Leaving Time

Alice talks about experiments on elephants in Africa. Observers had proven that elephants could distinguish hundreds of members of their species individually. This fact raises the question of whether elephants can distinguish the bones of animals they know from those they don’t.

When presented with the bones of animals from other species in addition to elephant remains, the elephants were most interested in examining the bones of other elephants. They were then given the skulls of three matriarchs from various herds.

The researchers assumed the animals would gravitate to their own matriarch, but they seemed equally interested in the other two. This result led Alice to conclude that to an elephant, all mothers are important.

Virgil asserts that every cop is haunted by the one that got away. In his case, this is Alice Metcalf. Virgil was an apprentice detective at the time he was called to investigate a death at the elephant sanctuary. Virgil describes the scene in which long-time employee Nevvie Ruehl was apparently trampled by an elephant. Nevvie is dead, and Alice is suffering from a blow to the head. Virgil drives Alice to the hospital and sees that she’s checked in. Later that night, she signs herself out and is never seen again. Her daughter, Jenna, is also missing.

Because Alice’s husband, Thomas, exhibits odd behavior when questioned, Virgil becomes suspicious that Thomas might have been the cause of Alice’s head injury. Alice may have subsequently run away from him, taking Jenna with her. After a red hair is found on Nevvie’s body, Virgil suspects that Alice might have killed her. He wants to open a murder investigation but is told by his superiors to forget it.

Alice’s case haunts Virgil, so he decides to get rid of himself. He fakes his own death on the day he’s due to receive his promotion to detective. Then, he assumes the identity of hard-drinking Vic Stanhope, private detective.

Virgil is roused from his musings by Jenna. She appears in his office and demands that he investigate her mother’s disappearance. He resists her pleas even after she produces the wallet found hidden in a tree branch. Virgil scoffs at the idea that a psychic provided the lead. Inwardly, he fears that a new investigation will prove that Alice murdered Nevvie and fled. Despite that possibility, he concludes that it’s better for Jenna to know the truth and have closure. Virgil accepts the case.

Alice discusses how sophisticated elephant behavior is and how long their memories can last because the hippocampi of their brains are proportionally larger than the hippocampi of humans. Alice’s favorite example involves a pair of older female elephants who are introduced as matriarchs to a young herd of juveniles traumatized by the culling of their own leaders. One of the females develops an infection. She can’t be anesthetized to provide treatment without compromising her health.

A trainer is called in who had worked with the same, sick elephant twelve years earlier. The elephant immediately recognizes the trainer and follows his commands to allow a vet to treat her injury. Alice says, “To any researcher, to anyone at all, she was a wild elephant. But somewhere, somehow, she remembered who she used to be, too” (101).