She realized her mistake and quickly averted eye contact.
“You heard my conversation,” I said.
She unplugged the earbuds. “What?”
“Yeah, right. You need to forget anything you just heard.”
“I only heard my music.” And then: “If anyone asks.”
Great.
We arrived at the research facility, and I pulled into the lower level of the parking garage.
Although I was certain the glass-enclosed habitat in which Twana’s body had been found would be sealed off, the Gunderson facility itself was no longer considered an active crime scene. And I was thankful, because this way I wouldn’t have to leave Tessa in the car.
“You’ve read more about this place than I have,” I said. “You’re coming with me. But you can’t ask any questions related to the case. You’re only looking for information concerning the primate research.”
“Seriously? You’re letting me help?”
“Just with monkey intel, not with the investigation. I want to find out more about the metacognition research.” And finances… ethically controversial research… politically charged implications “Did you just say monkey intel?”
“I’ll introduce you as my research assistant.” I opened my computer bag and pulled out a clipboard. “Maybe you’re an intern or something.” I handed it to her.
Dressed like she was with her black tights and black fingernail polish, I wasn’t quite sure my plan would work, but she did look old enough to be a college student if it came down to that.
She stared at the clipboard. “What’s this for?”
“That’s the most powerful ID in the world. If you walk into any building with an air of confidence and a clipboard, no one will question why you’re there.”
“Nice.” She looked impressed. “I can so do an air of confidence.” Then a pause. “Just don’t say monkey intel again while we’re in there.”
“Right.”
I popped open the car door.
But then I had realization.
Closed it again.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Are you sure you want to do this? This is a research center, after all. The animals are all going to be-”
“Caged. Yeah, I know.”
There was really no subtle way to put this. “I’m not sure exactly what their research involves, but-”
“Medical tests. I thought of that too.”
“Are you cool with that?”
A long silence. “Almost all medical advances in the last hundred years have come from animal testing. And I’ve never heard of anyone, not even a PETA board member, denying himself life-saving medical treatment in conscientious objection to the fact that research has been done on nonhuman subjects.”
Her carefully phrased response made it clear that she really had been thinking about this. “Well put.”
“But that doesn’t make cruelty right. It doesn’t make suffering okay.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
By the look on her face I could tell she was dealing with a torrent of conflicting emotions.
Finally she spoke, and her voice was on fire with both loneliness and resolve. “A few more cancer tests and Mom might still be alive.” She opened her door. “Let’s go.”
52
The director of the research center, a slim, white-haired man in his early fifties with the unusual name of Janz Olan, led Tessa and me to the research rooms that lay behind the glassed-in habitats.
As I’d suspected, the habitat in which Twana’s body had been found was still closed off to the primates, and for Tessa’s sake, I was glad to see that the floor, although no longer covered with straw, had been mopped and sanitized and there was no visible sign of blood. Still, Tessa’s eyes wandered around the area as we passed by, and I had no doubt that she was able to discern why the floor had been so thoroughly cleaned.
“So,” Mr. Olan said, glancing at Tessa, “how long have you been Agent Bowers’s… assistant?”
“Ever since he began researching the politics, culture, and moral development of pongids.”
I assumed that meant apes.
“Oh,” he said. “I see.”
“Mr. Olan.” I gestured toward one of the testing rooms. “Explain to me more about your work here. What exactly are you doing with the CAT scans, MRIs, MEGs?”
“Well, our research focuses on two primary areas-neuroscience and cognition.”
I remembered Lien-hua’s words from Tuesday night. “And aggression?”
“That would fall under neuroscience. Brain-imaging studies have shown that the amygdala and frontal cortex are the areas of the brain most associated with fear, aggression, and violent behavior. Specifically, we look at the neural activity of chimpanzees, the closest relatives to humans. They’re also the only species, besides humans, who regularly kill adult conspecifics.”
“Adults of the same species,” Tessa said, taking notes.
A pause, then, “Yes. Chimps also form raiding parties and have wars against other communities of chimps. Some even use their skills in toolmaking to form clubs that kill more effectively.”
That sounded astonishing to me.
And also chillingly human.
“So, in a sense, you’re studying the neurology of violence,” I said.
A pause. “That might be one way of putting it.”
I let that sink in, wondering what implications the findings might have if taken in the context of the congressman’s comments over the last few weeks about the proposed budget cuts to the Bureau in lieu of “a more progressive approach to curbing criminal behavior.”
Every Republican in Congress would want his connection to the center made public…
“Yeah, well,” Tessa said to Olan, “chimps aren’t so closely related, if you accept that Ardi was a biped.”
He was slow in responding. “Yes. If you accept that she was,” he acknowledged at last. “But it’s clear that in trees she was a quadruped.”
“Who’s Ardi?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” Tessa was answering Olan, not me. “She proves we didn’t evolve from knuckle-walkers like chimpanzees and gorillas.”
“Who is Ardi?” I repeated, directing the question to them both. Olan answered, “She was a female Ardipithecus ramidus. Her fossil was found in Ethiopia in 1994, but it took fifteen years of study before the findings were released to the public in 2009. And some scientists believe she walked upright.”
“Most,” Tessa corrected him, “not some.”
I shook my head. “I’m still not quite-”
“She lived 4.4 million years ago,” Olan said impatiently, “and if she was a biped it would seem to indicate that we did not evolve from modern primates but rather separately from them, from some ancient ancestor.”
“Which means,” Tessa interjected, “there is no missing link between us and modern apes, and postulating human origins from modern primate behavior or biology is casuistic.”
Olan stared at her. Blinked.
“Well,” he said, “since no members of the Ardipithecus ramidus family are still with us today, we study chimps, whose DNA is 96 percent the same as human DNA.”
She looked ready to counter, but I stopped her with a small head shake. I was more concerned about the focus of the center’s research than resolving how someone might have walked four and a half million years ago. “Tell me about the second area,” I said to Olan. “The cognition research.”
“Yes, well, perhaps I should have specified that it’s mainly in the field of metacognition.”
This time I was familiar with what he was referring to, but Tessa beat me to the punch. “Theory of mind,” she said. “Consciousness, empathy, understanding.”
He nodded. “Yes. Self-awareness, the roots of empathy, the ability to understand that others have thoughts, feelings, sensations just as you do.”
We arrived at a fully equipped research room with a metal meshed-off area that led to the gorilla habitat.
“Are you saying apes have those abilities?” I asked.
“Different species of primates exhibit varying degrees of altruistic behavior,” he replied, not exactly answering my question.