Difficult Run

by John Dibble

  “I really can’t go into that, Dr. Peterson,” M.J. responded.

  “I can understand that, Detective, but if there is any possibility that a Bili Ape is being held in captivity in this country it would be of enormous importance to the field of primatology,” he said.

  “Doctor, I just can’t provide any details on my investigation at this time. Trust me, as soon as I can, I’ll let you know,” M.J. said.

  “I’ll take you at your word on that,” he said. “Any other information you need from me?”

  She thought for a minute and then asked, “Just how strong are these apes?”

  “Well, they must be quite powerful,” he said. “The natives call them ‘lion killers.’”

  “They eat lions?” M.J. asked.

  “Other way around,” he replied. “Apes are prey for lions. Although apes are omnivorous, their meat diet is pretty much limited to rodents, birds, things of that size. No, I’d say that a Bili Ape would only kill a lion as a defensive maneuver.”

  M.J. could feel her heart pounding and she took an almost audible breath before asking her next question. “Just how do they kill the lions?” she asked.

  “I’ve never seen it myself, of course,” Dr. Peterson replied, “but I’ve interviewed several natives who claim they have. They all describe it the same way: The ape jumps onto the lion’s back, grabs its head, pulls it back and then twists it violently to break its neck.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  M.J. SAT IN SILENCE with her eyes wide. Dr. Peterson asked, “Everything alright, Detective?”

  “Yes, yes . . . I’m just collecting my thoughts,” she replied. “Do you have time for a few more questions?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “Fire away.”

  “How long do Bili Apes live?” she asked.

  “We don’t know exactly, because we haven’t been able to study them. Generally, the great apes live about thirty-five to forty years in the wild. That would probably be a good estimate for the Bili,” Dr. Peterson replied.

  “How long before they reach maturity?” M.J. asked.

  “Based on other apes, between seven and ten years for males; seven and eight years for females,” he replied.

  “How often do they give birth?” M.J. asked.

  “Generally, the great apes produce a single offspring every four years,” Dr. Peterson explained. “The gestation period is eight and a half months and the young can walk at three to six months.”

  “Do the offspring inherit traits from their parents, things like fear of humans?” M.J. asked.

  “Well, they might inherit some traits, but a lot of traits are the result of the rearing process,” Dr. Peterson replied. “Keep in mind that apes are very much like humans in most things, including the way they raise their young.”

  “Can they survive in a colder climate?” M.J. asked.

  “I’m going to assume you’re talking about a climate like we have here, which is considered moderate,” Dr. Peterson replied, “and the answer is probably yes. Apes are very adaptable, as are most primates. They might grow more body hair for warmth and even start periods of hibernation during especially cold periods to conserve body heat and lower food requirements. They might also change their nesting habits. We believe the Bili is a ground nester, but that might change in a colder climate. Most likely, they would find a more confined space where they could huddle together for warmth. Some kind of cave or tunnel would probably make the most sense.”

  M.J. thought for a moment and asked, “Do apes inbreed?”

  “Generally, no,” Dr. Peterson responded. “The females instinctively know to seek mates from another group. Of course, if that’s not possible because of restricted movement, they will inbreed. That’s been observed in apes living in areas where their habitat has been reduced in size by the encroachment of humans.”

  “What are the effects of inbreeding?” M.J. asked.

  “Once again, very much the same as in humans,” Dr. Peterson replied. “At the very least, it would tend to amplify any bad traits that might have existed in the first place.”

  “What about aggressive behavior?” M.J. asked.

  “Well, male apes are naturally aggressive,” Dr. Peterson explained. “It has to do with territorial domination. Inbreeding could certainly make a male more aggressive. The females are not naturally aggressive, except when protecting their offspring, so it’s hard to say what effect inbreeding would have on them.”

  “Can apes become psychopathic?” M.J. asked.

  “Of course,” he replied. “I can’t stress strongly enough that the characteristics of apes will almost always be analogous to those found in humans and that would include psychopathic behavior. The larger non-human primates are so closely linked to humans that their DNA is about ninety-eight percent the same as ours.”

  That would explain the DNA results from the blood on Lola’s teeth, M.J. thought. It wasn’t corrupted; it was just missing two percent of human DNA.

  “I think you’ve answered all of my questions for now, Doctor. If I think of anything else, can I give you a call?” M.J. asked.

  “Sure, I’ll give you my card,” he replied, searching for one in the drawer of his desk. “Don’t forget your promise to tell me what this is all about, Detective.”

  “I won’t,” M.J. said. “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.”

  She drove to Ollie Coppin’s house in Great Falls, unable to keep from replaying her conversation with Dr. Peterson during the trip. Ollie wasn’t in the front yard, so M.J. went around the house to the back porch. She was sitting in a chair reading and looked up when she heard M.J.

  “Well, how nice to see you again so soon,” Ollie said.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Ollie, but I wanted to show you something,” M.J. replied.

  “No problem at all. Come on in,” Ollie said.

  M.J. opened the screen door and removed the picture from a manila folder. She handed it to Ollie and said, “Does this look like the ape that was kept at the park?”

  Ollie took the picture and immediately said, “Why yes, that’s it exactly. What is it?”

  “It’s called a Bili Ape and it probably came from what was then called the Belgian Congo,” M.J. replied.

  “Well I’ll be,” Ollie said. “Can you tell me why you’re so interested in this ape?”

  “Unfortunately I can’t just yet Ollie,” M.J. said, “but trust me, you have been a great help. Thank you again.”

  “Can you stay for coffee?” Ollie asked.

  “I’d love to, but I have to get back to my office,” M.J. replied. “I would certainly like to stop back another time, though.”

  “You are welcome here any time,” Ollie said.

  M.J. drove to Anacostia Station. It was about six o’clock and there were several other detectives working at their desks. M.J. checked her e-mail. There was one from Becky Whitmer. Attached to it was a scanned copy of the report on the suspected murder of Kevin Murphy in 1942. It had been written on a manual typewriter and had multiple cross-outs and smudges.

  M.J. read the report quickly. It closely followed the narrative of the incident provided by Ollie Coppin, including the footprints found on the muddy road. It noted that from Murphy’s footprints he appeared to have been running away from his attacker and that the other set of footprints appeared to have been made by “a person of some size” based on their width. The final paragraph of the report said that Murphy’s body had been recovered two days later and was taken to the county morgue.

  There was also an e-mail from Dr. Martin with an attached copy of the autopsy report for Kevin Murphy. In the e-mail Martin said, “Please give me a call. I’ll be working late tonight, probably at least until 9:00.”

  While she was opening the file with the autopsy report, M.J. dialed Martin’s number.

  “Hello, Detective,” Dr. Martin said. “Glad you called. I read the autopsy report and looked at the pictures of the body and the x-rays that were with it. T
he autopsy was done by an assistant coroner, who appears to have been just a regular M.D. with no training in forensic pathology. Fortunately, he was very meticulous in recording his findings.”

  “Were you able to determine anything?” she asked.

  “Yes, I think so,” he said. “There were bruises to the neck which he concluded were caused by some form of blunt force trauma. You can actually see them in the pictures, which are a little faded but still usable. Fortunately, the body had only been in the water for a couple of days so the soft tissue wasn’t too badly decomposed.”

  M.J. paged ahead to the pictures which showed Murphy’s body on the autopsy table. There were bruises clearly visible on the sides of his neck. More striking to M.J. was the fact that his head was tilted backwards and appeared to be resting limply on its side.

  Dr. Martin continued, “Now, the bruises by themselves might lead one to the conclusion that they were due to some sort of striking wound. But the doctor also found that there was a complete dislocation of the second and third cervical vertebrae. You can see this in the x-ray, which has deteriorated quite a bit but is still readable. He ascribed this to the fact that the body had been battered against rocks in the river for two days.”

  M.J. looked at the x-ray, which, to her, seemed very similar to those taken of the murdered boys’ necks.

  “To get to the point,” Dr. Martin said, “I think his explanation for the dislocated vertebrae is totally wrong. No matter how much the body was thrown against rocks by a flooded river, it would not have resulted in that injury. Soft tissue trauma, yes; fractured vertebrae, maybe; completely dislocated cervical vertebrae, no. What you have here, Detective, is a man who was murdered in exactly the same way as the more recent victims in your case. How that is possible after more than sixty years, I’ll leave to your investigative skills. I just hope you’ll let me know when you figure it out.”

  “You know, Doctor, a lot of people have been asking me to do that. I’ll add your name to the list. Thanks for the help,” she said.

  M.J. drove to her apartment, stopping at a deli on the way to pick up a sandwich and two beers. When she went inside, she put the beers in the refrigerator, took a bite of the sandwich and then headed for the shower, where she stayed under the spray until her tense muscles relaxed. She put on a terrycloth robe, opened one of the beers and sat down at the counter in her kitchenette.

  She slid a pad and pencil over from underneath the wall phone and began doing some rough calculations in her head while making notes on the paper: If the male ape was ten years old and the female was, say, eight years old when they arrived at Great Falls Park in 1936, they could have produced offspring in as little as eight and half months. Not likely though, she thought, after the trauma of being shipped to the United States, being uprooted by the Great Flood and trying to adapt to their new surroundings in the park. Best case would probably be first offspring in ’37 or ’38, another in ’41 or ’42. The original apes probably died no later than the early ‘60s and their offspring no later than the ‘70s. That means that if there are apes still living in the park they would be the third generation and nearing the end of their life expectancy.

  She took a drink of beer and retrieved her sandwich from the end of the counter. She was exhausted and tomorrow was going to be another long day. She finished the sandwich and beer, turned off the lights and crawled under the covers on her bed.

  Sometime during the night, she awakened from a nightmare in which she was being pursued by a giant ape. She rubbed her face and tried to go back to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  M.J. GOT UP VERY EARLY the next morning, which was not hard to do since she had never really gotten back to sleep after her nightmare. The sun was just coming up when she arrived at Great Falls Park. She changed clothes and set out for a long run.

  When she had run before she had looked for suspicious people on the trails and in the park. Now she found herself focusing on the park’s terrain. She noticed large clusters of rock in the forest, some with crevices big enough to shelter an ape, and dense foliage that obscured the underlying ground where a nest might be located.

  Just where would these things live? she thought. Wherever they lived, they would probably avoid coming out in the daytime because of all the people in the park. They and their ancestors had probably become strictly nocturnal animals, only venturing out when the park was closed and the people had left. That’s when they would forage for food, returning to their nest before dawn.

  All of the murders had occurred at night and all in the spring or early summer, she thought. But why had all of the murders taken place on Difficult Run? Did that mean that the apes had always lived in that part of the park or was it just happenstance? And, if they lived in that area, why were the murders confined to just that time of year? And what prompted the attacks in the first place? Dr. Peterson had said that the males were naturally aggressive. Were the attacks the result of some primordial need to assert territorial dominance? Or perhaps the attacker was not a male at all, but a female protecting her young.

  One thing was certain, she thought, there remained many more questions than answers. She knew she was going to need help in building a convincing case or no one would accept her solution to the murders.

  After she had showered and changed into her work clothes, she went to Dodd’s office. He was sitting at his desk going through a stack of papers.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, “and it may take a while.”

  He pushed the stack of papers aside and said, “As much time as you need, M.J. Why don’t you close the door.”

  “What I’m going to tell you I haven’t shared with anyone else, not my partner or my boss . . . no one,” M.J. said. “I’ll need for you to keep it confidential until we figure out what to do, but most of all I need your help in making sense out of it.”

  “You know you can trust me, M.J. and I’ll be glad to help in any way I can,” he said.

  She told him about her conversation with Ollie Coppin, her recollection of the escape of the two apes in 1936 and the suspected murder of Kevin Murphy in 1942. Then she told him about her meeting with Dr. Peterson at National Geographic and the conclusions of Dr. Martin about the cause of death in the Murphy case. She also showed him the picture of a Bili Ape.

  As she spoke, Dodd’s eyes grew wider and when she had finished he sat for several seconds staring at the picture without saying a word. Finally he said, “M.J., do you really think all these murders were committed by this creature or its ancestors?”

  “I’m certain of it,” she replied. “If you think about it, it’s the only explanation given the span of time. It’s also the only logical explanation of why the murders were committed the way they were.”

  Dodd thought for a minute, then said, “I think you’re right, M.J. Now what can I do to help?”

  “We need to do several things in short order,” she said. “First, we need to go back as far as we can and look for any other suspicious deaths or disappearances on Difficult Run. I’ll check the county records if you’ll check the log books. Once we have that, we need to try to put everything together and figure out where these things live in the park. Then, we need to figure out how to prove they exist, because without that I’ll never be able to sell this to my superiors.”

  “Well,” Dodd said, “since this only became part of the national park system in 1966, I won’t have any records before that. I stopped at the year 2000 last time, so I’ve got 34 more years to go through. That’s going to take some time, but I’ll get started right away.”

  “I’m going to check as far back as I can in the Fairfax County records,” M.J. said. “We can cross-check what we come up with and maybe find some clues or a pattern.”

  M.J. drove to Fairfax County Police Central Records Division and found Becky Whitmer.

  “I’m sorry to just show up like this Becky,” M.J. said, “but some things have developed in that case I’m working on and I need to do anoth
er records search. How far back does your computer database go?” she asked.

  “1960,” Becky said. “The records before that—back to 1940 when the Department was formed—are all in hard copy, like the one I found for you yesterday. By the way, was that of any help?” she asked.

  “More than you can imagine,” M.J. replied. “It sounds like for records before 1960 I’d need a name or a date to find anything.”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Becky said. “One of these days—if we ever get the funding—we can put those old records in the system, too. Well, just sit down at the same computer you used last time and let me know if you have any questions.”

  “Do you know how far back the Fire and Rescue system goes?” M.J. asked.

  “Well, I think the county department formed around 1949, but I’m guessing their system probably only goes back to 1960, like ours. The same company put both systems in, so that would make sense. I’ll call my counterpart over there and see what I can find out,” Becky replied.

  M.J. sat down at the computer and entered the same search terms she had used before. For the period between January 1960 and March 2000 there were fourteen missing person reports for Great Falls, eight of which were related to the park. Five of those had been closed out because the person had been found; one contained a supplemental report; and the other two remained open.

  M.J. looked at the first case, which involved the disappearance in mid-April 1972 of a photographer from Washington. He had gone to Difficult Run late at night to take time-lapse photos of the Potomac below Mather Gorge for a coffee table book he hoped to publish. When he didn’t return by morning, his girlfriend contacted the police who found his car in the Difficult Run parking lot. When they checked the trail they found his camera and tripod knocked over next to his gear bag and a flashlight, but no sign of him. A supplemental report said that his body was found almost three weeks later floating in the tidal basin near the Jefferson Memorial. She printed a copy of the report.