Here you go folks! The last chapter. Hope you enjoyed the journey! If you could call it that... I suppose it was more of a stroll around the block. Anyway, thank you for the kind reviews!
Chapter 9
Mystery Solved
Nikki and Harry were both wrapped in huge hugs when they returned to the front of the warehouse where Leo was waiting for them. Sadler and Easton had arrived with the police team not long after the fight ended. They'd heard the commotion from inside the hidden room below the floor and easily followed the footprints to their location.
The mystery man with the fedora was barely alive when the paramedics got to him, but once he'd been loaded into an ambulance, he seemed to be doing slightly better. John Miller was also doing better having woken up in some handcuffs. He had then proceeded to curse and swear until everyone wished he was still unconscious. Luckily the police had taken him away not long after that.
There was nothing anyone could do for the chimp; it was dead. This did nothing to raise Nikki's mood, although it helped that she knew the babies were going to be taken care of from then on.
Curtis was alright though, and that was one of the most relieving pieces of news. He had a big bruise on his head and a slight concussion from being knocked unconscious repeatedly. Also, he was a little dehydrated and hungry, but otherwise doing very well.
Nikki was sitting silently in the back of Leo's car after he had insisted he'd be driving her and Harry home. She could see him speaking to Easton through the windscreen before he turned to Harry. After a few persistent gestures, he finally got the younger man to join Nikki in the car. Turning around in the passenger seat, he shot her a tired smile.
"Why the long face, Watson?"
Nikki's brow furrowed, but she still smiled back. "Watson?"
His eyebrows raised and nodded as if it were obvious. "Well, I'm not going to be Watson, am I? I'm much more of a Sherlock."
"I don't remember Sherlock whining so much about waiting for the police," she said with sneaky smirk.
"Shut up," he mumbled, facing forward again as Leo's door opened and he sat down heavily.
After letting out a loud sigh, he was quiet for a moment. "Goodness, I need a drink." Harry laughed, nodding his agreement as Leo started the car.
Harry was late, Leo noticed as he glanced at the clock on his wall. Rolling his eyes to himself, he decided to let him off easy after all that had happened. His gaze wandered out of his office for a moment, and he watched absently as Nikki paced around her desk, straightening pencils and piles of paper as she waited. Her head snapped up at the buzz of the door and Harry appeared, closely followed by DI Sadler.
"Only you, Nikki Alexander, manage to come dangerously close to death and show up on time for work the next morning," he heard Harry grumble sleepily.
Nikki shrugged, looking eagerly at the DI. "I have more practice than you."
Shrugging of his coat, Harry's nose scrunched up. "That is true. You seem to be shaping up to be a right danger junkie."
Leo pushed back his chair to join them, checking his watch as he exited his office. "Ah," he smiled as Curtis entered, holding the door open for Easton. "I was just wondering when you'd get here. It seems we're all here, so come on through." Leading them to the conference room, he took a seat as Sadler took control.
"Right," he began, face void of all emotion. "First things first…" His face turned soft when he turned to Curtis. "How's the head?"
"It feels like a thousand blacksmiths are hammering away on anvils behind my eyes," he joked. "No, I'm alright. The doctor said I'll be fine in no time."
"And you two?" Sadler asked Nikki and Harry.
"We're fine as well," Nikki nodded with a smile.
A grumble came from Harry. "Enough with the pleasantries," he said, attempting to hurry things along. "What's the news? Where did that chimp come from? Who killed everyone?"
Normally Sadler would not have appreciated the interruption, but he seemed to have grown tolerant of Harry. "Once he's out of critical care, Oliver Anson, as we now know him as—"
"Fedora Man?" Harry cut him off.
"Yes," he sighed, calming himself. "Once Fedora Man has recovered, he will be arrested for the murders of Lauren Todd and Conner Wilson, as well as distributing drugs and housing illegally imported baby chimpanzees. John Miller is it a heap of trouble as well, as he was involved in most of Mr. Anson's dealings."
Nikki raised her eyebrows. "Oliver Anson killed his own delivery driver?"
Nodding, Sadler went on. "When Curtis arrived at Mr. Wilson's home, he panicked and knocked him out."
"I remember waking up in a forest," Curtis continued. "He was acting strange, agitated. I tried to get the jump on him, but he overpowered me, knocked me out again."
Again, Sadler took over. "It turns out he'd called Oliver Anson. He tied Curtis to the tree where you found him and went to meet his boss a few miles from that location."
"And you got all this information from Oliver Anson?" Leo asked to clarify.
"Yeah, he woke up yesterday evening. He seemed quite proud of his story, so it wasn't hard to get it out of him," Easton spoke up.
"Anyway," Sadler pressed on, "His chimp was becoming a liability. He knew we'd have its DNA by now, so he couldn't use it to do his dirty work anymore. That's why he shot it." Everyone frowned. "He left it in the woods and returned to the road to meet Conner, who was freaking out. He was thinking we'd be onto him any moment, so Oliver shot him as well. He was the one who positioned him back in his car and jammed the stick on the accelerator."
"And we found that thread of rope on Conner Wilson's shirt," Leo nodded as things began to fit into place.
"Which came from the rope he used to tie me up," Curtis finished.
"How come the chimp didn't bleed out?" Harry asked. "It was out in the forest for a long time. Even if the bullet didn't kill on impact, it would have lost too much blood to survive for so long afterwards."
"He only grazed its arm," Sadler answered. "He either knocked it out or it was in shock. That's why he thought it was dead."
Easton spoke up again. "Animals can be remarkably strong when they want to be," she said. "They can go through so much pain and still function. And chimps are smart; it must have remembered who its attacker was and wanted its revenge."
"They can be brutal in the wild," Nikki agreed.
The other woman nodded. "That's why it attacked him right away when it found you."
"Poor thing," Nikki muttered, mostly to herself. "To be used like that… It looked at me before it died; the look in its eyes seemed almost like… relief." Leo gave her a sympathetic smile and she snapped herself out of her sudden sadness. "What of the other chimps, the babies?"
"They've all be taken into care. Most are going to sanctuaries and a couple to zoos," Curtis said, grinning across the table when the look in Nikki's eyes brightened.
"Zoos that will take care of them, I hope," she said with a raised eyebrow.
Sadler nodded, as if just remembering something. "Speaking of zoos, the Little family has been taken into custody, though I imagine Charlie will get off with a warning. He did help us after all. It took him a while, but he did the right thing."
"Good," Harry breathed as they all slumped in their chairs, as if a weight had floated off their shoulders simultaneously. "So that's it then?"
"That's it," Curtis clarified, a sigh of his own escaping at the satisfaction of wrapping up of another case.
