The Only Witness

by Pamela Beason

  Chapter 25

  Twenty-one days after Ivy disappears

  Bears. According to the paper, the large animals hit by the semi turned out to be a sow bear with a yearling cub. It was sad, but Grace was so grateful that the black corpses hadn't been her gorillas. It had taken two days for Neema and Gumu to settle down, especially with new people in their territory. Both gorillas had terrible diarrhea from all the apples and whatever else they'd eaten during their adventure, but other than that they seemed healthy. And they seemed to have finally bonded during the escapade. Neema now wanted to sleep every night with Gumu in the barn, so Grace had taken the blankets for her sleeping nest out there. The kittens had moved to the barn as well.

  As she walked out to the barn to deliver breakfast to her menagerie, she thought about the coming months. She needed to rig up some sort of heat out there, but would any of them still be here this winter? Both Neema and Gumu were still on the university auction list, and the land and trailers were as well. The gorillas' paintings had brought in slightly less than five thousand dollars. She'd have to get the apes back to doing gorilla art, and soon. Now that they were all notorious, perhaps the sales figures would skyrocket. Then again, by now the university was no doubt aware of their little underground art project, and the bureaucrats might very well claim that the money earned on their property by their property was rightfully theirs.

  Hell, she'd better learn to create and sell her own paintings; she might be unemployed soon. So far the university had stayed quiet when hounded by the press, other than acknowledging the existence of the ape language project. The fact that they were not defending her in any way did not bode well. The Tolliver Animal Intelligence Foundation had no comment, either. The silence from her supposed supporters was ominous.

  Brittany had returned yesterday with her parents, who apparently judged Grace to be at least a benign influence, because she was back today by herself. Grace knew she was hoping for the magical breakthrough when Neema would tell her where Ivy was. No matter how often Grace explained that Neema had no way of knowing that, the girl still wanted to be near the female gorilla, as if the ape was a link to her baby. Now Brittany stood outside the barn enclosure, feeding Neema and Gumu carrots one by one through the wire mesh.

  Brittany's hair fascinated Neema. This morning the girl wore it in her usual ponytail and the gorilla kept signing red tail soft. From the ARU trio, Brittany had learned the sign for baby, and she signed over and over Where baby?

  "Baby go snake arm bracelet," Grace translated for her. Unfortunately, Brittany didn't know anyone with a snake bracelet. Now, with the handful of carrots gone, the teenager raised her hands to her head in frustration and wailed, "Doesn't she know anything more?"

  Grace put a hand on the girl's arm. "Oh honey. Green car, snake arm bracelet. I'm afraid that's it."

  Red Tail cry, Neema signed from behind the fence. Skin bracelet pretty.

  Grace's jaw tensed. Where skin bracelet? she quickly signed.

  Skin bracelet flower there. Neema thrust out her lips toward the ivy design on Brittany's forearm.

  When Neema meant ring, she signed finger bracelet.

  Skin bracelet.

  "I'll be right back," she told Brittany, then dropped the tub of food and ran for her trailer.

  In the courthouse conference room, Finn's cell phone buzzed. Mason and Miki had yesterday off, the first day for three weeks, so he'd stayed home and twiddled his thumbs as well. Now they were all back searching for a connection between Jimson employees and Jimson vehicles.

  The phone showed Grace's number. "Everything okay out there?" he answered.

  "Matt! Skin bracelet!"

  "What?"

  "It's not a jewelry bracelet—Neema signed skin bracelet. She means a tattoo! Look for a tattoo of a snake on a man's arm." Grace hung up.

  A tattoo was much more findable than a snake bracelet. "We're searching for a tattoo on a Jimson employee," he excitedly told Mason and Miki. "A tattoo of a snake, or something that looks like a snake."

  Mason raised an eyebrow. "Another contribution from the gorilla woman?"

  Finn chose not to respond.

  "You know," Miki contributed, "Tattoos don't have to be permanent." She held out her own arm, which had the word LOVE stamped across the wrist. "My new boyfriend put this one on me last night." She gazed at it fondly.

  From Mason came, "Who says that the tattoo was on the Jimson employee? It could have been on a friend, right?"

  "I get it." Finn slapped his hand down on the table. "Let's focus on finding information about who drives the Jimson vehicles first." And then he'd look for a tattoo, even if he had to do it himself.

  Two hours later, Mason had pulled up a list of traffic records containing the plate numbers for the green Jimson vehicles. There was an accident report in which a Jimson vehicle driven by a Susan Magret had been hit by a pickup near Seattle; a failure-to-yield ticket for an Oscar Jones in a Jimson van in the Okanagan area. He copied down Magret's and Jones's addresses and dates of birth to run through the computer. There were two speeding tickets near Spokane and another near the Oregon border for Abram Jimson; apparently the guy had a lead foot. A fender bender rear-end collision, also for Abram Jimson.

  Looked like the good Reverend was a hazard to public safety. Finn studied the records more closely, searching for times and dates, and saw that one Spokane ticket had Sr. marked after the name. The other two Abram Jimson citations had Jr. noted.

  "Does Abram Jimson have a son with the same name?"

  Mason and Miki glanced up from their respective computer screens. "Yes," they said in unison.

  Finn turned to the boxes of records and flipped through the folders to the Spokane group. Yes, there it was. Abram Jimson Jr. He had been so focused on reading the location of the employee assignments that he'd skipped right over the name. Junior's title was listed as Quality Assurance Officer.

  Scott, his ex-father-in-law, had rhapsodized over the janitorial service's performance. They even send a quality control man around...

  "Mason," Finn said, trying to remain calm, "Does Junior have a record?" If he did, there'd be mug shots.

  He paced as Mason tapped a query into the system. Then his hopes were dashed when the computer tech sat back in his chair. "No record."

  Damn. Couldn't he catch a break in this case?

  "Yes!" Miki clapped her hands.

  They turned toward her. "I found his page on Facebook," she chortled.

  "Photos?"

  She grinned and turned her laptop around. A color photo of Abram Jimson Jr. lounging next to an expensive motorcycle took up most of the screen space.

  "Well, hot damn, lookie there," Mason drawled.

  Junior had black hair tied back in a ponytail. He was the man Finn had glimpsed with the janitor a couple of times at the high school. In the Facebook photo, Abram Jimson Jr. held his arms crossed against his chest. The arm on top clearly sported a blue ink drawing of a cobra that stretched from his elbow down to his wrist.

  Finn grinned and said to Miki, "Print that page for me, would you?"

  Mason reached for a notepad. "Guess we'll be asking Jimson Janitorial for more info about Junior's whereabouts on the day that Ivy disappeared?"

  "Got that right," Finn agreed.

  Miki held out the printed copy of Junior's Facebook photo, and Finn took it eagerly, pulling his car keys out of his pocket as he headed for the door. "Take the rest of the day off if you want. See you later."

  "Where are you going?" Mason asked.

  "I need to show this photo to a gor.." He only barely managed to change it to "Grace" in the last fraction of a second. The door closed behind him. A Grace? Maybe they hadn't noticed.

  The protesters seemed to have forsaken the courthouse steps in favor of decorating the county road right-of-way in front of Grace's home. Public property. No laws broken, the Sheriff said, nothing could be done about it. Where's Ivy?, Stop the Harassment, Save People, Not Apes; God Gave M
an Dominion Over Animals; We are not Monkeys; God Loves Reverend Jimson, and the ever-present Teach the Controversy. Grace was right to be worried about her safety. Finn mowed down four signs on his turn into her driveway.

  The Sheriff had refused to provide a guard, claiming there was no money for it, but Grace told Finn she had friends helping now. A college kid in a black tee shirt with cell phone in hand had given him a thumbs-up after he drove over the signs. After watching Finn open and close the gate, he held the cell phone to his lips as Finn drove up the road.

  "Oh yes," Grace told him minutes later. "That's Jared, one of the volunteers from the Animal Rights Union."

  Finn could hardly wait for that tidbit to hit the local news. In the study trailer, he was relieved to see that Neema had recovered her quiet demeanor after her adventure. She wanted to know if he'd brought her another flower. He found a mint lifesaver in his pocket, and Grace let him give that to the gorilla.

  He insisted that they set up two video cameras, and he took his time making sure the angle of each was perfect. Neema sat in the corner of her training trailer, engrossed in a children's picture book about zoo animals.

  "No prompting," Finn told Grace. "No questions."

  "We'll just show her the photo and see what she does," Grace agreed.

  "Multiple photos," Finn said. "Like a lineup."

  One by one, he held up four photos for the camera before placing them on the coffee table.

  "Photo 1, Charlie Wakefield." He'd had Mason Photoshop the picture, adding Charlie's face to a torso and arm displaying his track team's lightning design on the sleeve.

  "Photo 2, anonymous subject with facial features and dark hair similar to Abram Jimson Jr., no tattoo."

  "Photo 3, anonymous subject with blond hair and features similar to Wakefield, twining tattoo on forearm."

  "Photo 4, Abram Jimson Jr., sna—serpent tattoo on forearm."

  It was far from perfect, but it would do for his purpose today. Finn sat on the couch, and stated his name and the date and time for the cameras. Then he turned toward the gorilla. "Neema."

  She raised her head. "Come look at these pictures." She scooted over in his direction.

  Neema bent over the coffee table, her nose practically touching the photos, examining each one. Suddenly she screeched and slid backwards, signing frantically.

  "Bad bad snake skin bracelet bad," Grace translated. "Bad baby go cry. Bad snake arm man. Baby cry. Baby go."

  Grace stepped forward to comfort her frightened gorilla.

  "But she didn't identify a photo," Finn groaned. This would never work with a judge.

  "Who bad snake arm man, take baby go?" Grace asked Neema, signing the words.

  Finn frowned at the Tarzan language being recorded on the tape, imagining what a defense attorney would do with it. Neema sat huddled in the corner, her head bent toward the wall, her face hidden in her hands.

  Grace tapped her on the shoulder. "Neema."

  The gorilla turned her head. From his position, Finn could see the whites of her eyes.

  "Who bad snake arm man take baby?" She pointed toward the coffee table and startled him by switching to actual English as she signed, "Go touch the picture of the bad man who took the baby."

  Neema's huge hands flashed.

  "Tree candy yogurt," Grace translated. "She's bargaining." She turned to Neema and said, "Yogurt."

  The gorilla's big hands moved again. Grace stared at her for a moment. Neema gazed back toward her corner.

  "Oh, all right," Grace grumbled, signing her acquiescence. "Yogurt and a lollipop, but only after you touch the photo of the bad snake arm man who took the baby."

  Neema turned then and inched reluctantly toward the coffee table as if slogging through swamp mud. When she reached the edge of the coffee table, she raised her chin to look, then abruptly rose up on her hind feet and slammed her giant hand down on the lower right photo, slapping it so hard that it slipped from the table onto the floor. She quickly scooted to the door that led to the kitchen, hooting and hugging herself.

  Finn recovered from the half-turned retreat position he'd automatically assumed when Neema reared up. He faced forward again, took a breath, and said for the video camera, "Neema has identified the photo of Abram Jimson Jr. as the man who took the baby. Interview ended."

  As Grace went to the kitchen to get Neema her treats, he turned off the camera and retrieved the photo from the floor. "Gotcha," he said to Junior.

  Chapter 26

  Twenty-two days after Ivy disappears

  "You have got to be kidding," Vernon Dixon said. The district attorney leaned back in his chair as if trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the video monitor. "You want me to issue an arrest warrant for Abram Jimson Jr. on the basis of hearsay testimony from an ape?"

  Finn winced and held a finger to his lips. Dixon had shouted it loud enough to be heard down the corridor. "According to multiple citizens," Finn told him, "Junior was in Evansburg making the rounds of Jimson Janitorial clients on the day that Ivy Rose Morgan disappeared." He'd checked with his ex-father-in-law and verified that.

  "So what?" Dixon asked.

  Which was exactly what Abram Jimson Jr. had said, according to the Spokane detectives who had interviewed him. He hadn't denied being in Evansburg on that day; a stop there was part of his regularly scheduled rounds as a quality assurance officer for Jimson Janitorial Service.

  Dixon steepled his fingertips in front of his chest and fixed his steely gaze on Finn. "You've got nothing else?"

  "He was also in Portland the day before Tika Kinsey disappeared."

  "The day before?"

  Junior said he'd gone camping out on the Oregon Coast after doing his quality control rounds; there was no actual record of where he'd stayed the night before or the night after Tika vanished from her front porch playpen. Finn shrugged.

  "No." The district attorney swiveled in his desk chair. "There's no way. We'd become the laughingstock of Washington State. Hell, with your current YouTube fame, we'd be the laughingstock of the entire world."

  Finn fumed. But Dixon was right, he didn't yet have proof that would stand up in court; he had to find more. Finn's cell phone buzzed as he left the DA's office. Brittany Morgan. She called him several times a day. He didn't answer. How could he tell her that he was fairly certain about the identity of her baby's kidnapper, but he couldn't lay a hand on him? Brittany and her parents would feel even more tormented than they were now. He knew because he was feeling that torment himself.

  What else did he have? The baby carrier and backpack had been wiped down, no usable prints. Brittany's car, likewise; all prints belonged to the family. The slimy bastard must have worn gloves. But that didn't seem likely, now that he thought about it; gloves would have covered up much of the tattoo on his wrist and hand.

  He dialed Grace as he walked down the courthouse hallway. "Did Neema ever mention anything else about snake arm man?"

  "I don't remember anything else. Want me to review the videos I made right after we went to the store?"

  "As soon as you can, please." He didn't know what he was hoping for. Some detail he'd missed, something that someone else might recall seeing that day. He pushed open the door and stepped outside. Immediately, two matched sets of reporters with cameramen surged forward. "Detective Finn! Detective Finn!"

  Allyson Lee elbowed her competitor to the side and jammed the microphone in his face. "Is it true that the eyewitness in the Ivy Morgan case is not Dr. McKenna, but one of her gorillas?"

  Her question was immediately followed by a roar of shouts from the small crowd gathered behind the reporters. Several cameras flashed.

  Apparently Dixon had yelled loudly enough to be heard in the corridor.

  He loped back to the precinct with the pack at his heels. He'd barely sat down at his desk when his cell phone buzzed. The readout said Foster, FBI. Finn snapped his phone open, feeling a little sick.

  "I'm sitting in the Boise
airport watching the Northwest News," Agent Alice Foster said. "And I see that you have an eyewitness in the Ivy Morgan disappearance? Why did you fail to inform us of this, Detective?"

  "You know how unreliable eyewitnesses can be," he said vaguely. "It's a … young female … with the IQ of a five-year-old. All she identified was a green car with a particular logo and a man with a snake bracelet."

  "And her identification is linked to this Jimson fellow?"

  "The logo belonged to Jimson Janitorial, so we're searching employee records now to see if there's a connection."

  "So at this point you believe it's a kidnapping?"

  Finn thought about that for a second. He did believe it was a kidnapping, but he wasn't ready to say that yet. He still had no idea what had happened to that baby. If the FBI grabbed the case now, he'd lose all momentum. "I've been following up on the lead to see if it's a possibility," he told Foster.

  Agent Foster's heavy sigh rasped over the airwaves. "Well, let us know if we can be of assistance. And by the way, the report on your crime scene debris just came back. Lots of prints and DNA on various items, none matched to known felons or to the Wakefields."

  Of course, Finn thought bitterly. Nothing about this case could be easy.

  "Where would you like me to send the report?"

  He gave her the department fax number. "Thank you for getting that processed, Agent Foster," he said.

  "No problem. Please do keep us informed of any future developments, Detective."

  He promised he would, and then ended the call. He wondered when Agent Foster would get the news that his eyewitness was a gorilla.

  He stood up to pace, but after his second lap, he noticed everyone else in the precinct was staring at him. "I'm headed home," he told the dispatcher. "Call me if anything comes up."

  Twenty minutes later he was out in his backyard, Cargo trailing in his wake as he wandered around his property, shouting over and over, "Lok! Come here, kitty!" The Lost ad he'd sent into the Evansburg Times had run for the last three days, but there had been no calls.