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“Absolutely not.”

“Have you considered, given what’s been happening, turning over administration of the museum to the university?”

“Absolutely not.”

To be fair, the journalists did ask some pointed, pertinent questions that it was our responsibility to answer. One of the network reporters, who had flown from Boston, asked the lieutenant if the deaths of the chimps confirmed his suspicions concerning the Ossmann-Woodley case.

The officer nodded. “The similarities are obvious and, of course, we’re exploring any links it might have to this case.”

“Is the Genetics Lab as vulnerable to break-ins as the Pavilion?” one sharp young woman asked me.

I indicated that her question was a good one before reassuring the public, through the press, that the lab had its own highly sophisticated and independent security system.

I was starting to feel a little complacent when the same reporter asked, “If that’s the case, what happened to Professor Ossmann and Dr. Woodley?”

I responded as honestly as I could: “We don’t know. There was no detectable break-in. That’s the mystery we’re trying to solve.”

When a reporter asked me what possible motive could anyone have to be wreaking such havoc in the constituent parts of the museum, I had to bite my tongue. I wanted to say that perhaps it was part of a conspiracy to discredit me and the museum so that the university could take us over. Instead, I shook my head with what could have been wise sadness or sad wisdom and said I didn’t have a clue.

After more than an hour of taking abuse and providing some useful information to the public, I closed off the questions. Afterward, outside, in front of the museum, I could see the television reporters in front of cameras, reading from notes, sawing the air with their hands, and pausing to glance away, as though in thoughtfulness, before resuming their narratives for the evening news.

I spent most of the afternoon answering press calls. It is an exhausting, nerve-racking exercise in trying to balance candor with discretion as you talk to people who, basically, have given themselves the right to insult you with impunity.

The one bright spot was a call from Elsbeth, who told me I looked absolutely dashing during the news conference. She said that a reporter on the midafternoon news summary had labeled the death of the chimps the latest of “The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man.” I told her it sounded like a title for a murder mystery and heard her give that good old chortle of hers.

Sometime well after six I was able to leave for home. In the relative darkness of the Arboretum, as I strode along, I nearly fainted at the sight of a chimpanzee coming up the path toward me. I was about to start back to the museum and spread the alarm when the chimp was joined by a gorilla, a nun in full regalia, a football player in helmet and pads, a ballerina, and a fairy godmother. I had forgotten it was Halloween.

14

I feel like Job, stretched on a rack of torments, afflicted with the Seven Plagues, if I may be allowed to conflate a couple of tales from the Good Book. I sometimes think we invented God because we need someone to complain to.

The press simply has not let up on the Bert-Betti tragedy. Indeed it has drawn far more coverage, if that is the word, than the deaths of Professor Ossmann and Dr. Woodley. The tabloids are publishing outright lies, talking about “a new, deadly aphrodisiac” and “the Tristan and Isolde pill” and that sort of rot.

I have been besieged with calls from what are called news shows for interviews and camera access to those parts of the Pavilion that still house chimpanzees. I did agree, under the prompting of Felix Skinnerman, to allow a camera crew in for a “pool” shoot, whatever that means. I have agreed to submit to taped interviews on the condition that I be guaranteed final editing approval with elaborate safeguards including a one-million-dollar performance bond. That has gotten me much outrage over the telephone and no takers.

Felix also urged me to open