The Case of the Red-Handed Rhesus (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) by Jessie Bishop Powell Page A

from foster care themselves. They had been working with a private agency for nearly three years and were no closer now to parenthood than when they started out. The foster care system was looking better and better to them.
    But even within the system, there was a delay for a couple hoping to adopt an infant, as they were, and they had already been through a home study with the private agency. Our rapid and tumultuous experience with Natasha hadn’t given them much confidence in the system. For the present, they were planning to stay the course and keep waiting.
    “What did she say?”
    “You don’t want to know. It was racist, now I think about it, though at the time, all I noticed was how offensive it was about the little boy’s mind.”
    “You going to report her?”
    “I’m going to talk to somebody once I’ve calmed down. Officer Carmichael heard the remark too, and I want to get his take.” I hit enter three times and typed my name into my document. “You have a minute to proofread something?” Bryan’s sharp editor’s eyes were exactly what I needed now.
    “Sure. Travis is going to be embroiled with the department chair for at least the next thousand years.” He glanced at his watch. “At this rate, our lunch date is going to be tomorrow.” It was already one o’clock, and the biology chair was notorious for last-minute demands, making lunches nigh on impossible for his employees. One of Travis’s chief complaints since taking the job was his schedule as a salaried employee. He’d been hourly at his former jobs, and the lack of guaranteed breaks irked him.
    I hit print and retrieved my sheets. Art’s personal printer was another advantage of the university office. “Thanks for the help.” While he read and red-lined, I checked on Natasha. Travis had left her in the care of a graduate assistant, another semi-friendly face who didn’t seem to care one way or the other that the sleeping girl behind her was tossing and talking. “Don’t,” Natasha said. “She’s only sleeping.”
    “Tasha,” I called.
    She twisted, but didn’t wake.
“No! . . .”
    “Natasha.” I patted her arm.
    “Get off of me!” She jumped to her feet, then jerked her head from side to side, her arms held in a defensive pose. As quickly, she collapsed to her seat, gasping for breath like she’d been running. “It’s you,” she said. “Thank God, it’s only you.” She lowered her forehead to her palms.
    “Are you all right?”
    “I saw the EMT . . . when Mom died . . . purple . . .” She shook her head, clearing it, and said, “Yeah. Can I lock myself in the conference room and call Trudy? I remembered something.”
    Natasha never wanted to talk to me about the things she remembered. Stan said she never talked to him, either. Perhaps she confided in Gert, but I don’t think so. The memories came to her jaggedly, in nightmares and waking flashbacks. When she volunteered at the primate center, I often heard her talking in a low voice to Chuck, our resident male orangutan, who we had captured after he saved us all in June. I wondered if she was telling him about the things that made her shudder and cry out in her sleep, and clam up and pull away while waking. Without fail, if she felt something was significant, she rang the FBI agent.
    “Let me make sure it’s not where the chair has Travis cornered. If it is, you can use my office. Otherwise, it should be fine.” The conference room was empty when I looked in, but the stink of rotting food emanating from the departmental fridge and its unofficial pantry in the cabinet to one side made both of us gag. “Trash can.”
    Shirts pulled over our noses, we dashed in with the can from the hall and emptied both the pantry
and
the fridge. I nearly pitched the fresh lunch Travis would probably not be enjoying, but Tasha swiped it back at the last second. Lacking anything to scrub with or any cleaning liquids to employ in such a project, I was prepared to unplug the