The Only Witness

by Pamela Beason

  He wanted so badly to call Brittany Morgan. He could taste the desire burning his throat. Or maybe it was simply the heartburn that had accompanied him throughout this case. But he couldn't make that call until he knew that Ivy was alive and coming home.

  His phone chirped. Foster, FBI. He answered as he walked back to his desk. "The Morgan case is a kidnapping," he reported, feeling a bit embarrassed that he was chortling about a major crime. "And we need all the help we can get ASAP."

  Chapter 29

  Twenty-seven days after Ivy disappears

  The next morning, border guards stopped Abram Jimson Jr. as he tried to cross into Canada from Montana. His right index fingerprint matched one on the back of Ivy Rose Morgan's photo, as well as one on the photo of Tika Kinsey. His thumb and middle finger print matched prints found on the inside of a plastic bag from the Food Mart parking lot.

  Reverend Jimson Sr. was so noticeably mortified that Finn was inclined to believe his public apologies. With his long-suffering wife by his side, the preacher kept saying, "Abe was the light of our life, so smart that he almost completed law school, but somehow the devil got hold of his soul. Please pray for my son." The law school history went a long way toward explaining how Junior could have pulled off the adoption arrangements.

  True to his legal beagle training, Junior wasn't talking. But right after the news broke about Junior's arrest, a Jimson janitor in Seattle had turned himself into the police and made a plea bargain in exchange for information. The guy was on parole for forgery and identity theft, and Junior had blackmailed him into creating false documents for six babies, including a passport for Ivy. He didn't have the real names of the babies, but he'd been smart enough to keep copies of the fake papers.

  "Abe had these Jimson checks in his hand," the guy said. "He told me he was gonna say I stole 'em and faked his signature. Who'd believe me? I didn't have any choice."

  Through computer records, FBI Agents Foster and Maxwell discovered that Junior had purchased mailing lists and personal information from adoption websites. With the prospective parents' race and physical characteristics and wishful email messages in hand, Junior had very cleverly matched babies to parents who'd find it hard to say no to an infant that looked like them.

  The FBI located Ivy in Dublin, Ireland; she was due to arrive in Seattle at eleven tomorrow night. The whole Morgan family was driving over to get her. Tika Kinsey had been found in New York City and would be reunited with her parents and grandmother the day after that.

  "And," Agent Foster gleefully told him, "We've located four other babies kidnapped in the last three years from teenage mothers across the country."

  "But not William Adams from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho?" Finn asked.

  "We found no connection to Jimson there," Foster told him. "And, for the record, Charlie Wakefield never had anything to do with any baby, as far as we can tell."

  Finn thought Foster had no idea how right she was about that. But now Charlie and Ivy would take that paternity test so their relationship would be on the record; Finn would make sure of that.

  "You should be very proud of yourself, Detective," Foster told him. "Jimson had a different accomplice in every school, and as ex-cons they had good reason to keep their mouths shut. Nobody put the pieces together until you did."

  He ended the call, indeed feeling mostly proud, trying not to let the Idaho snag dampen his jubilation. He called Grace to suggest a celebration dinner out.

  "That sounds wonderful, Matt, but let's make it a potluck here instead, the day after tomorrow, at noon? Some people are coming to meet Neema and Gumu, and I'd like you to be here, too."

  He could hear people laughing in the background. Grace sounded happy for a change. After saying goodbye, he stood leaning against the mantle, listening to the clock tick in his empty house. Maybe he'd call Dawes, see if he wanted to go out for a beer. No, that was pathetic; the guy would be at home having dinner with his family, and besides, all the detectives were still pissed that Finn hadn't shared the gorilla connection with them right away.

  Restless, Finn drummed his fingers on the mantle. The little cardboard cylinder sitting there vibrated along, moving closer to the edge. He stopped tapping, not wanting to end up with a baby's ashes all over the living room carpet.

  Oh god. He grabbed the cylinder. One to six weeks old. Likely Hispanic. Dug up in a hay field in rural eastern Washington.

  He called the Coeur d'Alene Police Department, asked for the detective he'd spoken to earlier. "Is the father of Carissa Adams's baby—Jerome, I think they called him—by any chance Hispanic?"

  "Jerome Lopez," the detective responded. "What do you think?"

  "I believe I've located the body of William Adams. Or actually, it was located nearly a month ago, but we didn't know it was him. Lopez worked on a threshing crew, right?"

  "Yeah, during the summers."

  "I think you'll find that threshing crew passed through Kittitas County, Washington, shortly after William was reported missing."

  "You've got a corpse."

  "I'll have the autopsy report faxed to you right away; I'll have to arrange to get the ashes back somehow, too."

  "Sorry to hear this one is ending this way, but I can't say I'm surprised. Carissa never acted like she believed that baby could come back."

  Finn had noticed that, too.

  "I hear you're a regular hero, Finn."

  "Yeah?"

  "That's the buzz. Congratulations."

  Finn's phone bleeped the call-waiting signal in his ear. He thanked the other detective and switched over. "It's Scott," the voice informed him. "If you don't have anything better to do, Dolores and I would like to take you out to dinner."

  "I'd be honored, Scott. Should I meet you somewhere?"

  "Actually," Scott said, "We're right outside your front door. We've got something for you. Well, two somethings."

  The first something turned out to be a framed photograph taken in the Cascade foothills in autumn. Brilliant yellow larches flamed against dark green firs, surrounding a waterfall cascading down a gray cliff into a silvery pool.

  "It's beautiful." He held it carefully by the frame. Why the heck had Scott and Dolores brought him a photo?

  "Scotty took the picture," Dolores said proudly. "It's one of our favorite places. We'd like to take you there sometime."

  "I'd like to see that," Finn said.

  Scott pulled the photo out of Finn's hands, "I know we're buttinskis, but we thought it was time you made a few changes around here." He turned to the wall, took down Wendy's wedding photograph and hung the larch photo in its place. He handed Wendy's photo to Finn, who stood studying it, embarrassed. There were little smudges all over the glass from the suction cup feet of the wall walker toys.

  "Feel free to tell Scotty to go jump," Dolores said. "I told him it was really none of our business."

  "No, it's really not," Finn agreed. "But I think Scott is absolutely right." He slid Wendy's photo down between the recliner and the end table.

  The second something they'd brought was an odd stack of wood-framed panels covered with wire mesh that Scott unloaded onto the front porch. Finn stared, totally perplexed.

  "We used to have cats," Dolores told him, picking up Kee from the ground. As she rubbed the cat's ears, she said, "And we wanted to keep them safe, but you know cats; they love to go outside, especially at night."

  Finn didn't get it.

  "It's a cat cage," Scott told him. "Well, it will be after you put the panels together. You can put it outside around that window in the laundry room. Then you put a cat door in the window and Lok here—"

  "Kee," Finn corrected.

  "Kee can go out in the cage whenever he wants, and no varmint will get him." Scott looked proud of himself.

  Nothing like locking the barn door after the horse was long gone, Finn thought. But a cat cage was a good idea in coyote country, and he still had one feline to protect. "Thanks, guys," he said.

  Scott slapped
him on the back. "Let's go eat."

  Chapter 30

  The day after Ivy comes back

  Finn watched Brittany bravely enter the enclosure with Neema and Grace. Gumu was locked in the barn, snuffling now and then, and probably watching through the cracks in the wall boards.

  The girl had brought six pink roses, which she handed to Neema ceremoniously, one by one, using her right hand. In her left arm she cradled Ivy, who wore the strange winged costume Finn had seen in Brittany's room. The baby looked like a giant moth, or maybe a green fairy princess. An odd little crowd had assembled for the occasion, including the three ARU defendants, several of Brittany's friends, her parents and brother, some local officials from Evansburg College, and a red-haired Irish couple that the Morgans introduced as Ivy's Aunt Siobhan and Uncle Sean. The Irish woman wiped her eyes from time to time, and her smile quivered. They had to be the Irish couple to whom Junior had sold Ivy.

  Neema, sensing the importance of the moment, gravely and delicately chewed the petals off each rose before holding out her massive hand for another. When Neema had consumed all the flowers, Brittany signed thank you several times, flicking her fingers from her chin out toward the gorilla.

  Neema signed baby baby give, red tail give baby Neema, and then opened both black hairy arms toward Brittany.

  When Grace translated, Brittany's eyes widened.

  "Up to you," Grace said. "Neema has never intentionally hurt a living creature."

  Neema flashed baby give again and held out her massive hands.

  Brittany took a deep breath and then stepped close to Neema. She clutched Ivy protectively, but stopped only inches away from the gorilla.

  "Mother Mary," the Irish woman gasped. Her husband laid a hand on her shoulder.

  Neema bent down to the baby in Brittany's arms and studied Ivy's face. Ivy batted her tiny hand against the gorilla's nose.

  Neema stiffened and snorted. Brittany stiffened, too. Then the gorilla gave several short huffs that were clearly laughter. The people watching chuckled, too. Then Neema bent and tenderly pressed her huge black lips to the baby's head, giving Ivy a gorilla kiss.

  Brittany stepped back, signing thank you again.

  "Baby come fine gorilla baby," Grace interpreted Neema's next signs.

  "No," Brittany said, "Ivy is my baby." She planted her own kiss on Ivy's head to make her point.

  "She's not talking about Ivy," Grace said. "She's telling you that a gorilla baby is coming."

  Dr. Andreasson studied Neema. Grace had introduced him as the head of Evansburg College. She happily told Finn she'd been offered a job teaching linguistics and psychology courses there, and that the position included modest funding for her gorilla language research.

  "Is Neema fantasizing about a gorilla baby?" Andreasson asked Grace now.

  "No, I told her this morning after the test confirmed it," Grace reported. "Neema is pregnant!"

  Silence reigned for a moment as the observers took that in. Finn wished he could hear what everyone was thinking—another ape mouth to feed? A chance to see if Neema would teach her baby sign language? Another gorilla born in captivity instead of in the wild?

  Although the county council was clamoring for new restrictions on keeping wild animals, fame had worked mostly in favor of the gorillas. Their paintings sold at a premium as soon as they hit E-bay. LaDyne set up an account for the gorillas at an internet bank, and posted videos of the gorillas and articles about their threatened sale, all featuring prominent Donate buttons. Funds were trickling in from around the world.

  Under pressure, the University of Washington removed the gorillas from their list of property going to auction, and they agreed to sell the Evansburg real estate and the gorillas to the new Gorilla Research Foundation. Currently the account had enough money to finalize the purchase and feed and house the gorillas for at least a year. Among the first priorities of the Foundation were security cameras and electric fences.

  The court accepted the work of the three ARU kids at Grace's compound as community service, a win-win situation for all parties, although Finn fretted that Caryn, Sierra, and Jon might decide one day that signing gorillas should be as free as laboratory mice. Grace assured him that they'd had a talk about the apes' chances of survival in the wilds of eastern Washington.

  After he drove home alone, Finn felt melancholy. He sat on his front porch for a minute, staring at his overgrown driveway. Routine detective work was going to be boring from now on. Then again, he was damn tired; boring might be pleasant for awhile. It would give him time to finish his sailboat painting. His next effort was going to be the Cascades, he decided. He liked the way the new snow on the highest peaks gleamed against the sunset.

  He was still on Travis Wakefield's shit list, but his job seemed secure. If no major crimes popped up, he'd have time to go see those larches and waterfalls in the mountains before winter set in. Grace said she wanted to come along.

  Something warm brushed against his leg. He put his hand down, expecting to feel Cargo's broad head. Instead, his fingers touched the smaller body of a cat. The creature leapt into his lap. Kee was finally becoming affectionate?

  The cat was very thin. His orange fur was filthy and covered with stick-tights and his right ear had a bloody rip in it, but Lok curled his paws under himself and purred as if he was the happiest cat in the world.

  Finn stroked his hand over the ratty fur, transferring a few of the sticky seeds to his shirt cuff. He said, "It's about time you came home."

  ~~~

  THE END

  ~~~

  I hope you enjoyed THE ONLY WITNESS. The following free excerpt is from my romantic suspense novel, SHAKEN.

  Ebook and print formats

  Excerpt from

  SHAKEN

  By

  Pamela Beason

  Chapter 1

  When the first ripple of earth surged toward her, Elisa Langston stood up and stared, not trusting her eyes. The field around her was quiet; all she heard was the rasp of rubbing branches overhead. Even after the wave had lifted her and set her back down, then rolled on toward wherever it was going, she didn't quite believe it. Was she hallucinating?

  But then a second wave, this one more malevolent, roared through the ground, driving her to her knees. Ridge after ridge of earth rolled through her field like breakers surging toward the beach. Car alarms sounded in distant parking lots. Increasing in speed and size, undulations of soil rose and fell around her, tearing landscape fabric, noisily tossing her neat rows of potted plants into mangled piles. Overhead, branches cracked and popped as the taller trees around her shimmied and swayed like crazed hula dancers, showering her with red and gold leaves.

  A streak of black-and-white fur flashed past.

  “Simon!” she shouted, but the panicked cat was gone. She didn’t blame him. If she had four legs, she'd be running, too.

  This was the biggest earthquake she'd ever experienced. And the weirdest. It felt as if the planet had suddenly returned to its ocean origins, and the whole world was liquid again. A large wave swelled up beneath her, toppling her backwards, and she was nearly buried by a sudden deluge of rainbow-colored foliage. A tremendous ripping sound came from the north, followed by a thundering crash that reverberated through the ground and rattled her teeth. The old homestead! Elisa dug her fingernails into the dirt, trying desperately to regain her feet and turn toward the noise. Snapping sounds erupted all around her. A sweet gum crash-landed a few feet away, its impact jolting every bone in her body. She flailed wildly, struggling to find purchase in the roiling soil. A rush of cold air blasted her face, and then she felt a crushing blow to her legs and chest. After a brief close-up of speckled bark, her world went black.

  When Elisa opened her eyes again, it was dark. How long had she been lying here? Her eyes wouldn't focus on the numbers on her wristwatch. The first stars were out, weak pinpoints of light barely visible among scattered clouds. A gust of wind blew leaves and dirt into her face. Rain
would follow soon.

  The uneven soil beneath her was cold, and its dampness had soaked through her clothing and hair. Waves of shivering rippled through her. Her head pounded so badly that she would have sworn a freight train rumbled somewhere nearby.

  The tree trunk pinning her to the ground was no more than eight inches thick. She was strong, even if she was small. If she could get proper leverage, she should be able to shift it off her body. When her shivering subsided for a few seconds, she tried to move her legs. A lightning bolt of pain shot through her, white hot, then icy, leaving her breathless.

  Giving up for the moment on her lower limbs, she fingered the wetness at the back of her head. She'd landed on a rock. When she stretched her hand in front of her face, it was dark with sticky fluid. Groaning, she managed to squeeze her fingers into her front jeans pocket and slide out the penlight she habitually carried. Its tiny beam confirmed the blood on her hand.

  She wrapped her arms around the trunk again, pressing the stinging heat of her scratched cheek against the cool bark of the American sweet gum that had nearly killed her. The tree was one of the Festival variety, prized for its brilliant foliage in an area dominated by evergreens.

  “I'm never forgiving you,” she hissed into a cluster of orange leaves. “I babied you for years, and this is how you pay me back?”

  A thin wail drifted on the breeze. A cat crying? “Simon?” she whimpered. “Go for help, buddy. Run to the office. Get Gerald.”

  Right. As if a cat could rescue her. Her business partner, Gerald, usually left the nursery promptly at five, and for all she knew, Simon needed to be rescued himself. It was an unbearable thought, that her pet might be lying nearby, in pain, waiting for her to make things right.