging to her back.
Matt looked hard at Caryn, then glanced up to Sierra, then back to Caryn. “If Caryn has Kanoni, then who is that up there?” He pointed skyward toward the dark silhouettes.
Grace smiled. He’d called the bonobo a ‘who’ instead of a ‘what.’ “You don’t need to know everything, do you, Detective?”
He studied the caretaker and the little ape for another minute, then shook his head. “No, I don’t. I never saw that creature. Just like I never saw that tiny monkey thing you have in your office.”
She patted his arm. “Pepito is back home where he belongs. And that creature”—she tilted her head in the bonobo’s direction—“will be gone soon, too.”
Grace found Neema hunched down in a corner of the barn.
“Neema, I have wonderful news.” She knelt in front of the gorilla and looked up into her eyes. “I found Gumu today. Gumu is coming back.”
“Really?” Caryn murmured from behind her. “Really? So Gumu really is okay? We were afraid to believe Jon when he told us. Wahoo!”
Her shout brought Sierra and the bonobo down the net. “Gumu’s really coming back?”
“He’s sleeping right now,” Grace told them, signing for Neema. “He’s sick. He’s very tired. But he’ll be back soon.”
Neema showed little reaction, giving Grace only a dull-eyed look that told her the gorilla didn’t belie
ve her. Grace turned on her phone and showed Neema the photo of Gumu, unsure whether that would help. Gumu was unconscious in the photo; he looked as good as dead. “He’s sick, Neema. Bad men put him in a cage. They gave him medicine to make him sleep. But he’ll be home soon. Maybe tomorrow.”
Neema pushed the phone away and hung her head.
“Tomorrow,” Grace repeated, desperate to make Neema understand. “Gumu will be here tomorrow.” Please hold on that long.
Matt was studying the bonobo on Sierra’s hip.
“Found him at the Smiths,” Sierra told him. “Out in the wheat field. In an outhouse! A crazy guy in the woods told us there was an alien locked in there.”
“The Smiths never reported any thefts,” Grace told Matt. “That should tell the police something.”
He turned away, shaking his head. “I don’t want to know. I never saw this animal.”
After a minute, he turned back to Sierra. “Wait a minute—who was this crazy guy? Young, old? What did he look like?”
“Dirty, mostly. Dark hair, short beard. He hadn’t shaved in a while. But you can tell he’s not really old. And his camping gear looks pretty good and so do his clothes, so he hasn’t been homeless for too long.”
“Where was he?” Matt asked.
Sierra filled him in. “He was living in a tent in a little patch of trees behind the wheat field in back of the Smiths’ house.”
In a sarcastic tone, Caryn added, “You remember, Detective—that house with no illegal animals.”
“Ryan Connelly,” Matt muttered.
Grace had never heard the name. “Who is Ryan Connelly?”
“I have to go.” He turned on his heel to leave, but then whirled back to grab her and plant a smack on her mouth. “Oh, sorry,” he said, touching his thumb gently to her split lower lip. “But this is turning out to be a really good day.”
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