“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Tessa had become withdrawn, and I noticed that not even Dr.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.”