The Only Witness (21 page)

McKenna interrupted their staring contest. "She wants to know if you have another flower for her."

Finn realized his mouth was open and made the effort to shut it without biting his tongue. After another minute of glancing back and forth between the woman and the gorilla, he found his voice. "I only brought one flower."

She signed to the gorilla, which made a huffing sound, picked up an orange peel from the floor and placed it on its head like a tiny cap. It looked ridiculous, but it seemed like less of a monster that way.

Dr. McKenna smiled and turned in his direction. "Well, now that we're all friends, what would you like to ask Neema?"

Feeling as if he were an actor in some surreal play, he reached for his notes. He'd talked to invisible friends of schizophrenics to get information; used puppets to question children who found an adult's questions too intimidating. Perhaps pretending to interview a gorilla was the way to get more information from this mad woman scientist.

Grace McKenna studied Detective Finn. The man didn't take his eyes off Neema except for shooting a few glances in Grace's direction. His neck and jaw were rigid. He'd removed his fingers from his pistol, but his hand remained poised in the air only an inch away.

So it was going to happen; her gorilla was going to have a conversation with an outsider who'd never heard of signing apes. Grace always thought she'd have more time to prepare for this.

"You're telling me that this ape reported the kidnapping?" Finn's gaze shifted sideways to connect with hers. Neema leaned forward to snatch a magazine off the table and Finn's focus shot back to the gorilla.

"I wouldn't use those words. She told me about seeing a baby taken by a man."

He turned his head toward her, but his gaze kept sliding back to Neema, keeping an eye on her out of the corner of his eye. "The Morgan baby disappeared a week ago. Why didn't you report it then?"

"It took me a while to understand what she was saying."

Neema sat on the floor, holding the magazine open with her feet and turning pages with her hands. She stopped on a page that featured a lush bouquet of roses and lilies. She signed to herself, then focused on Finn and gestured.

"What's it doing?" Detective Finn's voice was tense.

"Her, not it. She noticed the flowers in the magazine and said
Good flower sweet eat
. Now she wants to know if you have another flower for her."

"I already said I didn't."

Neema scooted closer to Finn. She tilted her head, intently examining his features and his clothing.

"What?" he said nervously. "What does it—she—want?" He lifted his hand toward his gun again.

Neema hooted and scooted back, signing
Gun bad gun
.

"Please lower your hand. She's worried about your gun."

The connection of Finn's gaze with Grace's was rapid, but long enough to tell her he thought she was crazy.

Gun bad run away
, Neema signed. She stood poised on all fours as if she was about to follow her own advice. She was also eyeing a footstool, which made Grace anxious. Neema had thrown furniture at visitors she didn't like. Grace quickly strode to her. She patted Neema on the shoulder, then signed as she spoke. "It's okay, Neema, you don't have to run away."

The whites of Neema's eyes showed, and she was breathing too quickly.

"He won't touch the gun," Grace promised.

Neema looked doubtful, but slowly inched closer to Finn again, her gaze raking him from head to foot. Finn stiffened.

Grace laughed. "Relax, Detective. Haven't you ever had a kid stare at you?"

"Kids, yeah. Not an ape."

"It's pretty much the same. Gorillas have the mental capacity of five-year-old children."

"Yeah?" Finn sounded as if he didn't believe her. He studied Neema while the gorilla stared back at him. "How does she know about guns?"

Grace returned to her chair. "Television. Movies. I usually try to screen out the violent ones, but I've let a couple slip through. The worst was Tarzan. I didn't know it had a scene where hunters K-I-L-L-E-D some chimpanzees."

Where chimpanzee?
Neema signed, scraping her hands up and down her sides while she looked around the room.

"No chimpanzee here," Grace told her. "Just talking."

Neema returned to her position on the other side of the coffee table and inspected Finn again for a long moment. Then she signed
Cat
where man cat?

"Neema wants to know where your cat is."

Detective Finn jerked his gaze toward Grace. "Why would it—she—think I have a cat?"

Grace asked Neema in sign language why she thought of a cat.

Neema leaned forward and stretched a black hairy arm across the coffee table. The detective froze as the gorilla's leathery fingers touched down on his khaki-clad thigh. Neema deftly plucked an orange hair from his trouser leg and held it up in front of her nose, signing
cat
.

"There's your evidence, Detective."

"You're kidding." Finn watched as Neema stuck the cat hair on top of her nose and then stared at it cross-eyed.

Grace laughed.

Neema stuck out her bottom lip and puffed out a big breath, blowing the cat hair off her nose. She signed
What man this
.

"Finn," Grace said aloud, frowning.

He turned to her. "Yes?"

"Neema wanted to know what your name was, but I need to come up with a sign for it. She doesn't spell." F? No, Neema's fingers weren't dexterous enough to form the letter.

Neema signed
Gun dog cat man
.

"Okay," Grace said. "Neema wants to call you
Gun dog cat man
."

Finn looked startled. Gun. Dog. Cat. Man. Grace made each gesture slowly, a hand formed into a gun, a hip pat and finger snap for dog, pulled out whiskers for cat, and then a forehead touch followed by a chest tap for man.

"I get the gun and the cat man," Grace said aloud, signing to Neema, "but why dog?"

Neema quickly touched her hip and brought her fingers together in the air and then circled her fingers in front of her nose.

"Really?" Grace sniffed the air.

Finn watched her, frowning. "What?"

"She says you smell like a dog."

"Damn."
Dog
, Neema signed again. He raised an eyebrow. "Am I being insulted by a gorilla? Do you think I smell like a dog?"

Grace said, "I can't smell anything, but gorillas have more sensitive noses than humans. You do have a dog?"

"Sort of," Finn said, still staring at Neema. "Make her do it again."

Grace bristled. "Neema's not a trick pony, Detective."

Where pony?
Neema signed. She scooted over to the window and peered out, signing
pony
,
pony
.

Finn looked at Grace. "Can you ask Neema to sign 'gun' again, please?"

Neema pivoted away from the window, hooting softly as she repeatedly signed
gun bad gun
, her gaze jumping to Finn's pistol in its holster.

"She's doing it now. She's saying
gun bad gun
." Grace did the signs slowly for him, forming her hand into a gun and jerking it in front of her chest as if shooting it, then shoving her hand down for bad, then making the gun sign again.

Finn watched carefully and then looked back at the gorilla. Neema jerked her right hand in front of her chest, hooting softly. Her expression was anxious.

"It's okay, Neema," Grace told her. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to leave your pistol outside, Detective?"

"It stays with me." Finn frowned. "She's not making the same signs you did."

"Gorilla hands are not as agile as ours. Neema's signs are modified American Sign Language; as close as she can get."

Neema continued to hoot softly, her eyes round with worry. Grace could see from the gorilla's body language that Neema was revving up for a tantrum. When she was frightened or angry, she could be destructive, even violent. When gorillas felt threatened, they often attacked the threat. In the wild, this usually came in the form of charging the intruder while shrieking and hurling sticks or leaves or even feces. Detective Finn had no idea what was coming.

"Neema's upset." Grace stood up. "We need to go outside to chat, Detective. Right now."

Finn rose from the couch and took a step toward the door. Neema raised her arms above her head with a screech of alarm. Grace hurriedly moved between them, touching Neema gently. The gorilla wrapped her arms around Grace and tried to climb up her legs as she had when she was a baby; Grace staggered under the adult gorilla's weight.

"What the—" Finn muttered behind her back.

"I'm okay," Grace yelped into Neema's furry shoulder. "I need you to go outside right now. I'll be out in a minute."

Between Neema's increasingly loud hoots, Grace heard the door close behind her. She patted Neema and made soothing noises. After the gorilla finally calmed down, she led her through the door into the cage area, and settled her with a blanket and a carton of yogurt and her favorite ABC book. Finally, Grace went out the side door of the trailer.

Finn whirled as she approached his back, his hand on his pistol grip again. She held up her hands. "Easy, Detective," she said. "I'm still unarmed."

His face was unreadable. The lines around his eyes and mouth were deeply etched into his tanned skin. His eyes were an eerie light blue. Right now, he was handsome in a rumpled, world-weary sort of way; but she could see that he might appear frightening if he failed to shave or comb his hair.

She tried to imagine how he felt; coming to meet a deaf child and finding a gorilla instead. "What's going on inside your head?" she asked.

"Dr. McKenna—" he started.

"Grace."

"Grace," he said. "Tell me about your van. Is this Talking Hands Ranch?"

She winced. "No. The van belongs to the University of Washington, and Talking Hands Ranch was a research center they used to own; we did primate language research there. They sold that property and moved us out here. We're sort of in exile. Or maybe swept under the rug," she said bitterly. She'd have to tell him about Spencer and the crazies now so he'd understand the importance of keeping all this quiet.

"When I arrived, you were crying. Can you tell me why?"

Oh god. She'd forgotten about that for a little while. Her thoughts suddenly plunged into a crevasse of emotion. She tried to bounce them out, but her vision blurred and her throat swelled too tight to talk. Moving to the picnic table, she snatched up the page she'd left there. She stumbled back because she couldn't see the ground through the haze of tears. She pushed the letter at him and stood there in the pool of porch light, her arms crossed in front of her chest, sobs overtaking her. She was mortified to be caught blubbering like a little kid.

He squinted at the page. The letter was from the University of Washington.
OFFICIAL NOTICE — TO BE SOLD AT AUCTION
was the heading at the top, followed by a long list. Lab equipment, quite a few trailers and vehicles, video cameras, dozens of white mice, rats, rabbits, spider monkeys. Somewhere in the middle was:

He stopped reading and looked at her. "Does this mean what I think it does?"

"The university's planning to sell Neema and Gumu," she managed to gasp before she completely fell apart. She suddenly felt dizzy and reached out to grasp his shirt sleeve.

He stepped forward and took her into his arms. She buried her face against his chest. She could feel the heat from his skin beneath his shirt, the muscles of his biceps loosely clasped around her. She smelled his deodorant and sweat. This was insane. Humiliating. She had to pull herself together. Apologize. She raised her chin.

"Detective ..." That was all she managed to get out before she started sobbing again.

Nobody at the university knew her gorillas. Nobody knew that Neema was frightened by the rustle of paper bags, that Gumu adored the color fuchsia. Nobody else remembered how Neema refused to let go of Spencer's cold hand for a whole day after he'd died.

To the university, the gorillas were in the same category as desks and microscopes—surplus equipment. Where would they end up? What the hell was she going to do? She gave way to the horror of it all, sobbing uncontrollably while this stranger stood and held her in his arms.

"You may as well call me Matt," he finally said.

Chapter
15