The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series)

by Lise McClendon

  Only Hondo looked no worse for wear. But he was no closer to springing our troubled anthropologist. He told us in the car that Shiloh's blood had been matched to the blood on the knife, as Tilden had somehow learned. This made the state's case even stronger. No fingerprints but, well, that didn't matter. Nothing new to use to petition for another bond hearing.

  Melina's chewed nails caressed the paper bag's fold until it was as limp as worn leather in her hands. She'd been up until two baking the cookies. I stood against the wall again, trying to dredge up a hopeful expression. Wade sat in a heap on the hard chair, the worst example of physical deterioration. His hair hung in greasy threads; the unkempt beard stuck out in all directions, dotted with who-knows-what, his complexion sallow. He hung his head, a beaten man. His handcuffs were off. One guard locked the door from the outside while another stepped back by me against the wall. Melina smiled at Wade, or tried, pushing the bag of cookies across the table.

  The guard stepped forward and dumped the cookies. Onto the table. They broke into pieces, spilling crumbs everywhere. Wade moaned and rocked his head.

  "What'd you have to do that for, Leroy! Shit." Wade glared at the guard. His anger gave me hope, a spark maybe we could fan into a blaze again. Leroy didn't reply but swept the cookie parts back in the sack. "Thanks, man. Thanks a heap."

  "It's all right, Wade," Melina said. "They'll still taste the same." She frowned at him. "Have you been having trouble sleeping? You're not getting that night itching again, are you?"

  Wade slumped in reply, his hands limp on his knees. Hondo cleared his throat to speak. "They found her blood on the knife, buddy."

  Wade looked up, out the tiny barred window high in one wall. "I heard."

  "Is there anything you can remember about that night? Anything you haven't told us?" The lawyer asked.

  "You mean like a confession? No way, man," Wade growled. "I didn't do it. I didn't kill her. There's nothing to tell. I went to sleep, goddammit. That's it."

  Melina's hand patted the table. "He didn't mean that, Wade. He just thought you might have remembered something that would prove you were at Moody's."

  "There you go again--" Wade clipped his sentence, shutting his mouth with a click of his teeth, as if he didn't have the energy now to harangue his wife. We all knew what he began to say, another suggestion of infidelity. Hondo fiddled with a jacket button, his head down. Tension lay thick in the air.

  "I've got some questions, Wade," I said. "If you two are done."

  Hondo stood up, the scratching of his chair on the cement floor cutting through the silence. I sat down. "I've been following up on the vandalism you were looking into. Melina and I went to see Moody. Then I talked to Father Percy about the artworks at the mission. He's worried about you."

  Wade wagged his head. "He's a good man."

  "Tilden's been up there."

  Wade looked at me, twitched his curly eyebrows, and frowned. "I didn't think he went up on the Rez much anymore."

  "Father Percy wouldn't tell me why. He just said Tilden was a disagreeable man," I said. "That's all."

  "Hmmm. No shit."

  "The paintings that were vandalized?" I ticked them off on my fingers. "The woman, the fresco on the wall. The other was an Indian named Shining Shirt. Father Percy told me the legend about him seeing the vision of the black skirts. Is there any more to it, Wade?"

  "Just his vision. And him getting that silver cross out of nowhere. That's the story."

  "How about that statue-Kateri? Do you know anything about it?"

  "Never saw it."

  "Why do you suppose that statue was broken? When there are some older ones, bigger ones, like the big one at St. Ignatius, or the angels?"

  Wade squinted his eyes. "Maybe random. That's what the cops said."

  I didn't believe it. These vandals seemed pretty damn particular. "I have to know about the fight you and Dr. Tilden had eight years ago. The one they brought up in court?"

  Wade flicked his eyes to his wife. I strained to hear his answer: "That was nothing, Alix."

  "I have to know everything if I can even hope to find out what happened."

  He sighed and spoke in a low voice, hurrying. "All right. Dr. Tilden wrote a paper. I disagreed with it and wrote a rebuttal. He got mad and we ... struggled."

  "What was the paper about?"

  "Urn. It was about Shining Shirt." Wade's eyes widened. "Do you think Tilden slashed that painting at the mission?"

  "It would be hard to prove."

  "Wait a minute," Melina said. "What if he did? I mean, what if Tilden did go around vandalizing things? That is not our problem. Wade has to get out of jail. Proving Tilden hates Catholics isn't going to do that."

  "True. But Wade was looking into the vandalism."

  Hondo sat on the edge of the table behind me. "Then why didn't Tilden come after Wade? What did Shiloh have to do with it?"

  "I don't know," I admitted, shaking my head. I hated this jumbled feeling, pieces alive, there, but without meaning. Wade stared at me. "Tell me about those papers."

  Wade looked alert again, eyes bright. "Tilden's theory was that Shining Shirt was a sham. That the legend was a bunch of hokum dredged up by the priests to justify their place in the tribe. He said the priests must have thought the vision alone wouldn't fly so they made up the bit about the silver cross that Shining Shirt wore. Said the priests had given it to him."

  Wade licked his lips, the color back in his cheeks. "I wrote a letter to the editor. I said that it wasn't our place to meddle in tribal culture. We are anthropologists. We study cultures, we don't manipulate them. In fact, we try to make the impact of our research as minimal as possible. We shouldn't be telling the Salish or anybody else what they should or shouldn't believe. Self-determination, you know."

  "What did Tilden do?"

  "Blew a gasket. He came over to the house."

  "And you struggled?"

  "More or less. I guess I pushed him down the porch stairs because he wouldn't leave." Wade drew his hand over the corners of his mouth.

  "There's more to it, Alix." Melina's voice was odd, hard.

  Wade jerked his head toward her. "Mel." He whispered. "Don't."

  "I have to tell her, Wade," she said. "And Hondo's a lawyer, he can't tell."

  Wade seemed to shrink. Melina turned to me. "Dr. Tilden told Wade that he---Marcus and I were---having an affair. That was when Wade threw Marcus off the porch."

  The pen slipped from my hand, clattering to the cement floor. It bounced there for a moment, then settled into a roll that ended at the guard's feet. He stooped, picking it up.

  "And-- and were you?" I stammered at last.

  "No." My sister looked me in the eye, her face never more serious. Then her composure cracked. "We did have---a--a flirtation."

  Wade snorted through his nose, breaking the tension. Sun shone in his eyes as he looked at the tiny window. Hondo shifted on the table edge beside me; I dared not look at his face. Melina sat back, stroking her hair with a shaky hand. I took a breath, trying to quash a rising tide of emotion. I felt my sister's pain, rising, rising. No. I cleared my throat. "Which means what?"

  My sister's hazel eyes shot to Wade's face. Her jaw tightened. "We talked on the phone. We were friends."

  I expected Wade to snort again but he was silent. I had run out of things to say, my mind in a whirlpool of feelings I didn't know what to do with, where to bury.

  "You have to understand about Marcus and me," Wade said in a low voice. "Ever since I came up here from Fayetteville he's been my mentor. Or so he likes to think. Eight years ago, when all this took place, he was already washed up. He knew it. That's why he raked up all this crap about Shining Shirt." He ran his fingers through his greasy

  hair. "It was so ludicrous it was funny. Only it wasn't."

  Melina said, "He was just trying to get back at Wade through me. I should have seen it. Wade got tenure the first year he taught. And published a paper on Salish and Kootenai reli
gious practices that he was asked to present at the national meeting."

  "Marcus's field too," Wade said.

  "A rivalry," I said.

  "Exactly." Wade fingered his beard in thought. "I should have seen it coming. But I never thought-- Do you know what the students call him? Mad Dog. Mad Dog Tilden."

  "He showed me his sweathouse last night. "

  "In the garage? He's had that for years." He shook his head. "You know, I feel sorry for him. He really did help me in graduate school."

  "That was a long time ago," Melina said.

  We stood up to go. I felt a little dizzy. Wade sat stroking his beard. He smelled like leftover salami, I thought, as I passed him.

  "Wade," I turned back to him. "Have you heard of something called a bluejay pictograph?"

  His eyebrows twitched. "Bluejay?"

  "Pictograph. Possibly small?"

  "Doesn't ring any bells. What tribe?"

  "I don't know." Melina and Hondo waited in the hallway.

  "Think about it."

  12

  "THIS IS ALIX THORSSEN from Second Sun Gallery. I've looked into that Jackson Pollock you were interested in."

  In the Penthouse, as I began to call Wade's under the eaves office, the desktop was finally clear. I had stacked extraneous stuff, monographs, files, tests, handouts, and odds and ends in the far corner, making room for only the information related to the case. The cleanup had taken all afternoon. Attend to business. Focus. Concentrate. What I

  needed was a Zen master at my side, prodding me.

  Charlotte Vardis squealed with delight on the line. Apparently she thought this was good news. I frowned. "The man's name you gave my partner doesn't show up as a registered owner or dealer. All the Pollocks from that period are accounted for in museums or private collections. There is a slight possibility that it is an undocumented work. But I wouldn't recommend taking that chance."

  "I see. Oh, I don't throw my money away," she said. She didn't sound particularly disappointed. When faced with the truth most art collectors prefer to believe what they want to believe. They covet a painting so much they can't believe it's not authentic. "I can't thank you enough for saving me the money-and the aggravation."

  "If you like the piece you could buy it based on its artistic merit," I said. "But don't pay what you would pay for an authentic Pollock."

  "Hmmm. I don't think I'll do that. There was something magical about it being a Jackson Pollock. If it's not, well, it's just another splatter thing."

  Yes, and Pollock was the King of Splatter. I considered him a media phenomenon, an eccentric coddled by the press more than a great artist. But what I liked didn't have to hang on her walls either.

  As I hung up the heavy black receiver the thought came to me that Charlotte Vardis wasn't dealing with me straight. Something about her demeanor was off-key. Maybe she was just a rich flake. She sounded intelligent. But what about the bluejay pictograph she was looking for? Where could I find something about that?

  The phone rang almost immediately. It was Lieutenant Malsome. "Haven't seen you down here, Ms. Thorssen. How's the work going?"

  "Good. Real good." I searched the desktop frantically for my notes on my real business in Missoula. It seemed far from important now.

  "Got any leads?"

  "Um. I was hoping you might have tracked down the renter."

  "Still working on it. An obvious bunko."

  "Probably stolen then. Any reported?"

  The policeman cleared his throat. "We haven't seen your report of the items so we can't reference them to the hot sheet. Can we?"

  Shit. ''I'll get it to you tomorrow, Lieutenant."

  If I can find it. There was too much going down. I found my backpack, pulled out the notebook, and furiously typed up on Wade's old Royal what little information I had. The list would give them a start against the hot sheet. I sealed it into an envelope and walked it three blocks to the mailbox at a neighborhood grocery store. I didn't want to see Malsome, sit and talk about things I wasn't giving attention to. On the way home I detoured onto Bickford Street where

  Elaine lived. The front door was open. I knocked on the screen door several times until at last Elaine came to the door. Eyes puffy and red, she blinked at me. "Yes?"

  I reminded her of who I was. "Do you have a few minutes to talk about Shiloh?" I said gently. Not gently enough.

  Elaine burst into tears, sobbing into the wet tissue. "Can't you see I miss her?"

  My heart sank; what a heel I was. Her blond curls hung around her smeared face. As usual, no words came to mind for comfort. She stepped away, her hand on the doorknob. "You don't know how much ... how much I loved her." Elaine slammed the door then, in my face. I flinched at the abrupt sound. Then she opened it a crack.

  "Sorry about that," she said, pushing the door shut carefully.

  The peach house sat still, forlorn, the grass still dead despite the thunderstorm. I stood on the sidewalk for a minute, thinking about the two women, then doubled back through the alley, counting the houses until there, in the deepening gloom of a summer's night, I saw the bungalow's glow.

  The old single-stall garage had a definite list to the south. It hugged the alley. No one had bothered to spruce up its paint, so it peeled in a dreary gray, flaking around the edges into the raw dirt like dandruff. I walked around to the far side, which clung to a straggly row of lilacs. Pushing the branches aside, I found a window and pulled out my small flashlight.

  The dirt on the window was thick and greasy. Cupping my hands around my eyes and holding the flashlight to my temple, I squinted into the building. After several seconds the outline of a car came into focus. I blinked, waiting longer for my eyes to adjust, moving the flashlight back and forth down the bulky object. I shone it on one end, then was sweeping it back the other way when it caught the corner of something.

  Lettering.

  The flashlight turned back, down. A box there, with lettering. I moved the light up. Covered by a black tarp or blanket, not a car, boxes. I squinted, trying to read through the glare of the glass and the grime of generations. Green letters; y-f-l-o-w-e-r. Something missing at the beginning. Blank-y-flower. Mayflower.

  Moving boxes. Quickly I scanned the rest of the object, with its pointed corners and square sides. A score of large cardboard boxes, neatly stacked and covered with a black tarp. In the cracked cement corners and cobwebbed ceiling, the flashlight revealed no more.

  Melina sat on the porch with coffee when I returned. I had missed supper. She heated me a plate of meatballs that I told her tasted just like Mom's. The barking of a dog echoed down the alley. I settled onto the railing, sipping coffee.

  "Mel, you said you knew Shiloh?" She looked surprised at the topic; she'd been thinking of something else.

  "A little," she said through the steam of her coffee. "I saw her around."

  "How did she dress?"

  "I never really noticed. Well, hippie, you know. Dumpy hippie."

  I shifted on the rail, trying to figure out a way to approach the subject that had been nagging at me since visiting Elaine. "Did you hear it said-um-did it ever occur to you that Shiloh might be more interested in women than men."

  Melina blinked. "Possibly. I mean, now that you mention it."

  "It occurred to you?"

  "Possibly," she repeated, trying to conceal her embarrassment.

  "I was just thinking about that women's group. And tonight when I went to Elaine's. She said I had no idea how much she loved Shiloh."

  Melina took a sip of coffee, slitted her eyes. "Well, that doesn't mean anything. Not everybody's Norwegian. They were friends. They might have loved each other as friends."

  "Do you have any friends you would bawl over like that? Tell strangers how much you loved them?"

  Melina cocked her head. "I'm not Elaine."

  At Rollie's funeral none of us had cried. Mom seemed to be made of stone. The entire Lutheran church was filled with people he knew, or Mom knew or Melina or
I knew, or just knew the family. Some folks came up from Belfry, relatives and friends from Mom's youth. There were a few weepers but most of us stood and sang "Come to the Garden Alone" dry-eyed, trying hard not to hear the words.

  In the jail though, Melina had wept. It bothered me how much I'd seen her cry. More than I did in all the years of growing up. Of course, around Mom a person learned to buck up, not to show the pain. I still was like that, like Mom, and people accused me of being cold. But that's who I am. It doesn't mean I don't care as much as the next person. I just don't fall apart.

  ''A crime of passion, you think?" she asked, avoiding my question.

  "It's a primary motive for murder."

  Dark descended on Blaine Street. A string of children flew by, some on bicycles, others racing on foot like the wind. The air was still, breathless. The streets were jabbed with light from porches and living rooms. I tried to concoct a reason for the boxes. Somebody was moving, that was simple. But who? Elaine moving out on Shiloh? Shiloh moving out on Elaine? Somehow Elaine seemed too genuinely broken up to be the one moving out. Had she stopped Shiloh from moving out the only sure way? I shivered, though the night was balmy.

  13

  "ALIX! I DIDN'T know who else to call."

  The voice was familiar. My mind struggled to clear. My watch said six-thirty.

  "Father Percy?"

  "There's been another intruder," he gasped. "Another statue was smashed and--" His voice trailed off, overcome.

  "What did they do, Father?"