by Steven James
“Different species of primates exhibit varying degrees of altruistic behavior,” he replied, not exactly answering my question.
I thought of the sections of Tessa’s research that I’d perused. “As well as cognitive empathy, right? And partner-specific reciprocity?”
“Yes.” Olan seemed somewhat taken aback that Tessa and I appeared to know what we were talking about, and as he went on, he seemed bent on proving that he knew more.
“Chimpanzees kiss and hold each other after fighting, sometimes jump into water to save other chimps-even though no chimps are able to swim. In some cases, gorillas have warned keepers when young gorillas are in danger-thus showing that they are both cognizant of the plight of other creatures and able to identify a possible means of rescue for them. And as far as intelligence and problem solving, some gorillas have scored 90 on human IQ tests, others have learned more than 3,500 sign language words, even made up signs to describe themselves.”
I’d never heard about apes trying to save each other or taking human IQ tests, and I was surprised-and for some reason that I couldn’t quite pinpoint, vaguely troubled.
“One ape even made up a sign for contact lens cleaning solution after watching his keeper wash and then put in her contacts.”
“What was it?” Tessa asked.
“The gorilla combined the words eye and drink,” he said.
That was just plain impressive.
I asked a few follow-up questions, and Olan seemed to become more and more antsy with each one. “I’m very sorry,” he said at last. “But I’m terribly busy-still dealing with the aftermath of the incident on Tuesday night as it concerns our board, our donors. We’re a nonprofit organization and donations are essential for our survival. I’m sure you understand. Perhaps it would be best if one of our researchers or keepers answered any additional questions.”
Actually, that might not be a bad idea.
I asked if we could speak with Sandra Reynolds, the keeper who’d found Twana’s body and killed the two chimps who were attacking her, but Olan told me she’d taken the rest of the week off. “For counseling,” he added in a somewhat ominous tone.
He called to a studious-looking woman in her late twenties who was bent over a computer keyboard in an adjoining room. “Dr. Risel, can you spare a few moments?”
She didn’t bother to look up. “I’m in the middle of my bibliography.” From her outfit, it was clear that she liked the color brown in all of its many shades and hues.
“Dr. Bowers here is investigating the tragedy Tuesday night.”
“That’s nice.”
“He works for the FBI.”
At last Dr. Risel looked our way, hesitated for a moment, then joined us.
After introductions, Mr. Olan left for his office and Dr. Risel informed us that she was a psychobiologist and was under a strict deadline for her next journal article, then waited, arms folded, for me to tell her what I needed, but I wasn’t exactly sure what that was.
Tessa bailed me out. “Tell us about the MSR research.”
“Mirror self-recognition,” Dr. Risel said, as if Tessa couldn’t possibly have already known what the initials stood for.
“Um, yeah.”
Dr. Risel looked around the room absently for a moment, then sighed. “It might be just as quick if I showed you.” She pulled out a set of keys and headed for the gorilla habitats.
Astrid had asked Brad to lay low for the day.
Yes, he needed to arrange everything for tonight. But that wouldn’t take him long.
So, keep tabs on him.
She’d asked him to check in with her every hour by phone, which he had faithfully done so far.
Good.
One step at a time, make sure that he was not slipping up again.
She decided that tonight she was going to tell him about her child.
Today they would stay on schedule.
Finish the game.
And then tonight at the body farm, she would tell him about the baby.
53
Tessa and I watched from the other side of the mesh enclosure as Dr. Risel led one of the apes, a young female named Belle, out of the habitat and into the room.
To my surprise, the doctor stayed with the gorilla in the enclosed area, and when I commented on it, she just said, “Gorillas are gentle creatures. Very timid and shy. She’s harmless.” She stroked the ape’s fur to show me how harmless the thickly muscled primate was.
“Belle is our newest arrival,” she explained. The more time she spent with the gorilla, the less urgent she seemed to be about finishing her article. “She’s never done this test before, so hopefully, she won’t let us down.”
“She’s so cute,” Tessa cooed as she stared at Belle.
Cute was not exactly the word I would have used.
Dr. Risel grabbed a mirror that was attached to a pivoting metal arm hanging from the ceiling. She positioned the mirror so that Belle could look into it, which she did.
Belle seemed immediately fascinated by her reflection, and grunted softly, then leaned forward, tilted her head, and studied the ape in the mirror. She raised one arm, then dropped it heavily onto her lap, grunted again, then lifted it once more, watching how the gorilla in the mirror responded.
“Initially, chimps look behind the mirror,” Tessa explained to me softly, “to try and find the other chimpanzee, or they reach out and try to touch ’em. So do monkeys, baboons, all other primates. But chimpanzees can learn to identify themselves. Orangs can too.” She hesitated. “Most gorillas have a hard time with this.”
While Belle was observing herself in the mirror, Dr. Risel retrieved a small container of vanilla frosting from a cooler and eased off the lid.
Belle was too fascinated by the mirror to pay attention to her.
“All right,” Dr. Risel said. “Here we go.” She dipped a finger into the frosting, and then, while speaking softly and reassuringly to Belle, waved her other hand in front of her to get her attention.
The gorilla responded by turning from the mirror and looking at the doctor. Risel brushed her hand gently along the side of the gorilla’s head and then surreptitiously dabbed the glob of frosting onto Belle’s forehead.
But she did it so lightly that the gorilla didn’t notice.
Then, Risel tilted the mirror so that Belle could see her reflection again, and this time, when she peered at the gorilla in front of her, Belle made a loud guttural sound in the back of her throat and then raised her left hand and extended one finger.
I expected her to touch the mark on the forehead of the gorilla in the mirror, but she didn’t. Instead, watching how the ape in the mirror moved, she reached to her own forehead, brushed off the frosting, and then licked it from her finger.
Fascinating.
“Gorillas like frosting,” Tessa told me.
Dr. Risel looked triumphantly at us and then gave Belle a treat of a handful of grapes from the cooler. After a few moments, she led her back to her habitat.
It was an impressive demonstration, and it took me a few moments to process the implications.
Somehow Belle had been able to understand that her movements were mirrored identically by the ape she could see, and from that fact she’d concluded that the ape she was looking at was really her, and that the frosting would be on her own forehead and not on the head of another gorilla.
I was considering all of this when Dr. Risel reappeared.
“That’s one of the cruder tests,” she said. “But you can see what it means, can’t you?”
Tessa stood beside me quietly, clipboard in hand, but I was the one who answered. “She understands that she is a unique creature,” I said, “separate and distinct from her counterpart in the mirror.”
Dr. Risel nodded.
I went on. “She exhibited one of the core characteristics of consciousness-Belle is self-aware.”
Dr. Risel bent her head slightly to one side, then to the other, as if she were weighing the validit
y of what I’d just said. “We have to be careful not to anthropomorphize too much, but Belle was clearly aware that she was the ape she saw and was also able to use the mirror to help locate the frosting on her own forehead.”
“Besides higher primates, how many other species have this self-differentiating ability?” I asked.
“Just elephants and dolphins-although there’s some growing evidence for pigs-but obviously we have a slightly different test for those species. They don’t like frosting as much as apes do.” She looked at me expectantly as if I were supposed to laugh at that. I smiled.
Tessa remained silent.
We spent a few more minutes speaking with Dr. Risel about theory of mind research, then she explained that because of natural selection, we would expect that all human behavior and states of consciousness would appear, at least in rudimentary form, in the animal kingdom.
“And the more we study animals,” she said, “the more we find this to be true-emotions, intention, language use, inquisitiveness, use of tools. Dolphins communicate with each other by using different pitches to mean different things and understand the importance of word order syntax. Some types of birds experience REM sleep, cows mourn the loss of their young, ants and wolves form cooperative communities with a complex social order.”
Tessa had become withdrawn, and I noticed that not even Dr. Risel’s litany of animal accomplishments seemed to perk her up. I caught her eye, smiled at her, and she gave me a forced half-smile in reply. Something was up.
“Chimps can be taught to use fractions,” Dr. Risel went on enthusiastically. “Sea lions understand equivalence relationships and basic logic. Many species of primates live in complex societies and compete, cooperate, deceive, and manipulate each other-just like humans do. They have power struggles, privileged classes, form alliances, use bargaining and networking to get ahead. Most of my colleagues believe that because of this, there is, at least in a primitive form, politics in the animal kingdom.”
From my research in environmental criminology, I already knew that some species of primates in western Africa form cognitive maps to remember the location of large rocks to crack nuts, understanding their awareness space similarly to the way humans do.
And of course, recent studies have shown that human serial killers follow predatory movement patterns similar to those of great white sharks and lions, but Dr. Risel didn’t pause long enough for me to add any of this to the conversation. She seemed to have completely forgotten about her journal article deadline.
According to her, animal behavior had been studied for centuries, but the questions of whether or not apes and other higher primates were self-aware, had the ability to think in abstract terms, or had free will were still relatively unexplored fields.
“The neuroscience and primate metacognition research is still in its infancy.” She was beaming, obviously proud to be a pioneer in this field. “Imagine how well we’ll understand the workings of the brain in Homo sapiens and in other animals in fifty years. A hundred. A hundred thousand.”
Even though I was only marginally familiar with the advances in neuroscience over the last twenty years, I knew they’d been exponential, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine the knowledge we might have unearthed in hundreds or thousands of years.
At last Dr. Risel glanced at the time, frowned, and quickly excused herself and went back to finish writing her article. When she was gone I asked Tessa if something was the matter, but she brushed off my concern.
For the better part of an hour I investigated the facility, looking for any evidence of controversial biotech or medical research or anything else that might be highly politically charged, but found nothing. I also inspected the entrances and exits again and the sight-lines from the sealed-off habitat in which Twana had died to see if I could find any clue that might lead us to Mollie’s whereabouts, but came up empty there as well.
While I looked around, Tessa tagged along, sometimes jotting notes on her clipboard, mostly staring introspectively at the apes.
By the time I was ready to leave, I’d scrutinized every room, briefly interviewed three other researchers, even reviewed some of the computer files detailing research procedures and results, but apart from being wary of scientific inquiry, I couldn’t see any good reasons why other congressmen might find Fischer’s involvement here politically advantageous to them.
Neither did I find any procedures that seemed overly invasive, cruel, or tendentious.
The closest thing to animal cruelty might have been the use of the drug 1-phenyl-2-aminopropane, but the records showed that it was only administered in miniscule amounts to the primates in the course of the typical research.
Maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe the congressman’s connection to this facility was insignificant to the case.
On the way out, I asked Olan if I could see the facility’s financial records, and, as I suspected, he told me that I would need a warrant. Of all the federal law enforcement agencies, the FBI has some of the quickest access to warrants, but still, at this point we didn’t have any good reason to get one. Olan was polite enough about denying my request, but not being able to look them over was discouraging.
It struck me that rather than finding answers here, I was leaving with more questions than I’d had when I arrived two hours ago. As Tessa and I headed toward the elevator to the parking garage, a sense of frustration ate away at me.
Think in a different direction, Pat. Don’t get caught on a one track The elevator doors opened at almost the same time my phone rang. The ringtone was Cheyenne’s, and I convinced Tessa to go ahead of me to the car, then answered, “Hey.”
“It’s me.”
“Out of the briefing already?”
“Pat, it’s already past 3:00.”
“Oh.”
“How’s your arm?”
“It’s all right. I told you to stop worrying about that. How was class?”
“When I heard that Vanderveld was teaching, I bowed out.” Jake had worked the Giovanni case with Cheyenne and me last month, and she’d come to respect him as much as I did, so I wasn’t surprised she’d found another way to spend her morning.
“Lien-hua mentioned the suspects may have used another room at the hotel,” I said. “Any more on that?”
“Nothing solid. A couple things: WXTN has been scooping. We might have a leak. And oh yeah, Margaret thinks there might be a connection between these crimes and the assassination attempt on Vice President Fischer six years ago at the Lincoln Towers.”
Hmm.
The former vice president had stayed mostly out of the limelight since leaving office, and I hadn’t even thought of that assassination attempt in years.
I considered the possible implications.
The gunman, a pro-death penalty activist named Hadron Brady, had tried to kill Vice President Fischer as he was entering the hotel to give a speech at a constitutional law symposium being held there. I remembered that Brady was fatally wounded when the Secret Service returned fire. Other than that, the details were fuzzy.
So maybe it wasn’t Mollie Fischer’s father who had ties to these killers. Maybe it was her uncle.
“Cheyenne, get a couple officers to find out more about the shooter and the exact topic of Vice President Fischer’s speech that day. I want to find out if it had anything at all to do with the metacognition of primates.”
A pause. “I’ll talk to Margaret about it,” she answered. “What about you?”
By faking Mollie’s death at the primate center and then taking her to the hotel, the killers had tied the two locations together. I had no idea what the assassination attempt might have to do with this case, but it appeared that there was a connection worth exploring “Pat?” She jolted me out of my thoughts.
“I’m going to stop by the hotel,” I said. “Take another look around.”
“All right. I’ll talk with you soon.”
“Okay.”
My thoughts jumped to Paul Lansing’s friendship
with the former VP. I wasn’t sure if it would be relevant to the custody case, but since Tessa had gone to the car and I still had some privacy, I gave our lawyer, Missy Schuel, a call and told her what I knew. She took note of it and explained that she was still reading through the diary and that she’d left two more messages for Lansing’s lawyers. “I’m still hoping to convince them to meet with us next week.”
Finally, before catching up with Tessa, I took a moment to check in with Ralph. He told me that Lebreau went through boyfriends “amazingly fast for a law professor,” so it wasn’t easy eliminating potential suspects. Also, there was still no sign of Lebreau or Basque, but he was following up on two possible eyewitnesses: one who claimed to have seen Basque’s car in the parking lot where Lebreau’s SUV was found, the other who said she saw a man fitting Basque’s description leave a gas station in Lansing, Michigan, an hour after Lebreau failed to show up for class. “Says there was a woman in the car with him. But you know how reliable eyewitnesses are.”
“Keep me posted.”
“I will.”
I debated whether or not to tell him that Angela Knight was working this from another angle; but for the time being, I decided not to mention it.
I ended the call, met Tessa at the car, and we drove to the Lincoln Towers Hotel.
Brad checked the girl’s email.
Last month when he’d contacted Dr. Calvin Werjonic, when he’d asked Astrid to research the federal agent’s presence at the assassination attempt, he hadn’t had any idea how neatly his plan would come together.
But fate seemed to be on his side. Everyone who mattered was in the Metro area now this week.
Just a little tweak in the agenda for today to make the climax as exciting as possible: the special gift for EAD Wellington would have to wait until tomorrow night. But the delay would only serve to make the game better, more complete.
No doubt the task force’s command level staff were busy trying to connect the Lincoln Towers Hotel with the primate center, diving into the possible implications, the importance each location might hold in the mind of the killers. But there were so many layers to Brad’s plan that the authorities would never unpeel them all in time.