The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series)

by Lise McClendon

  She frowned, confused. It was time to state my case: "I'm looking into Shiloh's murder. Privately."

  "Privately?"

  I nodded, hoping that would fly without mentioning my notorious brother-in-law. "I want to know more about Shiloh. What was she doing the last couple weeks. Anything different. Things like that."

  Picking up two wine glasses, Elaine turned toward the door. "I've already told those deputies and the Indian cops all that. They think it was Wade Fraser."

  "I don't."

  She looked at me, perplexed. I couldn't tell if she thought Wade was guilty or not, but my statement must have nudged some doubt. "Well, if it helps find out who killed her. But not now." She walked to the door with the glasses.

  "Can I call you tomorrow?"

  "Sure." Elaine lifted a glass to her lips. "This is my group, you see. They've come to help me work through this--" Her voice broke. She took a sip of wine. "You understand."

  "Of course," I said. "Shall I bring the wine out for you?"

  "Oh, no, no. That's sweet of you." Elaine smiled at last, a victory for me. "You know, it just might help to talk to a stranger about Shiloh. Just woman to woman. Those policemen are so cold. Like this is just one more murder to them. More paperwork."

  I twisted my mouth to one side in sympathy. I could play Mother Confessor, especially after a day with a priest. Ah, shoot. Would the Lutherans please quit rolling over in their graves?

  The room Melina had given me was really a second-story sleeping porch, with paper-thin walls and leaky aluminum windows that stretched the length of it. I had them all open, relishing the breezes that rattled the leaves in the trees. A squirrel chattered as he ran up and down the trunk, scolding Melina's cat.

  On the wall above the twin Hollywood bed hung the family pictures. Time, the main player in these photographs, seemed cruel and hateful to me. There was Una, my mother, slender, with skin like moonlight. She was eighteen, a bride, with the debonair lingerie salesman at her side. Rollie (real name Rudolf) slouched like James Dean at her side, older, wiser, and infinitely cooler. His greased blond hair was combed back but a forelock escaped to hang over one eyebrow. His smile was both happy and smirking at the whole wedding thing.

  Birds squabbled in the trees, waking me early. The phone rang insistently in the hall. Melina must have left already. My watch said seven forty-five. I leapt out of bed, hoping Elaine was so eager to talk she was calling me.

  The voice on the line was husky. "Alix Thorssen."

  "Speaking."

  "Marcus Tilden. You called me."

  "Yes," I said, gulping for air, flustered at hearing this voice at last. I reflexively pulled down my wrinkled T-shirt over my underpants. "I'd like to talk to you. Today, if possible. About Wade Fraser's arrest."

  "Wade," he muttered. Papers rustled in the background, as if he didn't really have his mind on the conversation. "Thorssen. You must be Melina's little sister."

  "Uh, yes."

  "Come by my office about nine. We can talk then."

  I tried to say that was fine and good-bye but he had already hung up. I replaced the receiver in a laundry heap around the phone. Suddenly the day's agenda came into focus. Within minutes I had the FBI Art Forgery Unit in Chicago on the line, an agent and old buddy, Kenyon Tiernan. I explained to him about the Jackson Pollock painting

  the woman had wanted me to investigate. I told him I doubted the authenticity of the painting.

  "I'm looking into it myself," I said, "but I wanted to doublecheck to see if you'd had any reports of forgeries."

  "Right," Tiernan said. "God, what I wouldn't give to be out there in the mountains with you."

  "The mountains give you nosebleeds, Ken, remember?"

  "Well, yeah, but it's so blasted hot here in Big Shoulders."

  "Ken, something else. I'm doing a job for the Missoula cops here. It may be something you guys want to take over. They don't have clue one about art theft here."

  "Interstate?"

  I gave him the rundown on the contents of the trailer, its Florida rental joint, all the rest. I raced through it, hoping he could speed-write.

  "Jesus, Alix, where's the fire?"

  I took a breath. In business I tried to always protect my sources, coddle them, which is why I ended up with an FBI agent as a house guest now and again. "Sorry. Have you got all that?" He grunted.

  Another thought. "Just out of curiosity, would you run another name through yow computer? Charlotte Vardis, no address."

  Tilden's office was in the social science building, an inelegant brick box facing a green lawn and a crisscrossing of student walkways. It had a comfortable, useful feel, like hundreds of other college buildings. On the first floor "Instructional Materials Center" was painted diagonally across the wall in huge emerald and yellow letters. Anthropology shared a secretary with geography on the second floor. The narrow hallway was deserted. The secretary's door stood ajar, a typewriter running, empty. I stepped down the hall until I found the black plastic nameplate that read

  MARCUS TILDEN. I knocked. "Dr. Tilden?"

  "Enter," a voice called out. I pushed the door and slipped in.

  The office was tiny, maybe eight by eight feet, but very organized. Bookshelves lined three walls, stacked to the ceiling. A gleaming mahogany desk, small in size but big in class, dominated the room. Behind it sat the gray-haired man I had seen at the memorial service.

  "And you must be Alix," he said, leaning back to appraise me.

  His face gave the impression of a smile, an odd look, as if practiced in the mirror. His handshake was bony and strong. "Thank you for meeting me today."

  "So Wade is in jail." He shook his head, fingers linked on the desktop. "Poor Wade. I suppose this means I'll have to be looking for a replacement." His eyes were black, almost fiery, and bulged from their sockets.

  "I wouldn't rush into anything," I said, smiling. A terrible way to start. "I mean, I don't know what will happen. He may get off."

  Tilden tried to squint but his eyes were too big. "Doesn't look good. His knife found at the scene. I heard they found her blood on it." He tapped his index fingers together to a silent beat.

  "Did you? I haven't heard that." I opened my notebook to show I wasn't here on a social call. "I'm trying to find out more about the vandalism Wade was looking into on the reservation. Do you know anything about that?"

  Tilden pursed his lips. "No." I waited for him to elaborate. He didn't.

  "Nothing?"

  "Wade and I didn't discuss his activities." He seemed irritated suddenly.

  "You weren't on speaking terms?"

  Tilden seemed to flinch, shifting his legs and arms in a jerking motion, then replacing them at another angle. "Quite the contrary. We spoke often. But I hadn't spoken to him since the term ended. I went to Seattle for a conference and only just returned."

  "And when was that? If you don't mind me asking."

  "Not at all. The police have already been here and asked me the same thing. I came in on a flight two days ago." I made a note in my notebook. He watched me writing with a smirking twist on his lips.

  "Playing detective?" he asked, batting his long eyelashes over his protruding eyes.

  My stomach began to churn. If I replied our conversation would be over, so I bit my tongue. "Why were the police here?"

  Tilden shrugged. "Ask them yourself."

  "Shiloh was a student of yours, wasn't she?"

  "For a couple of years. She dropped out."

  "Why was that?"

  "I don't know. There was some talk about her and Wade not getting along. I think she took a research course from him." Tilden fingered the files on his desk, sitting forward as if the talk was over.

  "What do you know about the group she was involved in? Manitou Matrix."

  He watched me, a professorial look taking over. "Very little. I see their posters up around town. Shiloh was interested in what we call--" he made an authoritative grimace to apologize for sermonizing-- "path
ways of knowledge. She was what you might call a seeker. Always looking for answers, for the true faith." His eyes shot to the rows of periodicals on the shelves. "I think I saw something about that group in one of those throwaway journals they send out."

  He thumbed through several stacks until he found the one he was looking for. "Here. This is called--" he paused and looked at the cover--"Nature Song." He leafed through the pages and folded them back, handing me the magazine.

  The article was titled "The Good Red Road to Wisdom." Under the banner headline was a large photograph of Orianna, the leader of Manitou Matrix, looking much younger, sitting on a rock playing a handmade flute. "Search for Inner Beauty and Wisdom Drawn from Native Religions," read the bold quote attributed to her.

  "May I keep this?"

  He waved his hand. "It's a throwaway."

  "Thanks." He was warming so I plowed on. "What did Shiloh do after she quit graduate school?"

  "Not much as far as I know." His big eyes darted toward me and away. "Of course, I didn't know her that well. She seemed rather confused."

  "In what way?"

  "She didn't know what to do with her life. She didn't have the dedication to go into academics. That was obvious. She got good enough grades and was progressing with her research." He squirmed in his big chair as if possessed. "Shiloh was looking for the true way."

  "True way of what?"

  He peered at me as if I were a dim bulb. "Of knowledge. Of truth. Some eternal truth. I don't think she ever found what she was looking for." He looked out the window for a moment, his voice dropping to a whisper. I looked at his pale complexion with heavy black stubble, staring at him until he turned his head back. He stood suddenly. "I have another appointment, Miss Thorssen."

  The spring in western Montana had been wet this year, the rainfall some 200 percent of normal. Now that the rains were done and the heat arrived, the hillsides exploded with wildflowers and nodding heads of grasses gone to seed. The foothills north of Missoula were ablaze in yellow sweet clover. Everywhere on the quiet campus the

  feeling of lazy summer held fast.

  I walked slowly past tennis courts where the whap, whap of a slow game had an easy familiarity. Past the old indoor swimming pool with its swollen rusting dome. Toward the river, couples lay on a grassy expanse on blankets. At midmorning it was already 85 degrees. At the Clark Fork River I crossed the footbridge, an old iron-girdered railroad trestle fitted with wooden planks to link the campus with the old town to the north. The graffiti caught my eye:

  "Mike, where is your hair?" and "In memory of Frank, Victim of Society." Despite the visit with Tilden and my sister's problems, for a moment this trip to Missoula was a simple vacation, full of relaxation and ease, the sun on my shoulders melting away worries. Only for a moment.

  Circling back via the Madison Street Bridge, I called Elaine from Melina's. No one answered. I cursed as I replaced the receiver on the hook. I struck out for the campus on foot to retrieve my car. The walk had been good for me. It helped me to work out a plan of attack.

  Moody, Elaine, Wade. Again.

  My feet were beginning to burn in my clogs as I rounded the business administration building. The heat distracted me so much I didn't realize that the Saab wasn't where I left it. I stood on the curb gaping at the empty spot. The parking lot was completely empty, the asphalt shimmering. What the hell--?

  My car had been towed. I had parked it under a conspicuous Permit Parking Only--Faculty and Staff sign, accompanied by the graphic for a tow truck. Damn. Even in the summer vigilantes were everywhere, bringing down the rebels.

  After numerous wrong turns and not a few curses I found campus security tucked away under a towering cottonwood tree as far as humanly possible from my parking place. I pushed through the glass door, shocked for a moment by the wall of air-conditioned air. Moments later I stumbled back out into the midday sun, confused by the heat, the cool, the turn of events. The campus police had not towed my car. In fact they did no towing between terms. Summer school did not start for a week. The Saab, they suggested, had been stolen. They referred me to the Missoula Police Department.

  Lieutenant Malsome's office wasn't as cool as I had hoped but cool enough. I waited, collecting my melted pans, until he entered, closing the door behind him. Malsome wasn't a big man but he carried himself like one, his uniform trim and exact.

  "I was wondering when you'd be back." He sat behind his desk, setting down a file. He had a business face, square, accentuated by a short, flat, brown haircut.

  I blinked. "Oh, right. The, ah, trailer. I'm working on the research. No sense tying up your phone lines."

  "You'll bill us for the calls, I'm sure."

  Malsome had a sly way about him that I liked. I sensed, however, that he wasn't going to like my bill. No matter how small. He ran his fingertips through the short hair over his ears.

  "Lieutenant, I have a problem." I set my backpack on the floor, leaning against his desk. "Someone stole my car."

  Within seconds Malsome had buzzed for someone to take me off his hands. He opened the door, letting in a young cop. As I picked up my pack and straightened, I recognized the Paolo look-alike who had come to Melina's with the bad news.

  "Officer Mendez will take your statement," Malsome said, shooing us out. The cop led me silently to his desk and motioned at a chair.

  "You're sure one of your friends didn't borrow it?" Mendez had Paolo's singsong voice with only a trace of Spanish accent, more a lilt than anything else. The resemblance wasn't quite as strong as I first thought. Striking though.

  "I don't have friends here. I'm visiting my sister."

  "Maybe she borrowed it." He looked at me again. "You a friend of the lieutenant's?"

  "I'm working for him." A twinge of disappointment stung--he didn't remember me from Melina's porch. I slipped off my clogs to feel the cool tile floor.

  Officer Mendez sat and typed, asking questions around a pencil held between his teeth.

  "All right, Miss Thorssen," he said, removing the pencil and ripping the form from his typewriter with a sound that made me jump. "We'll put out the description of your car. Maybe it will show up." He made it sound like a needle in a haystack. He looked over his desk at my bare feet, a smile creeping onto his lips. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

  I stood up, sliding into the shoes. Not a chance, copper.

  "Do you need a ride somewhere?" he asked as I walked off, too beat to answer. My back and shoulders hurt like hell. I could think of only one thing, a cool bath.

  "Miss Thorssen?" Officer Mendez (Carl Mendez, his name tag said) caught me as I opened the outer door. ''I'm going on break now. I can give you a ride."

  Riding unexpectedly in a police cruiser with the radio dispatcher chattering stunned me. I sat in silence, listening to ten-fours and rogers and five-oh-threes. I had no idea what they were talking about. Officer Mendez picked up the radio and told the dispatcher he was ten-seven-oh-dee. OD? Overdose? What had he said? Taking a break. Off Duty.

  She came back on and told him he was assigned to ten-fourteen-eff at three o'clock. He mumbled a quick reply and set the radio back on its hook between us.

  "What's that?" I asked finally when the radio was silent.

  "What?"

  "Ten-fourteen-eff."

  "Funeral escort."

  Funeral. This time they would be burying Shiloh, not praising her. Mendez drove expertly through downtown Missoula, past historic houses and cheap motels, past apartment buildings and burger joints, across the Madison Street Bridge and the high, muddy river to Melina's house. He said nothing until he pulled up to the curb.

  "I'll let you know if your car shows up." He leaned toward the passenger window to see me on the sidewalk. Even with the aviator sunglasses, he looked like my business partner.

  "Thanks for the ride, Mendez," I said, letting his name slip off my tongue before I realized what I'd done. I stepped back, flipping my hair off my face, trying to pretend I'd meant to say it.


  His smile broadened as he pulled the cruiser back into the traffic.

  10

  STANDING WITH A towel draped around my pale, tan-resistant body, I dripped on the bathroom floor as the phone rang. The cool bath had revived me. Late-afternoon sun filtered through the branches into the room, orange shapes playing over the old claw-foot tub. The water gurgled, making obscene sucking noises as gravity tugged it down the drain.

  On the third ring I found the phone in the pile of laundry. The adolescent voice of Kenyon Tiernan from the FBI barked on the line. I made him wait while I grabbed a robe and my notebook and pen.

  "Okay, shoot." I sat on the dark wood floor.

  "Jackson Pollock." The agent sneezed loudly into the phone.

  "Sorry. Raging summer cold. They blow in off the lake."

  "Sorry." I was trying to be nice. Out of the bath now, revived, my impatience rose dangerously. "What do you have on the Pollock?"

  "Nothing in the last five years. No known forgeries or thefts. There was a minor fracas, a botched theft at a museum in Texas, in '84. Nothing else. Wilsall seemed to think he was pretty well buttoned up."

  "That's what I thought too. It seemed pretty odd to have a private collector out soliciting buyers."

  Tiernan blew his nose. Loudly. "Better give me the details on that guy. The seller. Just in case."

  I gave him the man's name and number. "Anything else?"

  "I'm still working on that laundry list from the trailer. Boss wants to check out jurisdiction. We might take it off your hands."

  "Damn. I need the money."