The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series)

by Lise McClendon

  We didn't stop to talk to them. They recognized Melina though, hurling questions at her from all compass points. "Do you know where your husband was Saturday night?" "Was Fraser having an affair with Miss Merkin?" "Can you give us a statement, Mrs. Fraser?" Hondo put his skinny arm around her shoulders, just like in the movies, and we plowed our way through the strobes.

  Melina and I eased into wooden chairs behind the railing. Melina had washed her hair and whipped it into a fresh concoction. She wore a white blouse and a skirt the color of the sky. I wore The Suit again, with a clean T-shirt underneath.

  The courtroom was a drab twenties-era hall with wood paneling and tarnished brass fixtures, three-quarters full Despite the air of stale banality the courtroom exuded, the people who had come to watch the hearing were colorful types: elderly men with a gleam for scandal in their eyes, solid Indian women in brightly colored dresses, nervous teenagers, and pinch-faced young women who scowled, probably in the presence of all men.

  The battle of the sexes was on.

  Wade shuffled in, still handcuffed, with four guards. They stood on either side of the table, hands clasped behind their backs. Just then Orianna and three of her cohorts waltzed in and found seats as far from us as possible.

  Wade seemed to be losing weight. His face sagged as if under a greater gravity than normal. His clothes hung on him: khaki janitor's pants with acid holes by the knee, a faded flannel shirt. His shoes made a statement all their own: black high•top Converse basketball shoes, worn and faded to a chalkboard gray, with laces broken and tied back together.

  When the judge entered and the bailiff shouted out his harangue ending with "All rise," Hondo and Wade could not have looked more opposite. The lawyer had moussed his wiry red hair into position and put on a dark blue suit that hung surprisingly well on his meatless frame. He actually looked competent. Wade had a glassy, haggard look next to him, his head down.

  When his turn came, Hondo O'Brian began to speak in a booming bass, a voice of confidence and command. He had appeared relaxed and knowledgeable when we talked at his office, allaying Melina's fears. With his scarecrow physique he wasn't an imposing figure. But how many real lawyers could measure up to Raymond Burr's burly Perry Mason? His mind was what mattered, I told myself, and on that score he appeared at least adequate.

  "The evidence against my client, your honor, is purely circumstantial. The prosecution has no evidence that my client was anywhere near the woods along the Little Bitterroot River last Saturday night."

  He stepped around the table, a pencil wagging from his long fingers. "We have a witness to testify that Mr. Fraser spent the evening at Camas Prairie, some ten miles away. There are no witnesses to testify that my client was near the scene at the time of the death. No blood, no witnesses, nothing found on my client or in his possession. Nothing, in short, to indicate that my client was involved in this death. The prosecution, your honor, has not a shred of evidence that my client was involved in this crime in any way."

  Hondo's face had flushed, washing out his freckles above the white shirt he wore. He swung to face the crowd dramatically. "Therefore, your honor, I ask you to dismiss the charges against the defendant as arbitrary and without basis in fact."

  The judge, a woman in her fifties with dyed brown hair cut at a severe blunt angle and bifocals, made a note on a pad in front of her, then looked up calmly. "Mr. Albrecht?"

  The young deputy county attorney bounced to his feet. By his clean-cut looks he would have passed for twenty-five but I doubted they gave murder trials to new recruits. He was short and athletic in a squatty, body-builder way, with a full head of blond hair combed away from his face.

  "Your honor, Mr. Fraser has been charged with first-degree murder. This is a serious charge, very serious. Let me tell you why the county feels Mr. Fraser should be tried for this crime.

  "First of all, the murder itself. A woman, not a large, strong woman, but a woman small in frame, is dead. Murdered. She struggled, we are told, but couldn't overcome her attacker, who came at her with a long, sharp hunting knife. A knife that, consequently, has been said to belong to Mr. Fraser."

  "Objection, hearsay," Hondo shouted from his chair.

  "This is not a trial, Mr. O'Brian," the judge reprimanded and turned her attention hack to Mr. Albrecht.

  "The woman, Miss Merkin, loses the struggle. The attacker makes a clean, sharp cut across her throat." Albrecht drew his pencil across his neck slowly.

  "Objection, your honor!" Hondo was on his feet.

  "Mr. Albrecht, don't be dramatic. Get on with it," the judge said.

  The prosecutor stepped around his table and paced in front of the judge, waving his pencil and punctuating his phrases with stabs into the air. "Doris Shiloh Merkin falls to the ground. She tries to call out but cannot. Her throat is cut. So she lies on the ground, bleeding, and dies. The attacker panics now that he has done what he set out to do. In his rush he drops the murder weapon."

  Albrecht faced Wade now, his boyish face animated. "Now we come to Mr. Fraser. By the witness of hundreds of bystanders, he argued vehemently with Miss Merkin that day. He insulted her. She told him to get out of the women's encampment on the Little Bitterroot River. When he refused, Miss Merkin ordered six women to push him to the ground, holding him there until he calmed down. She was frightened by the anger, the violent temper, of Mr. Fraser. So frightened she had some of her friends detain him until he relaxed enough to cease being a threat to her."

  "Bullshit," Wade said in a loud whisper. The judge looked at him sternly.

  "And Miss Merkin had cause to be frightened," Albrecht continued, addressing the audience rather than the judge, playing the crowd. "For Mr. Fraser had been charged with assault before. He attacked a coworker at the University in a vicious, uncontrollable rage. Mr. Fraser was known to be a violent man who would strike out if he didn't get what he wanted."

  "Objection!" Hondo pounded his fist on the table for emphasis.

  The judge looked at him like he was a pitiful child. "Please restrain yourself, Mr. O'Brian. Continue, Mr. Albrecht."

  "Lastly, Mr. Fraser's whereabouts the night of the murder. He states that he was with one Moody Denzel at Camas Prairie that night. But Mr. Denzel went to bed at nightfall, about nine-thirty that night, while Mr. Fraser, oddly enough, went to his car. Why didn't he sleep in Mr. Denzel's cabin? He was offered that opportunity and refused. He wanted to sleep in his automobile."

  Albrecht shook his head sadly as if sleeping in your car was tantamount to a confession of murder. Then he turned to face the judge. "Camas Prairie is, as Defense has stated, only ten miles from the scene of the murder. An easy fifteen-minute drive under most circumstances. Easily a short drive in the dead of night, at the time of the murder, approximately eleven o'clock last Saturday night."

  Everyone in the courtroom held their breath. Albrecht's heels tapped across the wood floors as he returned to his table and faced the judge. "The defendant is a danger to the community, your honor. He has an uncontrollable temper and has lashed out at others in the past. He has been charged with assault before. In front of nearly one hundred witnesses his anger got the better of him. He has a high potential for violent behavior. Therefore, your honor, we request that Wade Fraser be bound over on the charge of the first-degree murder of Doris Merkin without bond and file a motion to file direct into district court."

  Melina grabbed my hand. No bond, the county attorney said. They can't do that, can they? Hondo touched his forehead with three fingers. Wade glanced at him, bushy eyebrows pinched, then resumed staring at his hands in his lap. A ripple of whispers went through the courtroom as Albrecht sat down.

  The judge made more notes. Melina closed her eyes and moved her lips silently like she was praying. I squeezed her hand. I knew she wouldn't cry here. Hondo began to rustle papers and stood.

  "I'd like to respond, your honor," he said, his voice still strong. I thought I detected a quaver but he continued confidently. The judge nodded to him
.

  "Professor Fraser is a respected university instructor, a teacher for more than fifteen years. He has ties to the community. He is married and owns his home in Missoula. He has been promoted to associate professor and given tenure based on his outstanding teaching and research in this very region."

  Hondo cleared his throat. "The charges referred to by prosecution were dropped and never pursued. They were the object of a professional disagreement that when thought through was discarded. Dr. Fraser is a scientist, your honor, a teacher, a husband. I urge you to post bond for the defendant based on his excellent record to the community and the area."

  Once again the judge looked thoughtful and wrote herself some notes. I thought she would call a recess to think it over but she raised her face to Hondo and Wade and spoke softly to the bailiff.

  "Defendant will rise," said the bailiff, a portly Indian.

  Hondo and Wade stood up and straightened themselves before the judge. She looked out from under her neatly cut bangs and over her half-moon glasses. "Do you understand the charges against you, Mr. Fraser?"

  Wade glanced at Hondo, who spoke for him. "We do, your honor."

  "How do you plead?"

  "Not guilty, your honor," Hondo said in his loud baritone.

  The judge nodded slightly and returned to her scribblings. The air in the courtroom took on a heaviness, making breathing difficult. Scuffles, doors opening and closing, and noses being blown made a cacophony behind us. Melina was white now, stabbing her glasses back on her small nose, biting her lower lip, then trying not to.

  The judge looked up at Wade, waiting a beat for the room's attention. When she spoke her voice was emotionless: "The Court of Lake County orders you, Wade Fraser, to stand trial in district court on the charge of first-degree murder of Doris Merkin and to be held without bond until such time."

  6

  THE SCENE IN the conference room in the basement of the courthouse was not pretty. In this same room where I had felt so light I could float off my chair the air now hung heavy, full of dread. Wade paced across one side of the room, his wrists free of the handcuffs at last; Melina and Hondo sat in the wooden chairs, tense, drilling the table with fingertips. I stood against the opposite wall with the same burly, bald guard as before. He now gave me cold sidelong glances. His uniform smelled of cigarettes.

  Wade struggled to control himself, keeping his eyes on his sneakers as they squeaked on the cement floor on each turn. O'Brian apologized for not getting him bail and pledged to do his best to get it changed.

  "I can meet with the judge but I don't know, Wade," the lawyer said, shaking his head. "I'll have to get a new hearing date and dig up something. I'll try."

  "Damn right, you'll try. I gotta get out of here." Wade stopped pacing and faced us, hands supplicant. "Look at me. I'm a caged animal."

  Melina spoke as Wade began walking back and forth again. "He's doing his best, Wade."

  "His best?!" He swung to face her, his voice rising. "Maybe his best isn't good enough. And why are you sticking up for him, Mel? What's going on when the office doors close behind you, huh? A cozy little arrangement, I must say."

  "Now, just a minute, Wade," O'Brian began. Then Melina let out a little cry, her face reddening before she covered it with her hands. She jumped to her feet then, stamping her heels hard against the floor. Arms stiff at her sides, she glared at Wade and walked to the door. It refused to respond to her yanks on the knob. Melina bellowed, sobbing.

  Wade melted. His face twisted with compassion and he walked up behind Melina, speaking softly to her. "Oh, Mellie. I'm sorry, honey," he whispered. "I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. It's just this place and all. Forgive me, Mel. Honey?"

  Melina turned to face him. A cry racked through her chest. Her face was puffy and red. She closed her eyes after taking an exasperated look at her husband. Wade bent his neck, moving into position with his lips, pausing halfway there. He turned his head to the guard. "Can I kiss her? Is that all right with you?" he asked belligerently. The guard shrugged. Melina let Wade press his lips against hers. He murmured in her ear then, holding her hands in his. "It'll be all right, honey. Hondo will get me out soon. It'll be all right."

  The guard made a movement toward them. Wade anticipated it and dropped Melina's hands. His face revealed that his mind had raced ahead to more serious matters. He walked back to the wall and leaned against it.

  "So this is it, huh? The final reckoning, the last supper. A little more legal jockeying, then the Queen of Hearts says, off with his head!" Wade spat out the words.

  "Now, Wade, no theatrics. We'll save that for the trial." Hondo grinned at Wade, who scowled at the ceiling corner. O'Brian glanced at me. I nodded, urging him silently to ask what we had prearranged. "We want to know what you were looking into on the reservation last week, Wade. Some vandalism?"

  "Hmmm?" Wade jerked his head back to his lawyer. "Yeah. Vandalism."

  "Of what?"

  "Various things."

  "Like the Medicine Tree?" I asked.

  His head jerked up. "Yeah, the Medicine Tree. Did Tin-Tin tell you about it?"

  I nodded. "What else? The sweathouse?"

  "Moody's sweathouse." Wade began to pace again. "There was a bunch of things happened in one week. Seemed strange to me. And not ordinary things like spray paint on the school walls or some prank."

  "Why?"

  "That's what I want to know. Why all these things clustered together? Messages."

  "From who?"

  Wade shrugged and began to speak as the doorknob jingled behind Melina. She stepped away. The door opened. "Time," said another guard with keys in his hand. "Let's go." The two guards walked warily over to Wade, grasping his upper arms in their meaty hands.

  "I've got a file. In my desk, Mel, show her," Wade called out as we walked out through the greenish, fluorescent-lit corridors and left him behind.

  Two hours later I sat up to my elbows in Wade's notes. His study was an under-the-eaves, second-story bedroom just big enough for his massive old oak desk and two small bookcases. A tall black filing cabinet stood in the hall, covered with a thick coating of dust. Melina came in before her afternoon class and tried to open the window. Fifty years of paint fought that effort, so she brought me a small fan. When it blew the stacks of papers scattered around the study, she set it in the hall.

  She had to go teach a class at the Career Center: "Marriage and the Family." Her eyes still looked puffy from the scene with Wade but she smiled as she left the house. Maybe the class kept her mind off her troubles.

  Wade's filing system was easy enough to figure out. It was chronological, the latest information on top of the heap. I began to read all the scribbled scraps of paper and file them into two piles: related and unrelated. I was just guessing at this point, but after several hours of reading I had a fair idea of what Wade had been doing on the reservation.

  From newspaper clippings and notes to himself it appeared that four incidents of vandalism had occurred, all within a day or two of each other. Three I already knew about: the Medicine Tree, Moody's sweathouse, and the other sweathouse, equally old and located on the Jocko River, probably torched. The other piece of malicious mischief was perhaps the most disturbing. Wade had clipped an article from the Missoula newspaper.

  VANDALS DESECRATE MISSION

  Intruders broke into the historic St. Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Reservation last night,

  destroying statuary and defacing artworks. A spokesman from the Lake County Sheriff's Office estimated damage at close to $100,000.

  A side entrance to the chapel appeared to have been pried open, the spokesman said. Father Julius

  Percy, mission priest, said a small statue was smashed that dated from the turn of the century. Two murals, painted when the mission was built in 1891, were slashed, and a third painting, not original, was also badly

  damaged.

  On the corner of the clipping Wade had written the date of the article: 6/22, Thursday. The arti
cle on the Medicine Tree vandalism was in Friday's paper, but it apparently happened on Wednesday night. The sweathouse fires had occurred either Tuesday or Wednesday night.

  Wade's old wooden chair with its threadbare cushion cradled me. I dozed off to the rattling hum of the tiny fan, staring at the piles of information on the desk. When Melina woke me for dinner I held a slip of blank paper clamped in my sweaty fist.

  7

  RAINDROPS POUNDED THE Saab Sister's roof, a kettledrum for the clouds. My hair was still damp from my shower but Melina and her friend Zena discussed newspapers, hats, and umbrellas before deciding to use their purses as a last resort to shield their heads from the downpour.

  Zena Glenn sat behind me, dressed in a black chiffon skirt and a tight navy blue sweater that hugged her thin chest. Her dark hair stretched to a bun at her nape. Her ghostly white skin shone in the dim light. She looked more like a ballerina than a clerk at a bookstore, which was what she claimed to be. She was a friend of Melina's who was to help us identify people at Shiloh's memorial service.

  We were parked three houses down the street from the Cosmic Lunch, an eatery near the campus where the service would be held. This service promised to be just as nontraditional as the one in the meadow.

  The rain seemed to slow. I pulled the old hunting jacket tighter until I could smell musty forest smells on the collar. So much for twenty washes. I put on my hat. "Ready?"

  "Ready," Zena called. She had a nasal twang like a Texan.

  "Do we have to?" Melina said. She was getting cold feet.