Sara Gruen Read online

  She was interrupted by another volley.

  “Who are the persons of interest?”

  “What type of facility are the apes in?”

  “Are they still on campus?”

  She lifted a hand to silence them. “I’m sorry, but I cannot provide specific answers to those questions. We have every confidence that the perpetrators will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and we encourage anyone with any knowledge of the incident to speak to the authorities. In the meantime, we have done—and are continuing to do—everything in our power to ensure the safety of our students and faculty. Thank you.”

  She squared up the edges of her note cards and kept her gaze turned downward. Clearly, she was preparing to leave. The shouts grew louder.

  “The Bradshaw flooding happened almost twenty-four hours after the bombing—what actions has the university taken to prevent further attacks?”

  After a moment, she put her hand on the standing microphone and said, “We have taken definitive measures to ensure that nothing like this will ever happen again. Please direct any further inquiries to the press office. Thank you.” She turned and wobbled her way back up the stone steps.

  “Isn’t she the freaking press office?” muttered Cecil.

  From there, John went to the lab. A couple of bored-looking policemen walked the perimeter, keeping an eye on photographers and making sure they didn’t duck under the reams of yellow tape (where was Osgood, anyway? John guessed Elizabeth had decided to run Associated Press photographs to avoid paying his airfare).

  John had thought he was prepared for the sight of the lab, but actually seeing it was like taking a cannonball to the gut. Three days ago he had climbed those steps and held that handrail. It had been painted bluish gray; it was now blistered and dark. He had followed Isabel Duncan through that doorway and been allowed into the rooms that housed the apes. The door was gone, its absence a gaping hole in an epicenter of black, the exterior wall scorched with angry spikes. He could see only a few feet into the hallway, but insulation and wiring hung from sooty ceiling panels, and the sickly scent of burned plastic lingered.

  John cast his eyes over the parking lot: here, where John, Cat, and Osgood had climbed into the cab, the pebbles were littered with shards of glass. It was almost certainly here, too, that an ambulance had received Isabel Duncan. And here, beneath the tree where the apes had sought refuge, broken branches lay like an enormous and messy bird’s nest, evidence of the bonobos’ failed struggle to stay at the top. John turned away in a fruitless attempt to stop the mental image of their unconscious bodies dropping into the night.

  Next he drove to Lawrence City Animal Control, a one-story building with rows of chain-link dog runs extending from the back end. The cinder-block walls of the reception area were painted green, and, from the smell of it, the linoleum floors had been recently bleached. An operatic canine howl came from behind the swinging door leading to the back.

  “Sounds like a Wookiee,” said John.

  “He just came in,” said the woman behind the desk. “He’s not very happy. Better off here than where he was, though.”

  “My name is John Thigpen, and I’m with The Philadelphia Inquirer. I was wondering if—”

  She held a hand up to stop him. “The apes aren’t here.”

  “Were they?”

  She eyed him, sizing him up, then spoke. “Briefly. A truck rolled up in the dead of night, the guys tranq’ed them, and off they went.”

  “They shot them again?”

  “They said it was the only way. It’s not like we have crush cages here. Mostly we get dogs and cats. The craziest thing we’ve ever had before this was an alligator. Some guy bought a hatchling in Florida and next thing he knew it was seven feet long and he was throwing turkey legs down the basement stairs and aiming a hose at various kiddie pools he’d tossed down there. That worked fine until his furnace broke and he needed a repairman.”

  John stared at her, wide-eyed. Then he shook his head. “The apes—were you here when they were taken away?”

  “Yup. We’re short-staffed. A bunch of our volunteers got picked up in that sweep yesterday. One of them is an intern at the lab.”

  John perked up. “Really? Can I have his number?”

  “Her number. Since it’s all over the Internet anyway, I can’t see why not. I think she’s still in custody, though.” She pulled a book from a drawer and flipped through its pages before copying a name and number onto a scrap of paper. She slid it across the counter at John.

  Celia Honeycutt. She had been named in the ELL video, which John found odd, given that she was apparently under suspicion. Had the ELL included her in an attempt to cover their tracks? He folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Do you know why they picked her up?”

  “No idea. What time is it, anyway?” She looked at her watch and gave a despairing sigh. “Oh God, I’ve been here sixteen hours.”

  “Who took the apes?”

  She shook her head. “No clue. They even covered the truck’s license plate. All I know is they had deeds of sale, so I had to hand them over.”

  “What?” Then, as realization hit, John closed his eyes. He suddenly understood the university’s statement that they had taken steps to ensure that this would never happen again. He wondered if Isabel knew yet, and experienced a physical pang at the thought.

  Family, she had said.

  He leaned on the counter and rested his forehead on his arm. “Tell me you saw the buyer’s name on the deed.”

  “It was a corporation number.”

  “Tell me you kept a copy.”

  “You don’t seem to get it—I was here alone. I had six apes in the back, as well as all the other animals. Those guys had a lawyer with them as well as a rep from the university. What could I do? They owned them.” She fell silent for a moment, then added, “Do you know, sometimes when I was at Starbucks, Celia or someone else from the lab would come in and order skinny lattes for the apes. They always brought a video camera. Apparently the apes liked to watch afterward. The people behind the counter always spoke to the camera like the apes were right there. I always thought that was kind of cool. Supposedly they understand English.”

  “They do. I’ve met them,” John said quietly, lifting his head. He sighed and knocked his knuckles on the counter a couple of times. “Okay. Well. Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”

  ——

  John called Celia Honeycutt from the car, but, as he expected, there was no answer. When he got back to the hotel, he could smell Amanda’s handiwork from the lobby.

  The door to their suite opened directly onto the tiny kitchen area, where an enormous pot bubbled furiously on one of the electric coils. Amanda stood at the counter meticulously removing the topmost epidermis of mushroom caps. The rest of the counter was obscured by celery leaves, onion skins, chicken carcasses, cans of stock, wine bottles, shreds of cheesecloth, scraps from leeks, and bunches of flat parsley.

  He kissed the back of her neck. “What’s this?”

  “It’s chicken pot pie filling. I figured if there’s no crust you can just call it soup.”

  “Okay.” After a moment he added, “But the crust is my favorite part.”

  “I can make crust. It’s just there aren’t any pie tins here, or even a rolling pin.” Her eyes scanned the counter. “I guess I can soak the label off a wine bottle and use that to roll it out. The grocery probably has foil pie tins.”

  John picked up a square plastic food container from a large stack by the fridge and examined it.

  Amanda glanced over. “I got those because they’re dinner-size and I figured you could just grab one out of the freezer and nuke it”—John’s heart sank because he instantly registered that she was talking in the singular—“and I made beef bourguignon as well so you’d have a little variety. There’s egg noodles in the cupboard, or you could boil potatoes to go with it. And I got some of those steam-in-the-bag veggies. You don’t even have to p
ierce the bag. Just pop them in the microwave.” She piled the mushroom caps onto one end of a cutting board, moved them one at a time to the center, and deftly quartered them. When she was finished, she scooped them into the pot, set the lid on it, and turned the burner to its lowest setting.

  “There,” she said, wiping her hands on her thighs. Her face was flushed. Wisps of curly hair stuck to her forehead and temples. “Want a glass of wine? I opened a decent red for the beef.”

  “You’re beautiful,” John said.

  She smiled, wiped her hair from her face, and picked up the bottle. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

  They walked the ten feet to the so-called living room and settled on the couch. Amanda tucked her feet beneath her and nestled into John’s armpit. “You’re really okay with this? With me going to L.A.?”

  “I am.”

  “Because I reserved a flight for tomorrow morning.”

  “Wow. That’s … fast.”

  “Yes.” She shot him a nervous look. “It’s just that if I am going to do this I have to do it right away, and it didn’t make any sense to fly all the way back to Philly first because it’s in the opposite direction, and even though we’ll lose the return portion of this last flight it’s still cheaper to—”

  John pulled her to him and buried his nose in the top of her head. She smelled of burgundy and all things good. He kissed her. “It’s okay. Really, it is.”

  She smiled, took a deep breath, and looked up at him. “So, how was your day?”

  “You know what?” John said, “There’s a hot tub downstairs. Let’s discuss it there. Then I’ve either got to find Cat or file a report on my own.”

  Amanda glanced over at her simmering pot, had a visible, fleeting moment of doubt, then vanished into the bedroom to change.

  ——

  John was holding the glass door to the pool enclosure open for Amanda when he caught sight of the back of Cat’s head. She was alone in the hot tub, resting with her arms stretched out on the rim. Amanda looked back at John and whispered, “Speak of the devil.”

  John gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead. “Indeed.”

  While Amanda got towels, John stood by the edge of the hot tub and gazed down at Cat. Her head was resting on the rim, her eyes closed, and the sides of her neatly angled dark brown bob hung slightly above the tiles. She looked either dead or asleep. John cocked his head, considering. If he hadn’t known her, he might have found her attractive—the sharp collarbone, the defined upper arms and chiseled fingers, the tidy little nose. But he did know her, so that was that.

  John turned to survey the room. In the pool beyond the hot tub, three families’ worth of kids splashed and shrieked in preternaturally blue water. Their parents lounged poolside, the fathers slouching forward in dry swim trunks, scowling at their BlackBerries and occasionally sipping beer from cans. The mothers reclined on towels in equally dry bathing suits, knees slightly bent and arms flung overhead, as though sunbathing. One of them was reading a glossy tabloid—the Weekly Times—and had a bendy straw in her plastic wineglass so that she didn’t have to lift her head to take a sip. Paintings of palm trees and sandy beaches adorned the concrete walls, peeling slightly beside the air vents. Oversized ice cube trays of artificial light flickered overhead.

  Amanda returned with a stack of white towels, set them on a nearby table, and caught John’s eye to make sure he was looking. She ran her gaze dramatically up the sun umbrella that sprouted from the table’s center and laughed. Then she peeled off her coverup.

  Two of the three fathers with cell phones lifted their heads, noses crinkled like bloodhounds’. Within a split second, Amanda was locked in a collective tractor beam. As she approached the hot tub, one of the men banged his knee against the leg of the third, oblivious one, alerting him to the situation.

  In your dreams, thought John, and his sudden and irrational rage caught him off-guard. Men had always looked at Amanda, everywhere, and until this moment, John had kind of liked it.

  Amanda descended the stairs of the hot tub. When her thighs were underwater, she mouthed the words “Hot! Hot!” before pushing off and submersing herself to the shoulders. She took a seat along the edge, let out a deep breath, and looked expectantly at John.

  “You coming?”

  John threw a last fierce look at the middle-aged dads. Now that Amanda’s body had disappeared into the well of the hot tub, they were back to emailing and ignoring their wives and children.

  John followed Amanda into the steaming, swirling water and sat next to Cat. “So,” he said, “where were you today?”

  Cat lifted her head and opened one eye with great suspicion. “Oh. It’s you,” she said, laying her head back down.

  “You didn’t answer any of my calls.”

  “Phone was dead. Sorry.”

  “We’re supposed to be working together.”

  “I said sorry.”

  “Well, plug it in, for Christ’s sake!”

  “I will,” she said, sounding irked. She stirred the water with the fingertips of one hand. “Of course.”

  A new game began in the pool behind them, and the children’s voices echoed off the concrete.

  “Marco!”

  “POLO!”

  “Marco!”

  “POLO!”

  There was the slap-slap-slap of wet feet on concrete, followed by a child’s plaintive cry, “No fair! Fish out of water!”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Cat said, sitting forward angrily. She cupped her hands around her mouth, yelling toward the parents. “Could they be any noisier?” She fell back and once again let her head loll on the rim. “Their spawn will be in here before you know it, splashing and peeing, and the parents won’t do a thing about it. Oh, great,” she said, rolling her eyes as another family with young children entered the room. “Here.” She flicked the backs of her hands at John and Amanda. “Spread out so we take up all the space.”

  “They’re just having fun,” Amanda said, although she scootched in the direction Cat indicated.

  John stayed put and settled himself against a jet. “So,” he said, lifting his arm and resting it on the edge, “what did you do today?”

  Cat shrugged. “I interviewed Peter Benton and saw Isabel Duncan. What did you do?”

  John sat forward and glanced quickly at Amanda. “You saw Isabel?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is she?”

  “Extremely grumpy. And her jaw is wired so I didn’t get much out of it. Except, of course, an introduction to Peter.”

  “How did you get in?”

  Cat waved a hand dismissively. “Psh, it was easy.”

  John stared at her as it dawned on him. “Oh, no, you did not.”

  “Of course I did. How else was I going to get in?”

  A round-bellied toddler blasted past, squealing in joy, pursued closely by her father.

  “Is that a swim diaper?” Cat said, screwing up her face. “Those things aren’t even waterproof. What’s the point?”

  “I think she’s adorable,” said Amanda. “Did you see the daisies on her bathing suit?”

  John shot her an alarmed look.

  “So what did Benton have to say?” he said, tearing his eyes away from Amanda, whose face had turned to follow the baby’s trajectory.

  “I think academics need to get out into the sun more. They’re a surly lot.”

  “So you didn’t get anything out of him.”

  Cat shrugged. “I asked him about his missing finger—I mean, it’s not like he’s trying to hide it or anything—and he went totally berserk on me. There’s obviously a story there.”

  John sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Okay. Look. We have to cobble together some kind of report. Want to do it now or after dinner?”

  “Already done.”

  “What?”

  “It’s already done. I sent it an hour ago. Relax.”

  John sat forward angrily. “You just assumed I’d get nothing?”

  �
�Did you?”

  “The university sold the apes. Did you know that?”

  Cat’s brow creased.

  “And one of the lab interns is in custody. Did you know that?”

  Cat looked at him, irritated, then turned away. “I’ll send an amendment.”

  “No,” John said firmly. “I will send the amendment. I assume you copied me on the original?”

  Cat began stirring the water again, watching her own fingers. “I’ll forward it to you.”

  John stared in disbelief. This was so entirely unacceptable he couldn’t form a response. Was his byline even on it?

  An elderly man appeared at the edge of the hot tub. “Got room for another?” he asked.

  Amanda slid over.

  He climbed down the first two steps, glanced around at the three of them, and winked at John. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full. Want me to take one off your hands?”

  “Be my guest,” said John, tipping his chin toward Cat.

  Cat turned her head slowly and fixed the man with a look so withering, so devastating, that he backed up the steps and went to sit on a lounge chair instead.

  “Perv,” said Cat.

  “I think he was just trying to be friendly,” said Amanda.

  “And I think you just like everybody,” said Cat.

  “Well, almost everybody,” Amanda said archly. She wiped her face and stood. Water slid from her hips and dripped back into the steaming hot tub. “I’m going back to the room.” As she ascended the steps, John looked in alarm at the collection of dads, who were once again staring openly.

  John leapt upright, leaving chop and angry whirlpools in his wake. He took the steps two at a time, grabbed the nearest towel, and wrapped it around Amanda.

  “Oh, thanks, baby,” she said. She fixed the towel, picked up her coverup, and headed for the door.

  John followed. As he pulled the door open, he looked back at the men, who were still staring. He pointed first at her and then at his wedding band, and mouthed the word “Mine.”

  ——

  They made love that night in a way that left John gasping and quivering. He’d felt like an animal, desperate with need, desperate to lay claim, and she had responded in kind.