The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series)

by Lise McClendon

  "They were in my office. They've taken all my vestments."

  "Just leave everything. Don't touch a thing," I said. "I'll be there in less than an hour."

  He sighed. "Bless you."

  "Father," I added. "Wait about half an hour, then call the sheriff." As I spun to get dressed the phone rang again. I grabbed for it, thinking he must have forgotten something.

  The voice was different. "Miss Thorssen? Officer Mendez, Missoula Police Department. We've had a report of your car on the Flathead Indian Reservation."

  That stopped me. I had almost forgotten I didn't have transportation; I would have to borrow Melina's beat-up VW to get up to the mission. I didn't know what to say. I blurted out: "Good."

  The policeman made a noise in his throat. "You can do one of two things, Miss Thorssen." I was getting tired of his addressing me that way. It made me feel like a little white-haired schoolteacher. "You can wait a day or two for the local police to make a positive identification and bring the car in. Or you can travel to the location yourself and make the identification."

  "I see. And what condition is the car in? Did they say?"

  "I believe it is drivable," he said. "There may have been some damage, but it appears to be minor."

  My mind tangled with logistics: driving Melina's car up there and having two cars to drive back. Melina driving me up, Hondo driving me up, hitchhiking.

  "Miss Thorssen?" Mendez cleared his throat. "I've got the day off--I'm on evening today--if you need a ride up."

  His voice had lost its gruff officiousness. My stomach turned over--with hunger, I told myself. So, the furtive smiles were leading to something. Still, I needed a ride and I needed my car back. "Are you sure?"

  He was sure. I told him quickly about the vandalism at St. Ignatius Mission. He promised to pick me up in fifteen minutes.

  Mendez and I reached the mission late, but it was only eight. The sun had reached the top of the granite-crowned Mission Mountains, promising another hot day. As I stepped into the parking lot gravel I tried to keep my mind on the vandalism, on Wade and Melina, on finding a killer. I had found my eyes wandering once too often to the back of Mendez's strong neck, or his left hand on the steering wheel, tanned and free of jewelry.

  I didn't need the distraction, that much I was sure of. But perhaps he could help with the investigation. God knows I needed help. I felt like I was rowing against the current, getting further from the shoreline rather than closer.

  The priest waited at the top of the stairs for us, wringing his hands. "Thank you for coming, Alix, thank you." He shook my hand, then looked at Mendez.

  "This is Carl Mendez," I said. They shook hands. "He's taking me to find my car that was stolen. He's Missoula Police."

  The priest nodded, looking at him warily. "The sheriff is due any minute."

  I explained that Mendez was here unofficially but could help if Father Percy wanted him to. Mendez gave me a piercing look with his hot brown eyes: We hadn't actually discussed this. I smiled back. As long as he was here he could work. We stepped inside the chapel, following the priest to the front altar.

  The pedestal where the statue of St. Ignatius had stood was empty. On the floor below it lay a mound of white shards. Father Percy shook his head sadly, lacing his fingers in front of him. Carl wore jeans with a chamois shirt the color of the sunrise and black cowboy boots with a good-sized heel. He stooped, sifting gently through the debris. Fingerprints were out of the question. He held up a piece of the saint's hand holding a staff.

  "Not much to go on. Sorry, Father."

  The priest pinched his lips together and looked away from the empty pedestal where the statue had stood. "Come take a look at my office-- I didn't go in there, just saw--" His voice trailed off.

  The intrusion felt different in here, personal and vicious. All the drawers of the desk hung open, papers strewn everywhere. The desk top had been cleaned as if by the sweep of an angry arm. The priest's robes and vestments were all gone. A lonely wire hanger rattled in an empty closet.

  "This is the place to be careful not to touch anything, Father," Carl said, standing in the doorway behind me. I was reluctant to go in. The air felt tense with hatred. Carl's breath was hot on my shoulder. "Especially on those closets. There may be fingerprints here." He took my upper arms in his hands suddenly, making me flinch. "Let me go in. You wait with Father," he whispered, drawing me back, then slipping through the door.

  He moved expertly, light as a cat in the cowboy boots, through papers and bookends and broken objects, looking at the desk, under it, in the open closets. Father Percy paced nervously, trailing his hand on the back pew. I leaned against the door frame feeling useless.

  ''Who would do such a thing, Father?" I asked.

  He stopped and shook his head. "I don't know. It's crazy. Crazy." He began pacing again, his rubber-soled shoes silent except for the squeak when he pivoted.

  "Alix, come here." Mendez's voice was low, and so serious I chose not to react to him finally quitting calling me Miss Thorssen. I walked carefully into the small room, placing my feet as lightly as possible so as not to disturb things before the sheriff arrived. "Don't touch anything."

  Mendez stood behind the desk, where the chair would have been if it hadn't been overturned and sitting in the corner. He stared up at the wall that partitioned off the office from the chapel. "Look."

  I turned slowly. On the wall, in red spray paint that dripped like blood down the paneling, was a message. Plain and clear and aimed at Father Percy.

  In two-foot-tall letters was written, "PAPISTS MUST DIE."

  The phone rang on the other end of the line. I waited, huddled between the restrooms in the cafe where Mendez wanted to eat breakfast. I had ordered but was only able to nibble. The scene at the mission had shaken me almost as much as it had Father Percy. When we had shown Father the graffiti he had turned white and had had to sit down on a pew and pray.

  Fortunately the sheriff's deputies picked this moment for their arrival. Mendez and I left the priest in their care. He looked grateful to have someone to tell the whole scenario to again, getting back some of his color. My sister's office phone rang on and on. She had to be in class.

  Mendez sat hunched over his plate, wiping a piece of toast around on his plate. He didn't look as much like Paolo as I had first thought. His looks were less exotic, more practical. Maybe it was their jobs.

  Jamming the receiver against the chrome hook, I dialed Melina's home number. An old Indian man gimped past me into the men's room. The sagging door let a draft of fragrant odors through the crack. The sound of a racehorse stream hitting the porcelain echoed off the tile.

  Carl seemed calmer than Paolo, more smooth and solid. It occurred to me that I was making these calls to avoid making small talk with him. It wasn't as if he pressed me. He was quiet himself, thoughtful, distressed about the vandalism. We discussed it briefly but it was just speculation. And neither of us seemed like the speculating type.

  Melina answered. "I just couldn't go to work today, Alix. I've been trying so hard to keep up appearances, to make like everything is normal. And I just can't do it. Not today."

  I was relieved she was only depressed, not crying. I couldn't take it if she cried much more. "They understand, Mel," I said.

  "I guess. Wade called." Mel gave a low chuckle. "He sounded better. More up. Wouldn't you know it? He's up, I'm down. Saga of a Marriage."

  She sounded bitter. I couldn't think of anything to say. Carl was staring at me over his coffee cup. I turned away.

  "He wanted to talk to you," Melina said. "Something about what you asked him about? Bluejay something? Let me get my note," she said, dropping the phone. "Here. Bluejay pictograph. You asked him about it?"

  "Right."

  "He says he doesn't know of a pictograph but in Salish culture there used to be a dance for the bluejay shaman each winter. The shamans are still around. And the winter gatherings. But the ritual dance seems to have died out. He said to
look it up in his files, or maybe the library, to find out more about it."

  My heart began to beat in my ears. "Great." I had been scribbling notes on a paper towel from the floor.

  "What's all this about? Does this have to do with Wade?"

  "I don't know, Mel." Every little piece, I told myself.

  The morning turned cloudy as Carl pointed his spotless El Dorado with its worn elegance up the highway toward where Tin-Tin camped on the little Bitterroot. He kept glancing at me scribbling notes to myself, the ones from the paper towel, into my small spiral notebook.

  At last I closed it. "What's going on?" His tone was light, as if to say if I felt he was prying to forget the whole question. I considered whether I had the time or energy to explain. Yet he could help. And he had been kind enough to drive me up here and look through the mission debris. I could probably use the mind of a policeman.

  It still ticked me off that he hadn't connected me with Wade. He had seen me at the house. I couldn't ask for his help. If I told him everything the weariness of obligation would cross his face, regret for having asked, pity for the trials and tribulations of my family. I couldn't stand to see that. He was just being polite. That was all.

  "Just some notes," I answered, looking out the side window at a herd of buffalo fenced into the National Bison Range. They looked puny in the distance. I tried--and failed--to imagine their immense numbers and power a century and a half ago.

  Mendez didn't ask again. I relaxed, glad I had not told him everything. He had gotten directions from the sheriff's department to the car. Putting the scrap of a map on the steering wheel, he stared at it and the landmarks. He turned onto a weedy dirt road that led into a grove of trees some hundred yards off the highway.

  With the El Dorado parked in an open stretch off the sandy ruts, we got out and scouted the bushes, looking for the Saab Sister. The undergrowth was thick, tangled with berry bushes and wild strawberries. Mossy rocks sat in the damp shade of the aspens and junipers.

  "Over here!" His voice was muffled by the forest. I followed it, across the narrow rutted road, into a thicket of willows that shone like golden arrows in the sun.

  "Where are you?" I called, having lost my bearings.

  "Here!" His voice was closer. I turned right and pushed aside a large aspen branch, moving toward the sound. In a moment the undergrowth cleared. There, in a sun-splashed puddle surrounded by tall grass and the contents of the trunk, sat my Saab.

  One tire was flat. I frowned at it but knew it was fixable. The old Saab Sister, its maroon face faded like lipstick on a matinee idol. Its gray-primed liver spots. Never enough money for a full paint job. But the salt on the roads, the gravel from the road construction, the tar, the oil? It never seemed worth it.

  I cocked my head, feeling like I should have loved my car more. Like a mother loves a child. Surges of guilt rippled to my fingertips. I should have protected it from this. I opened my mouth to sigh but a strange feeling came over me. Both doors of the Saab gaped open, almost sprung, as if welcoming us to climb aboard.

  But there was nothing friendly about it. I could see right through the car, from the weeds on one side to the tall wildflowers with blue tops on the other. A strong sense of violation swept over me. I was a private person. But someone had searched my car and by extension me, strip-searched me, checked my deepest recesses, plundered my secrets.

  For a moment I stared at the Saab, unable to move. We had traveled many roads together, she and I. Then another car came to mind, also gaping open, doors like wings, flying. My father's car, the white Impala with its wing fins.

  I blinked. That was a dream. But the image was clear. The Impala flying through the air, landing softly on the lake's calm blue waters. But it hadn't happened that way. Rollie's Impala, weighted down with hardware samples -- he'd given up lingerie for more manly items -- had flown off the highway all right. But it didn't land softly. It sank like a rock, after a forty-foot dive off a cliff into the cold, dark depths of Flathead Lake. Not more than sixty miles from here. A lifetime ago.

  "Alix." Carl shook my arm. I blinked. He dropped his hand. "Let's clean this stuff up," he said.

  After fifteen minutes we had located everything but the jack handle and the radio. The handle was probably somewhere in the weeds but the radio (ancient original equipment with only an AM band) would probably turn up in a pawn shop somewhere. The backseat gave us a little trouble. The car thief had pried up the seat bottom, bending the metal frame badly in the process. Carl tried to bend it back so it would fit again into the base and was only partially successful.

  Finally we both stood, hanging over the backs of the front seats. We positioned the wayward cushion just so, then sat down in unison, as hard as we could throw ourselves. Still it popped up on one side and probably always would.

  Mendez was grinning. "Let's do that again. Maybe we can get it to work."

  "If we do it twenty times maybe," I said, pushing down on the sprung corner. It made a metallic, scratchy booiinnng. "I can see us out here jumping up and down all day on it." I put my knees up on the back of the driver's seat and slouched back, folding my arms across my chest. At least they hadn't slashed the old brown upholstery.

  Carl leaned forward and put his elbow on the back of the front seat. He smiled back at me, disarmingly, as I realized with a start that we were getting comfortable in the backseat of my car. I sat up and reached under the front seat.

  "Did you look under here?" I asked, sweeping my hand across the floor. He did the same under the other seat. "Got something." He pulled out the small canister and handed it to me.

  I took it, frowning, trying to recall having a can of spray paint in the car. Then I saw the color dripping down the sides of the canister.

  "Red."

  Mendez frowned at me. Under my thumb the drips felt dry to the touch but gave slightly, as if they were fresh. "Yours?" I shook my head. He told me to wait while he got his long-sleeved shirt from the hood. As the day had heated up he had stripped to a white undershirt. He held out his shirt, I placed the canister carefully in it, and he wrapped it up, stashing it under his arm.

  "I'll take it in to the sheriff for fingerprints."

  I frowned. "Will you tell them you found it in my car?"

  "Have to. But don't worry. You reported it stolen." I nodded. I didn't like it but had no other choice. I certainly wasn't going to withhold evidence, was I?

  "Do you think you can drive this home?" he asked, helping me shut the doors at last. He had already changed the tire, using his own jack.

  "I think so. There's still gas in it," I said. His face was beaded with sweat now. In the thin T-shirt he looked muscular and strong.

  "Thanks for all your help. I couldn't have done it without you." I stuck out my hand, trying to think of some safe way to show him I really was grateful. He looked at it, surprised, his black eyebrows bobbing up.

  Then he smiled as he shook it gently. "Just doing my duty." He lowered his head, looking toward his own vehicle. He had done much more, we both knew. I appreciated a little humility. But it did surprise me. Paolo didn't have a humble bone in his body. There I go again. Comparing Mendez to Paolo.

  "Let me drive it out to the highway for you. In case there's some problem," he offered, moving toward the Saab. "You have the keys?"

  "No, Mendez, you've done enough." I put my hand on his forearm to stop him from getting in the car. It was warm and moist. "I've driven this car for fifteen years. I guess I can handle it."

  He looked at my fingers on his arm. I dropped them, turning away quickly to get behind the steering wheel. Putting the key in the ignition I choked it and turned the key. With a few pumps of the gas pedal it turned over. I gave Mendez an I-told-you-so smile as I passed his El Dorado.

  The Mayflower Transfer and Storage franchise was housed under the interstate in an old section of town. The office was small and dusty; most customers never saw it. They were interested in the trucks, two of which were parked outside, shini
ng with fresh yellow and green paint in the summer sun.

  A young woman with a poor complexion sat behind the desk chewing gum. Her complexion was her only unattractive feature, which made it all the more glaring. Her dark hair had been permed into cascades of waves and teased to stand about three inches off her forehead.

  She looked up, bored. "Can I help you?" She reached over and turned off her typewriter even though she hadn't been typing.

  "Yes. I'm checking up on a move you had scheduled on Bickford Street?" I said, trying to look in her eyes nonchalantly. "For Doris Merkin?"

  "Hmm," she muttered, looking me over. I realized my shirt was soaked with sweat and probably reeked. I pulled my shoulders back to command a little presence that obviously was lacking in my appearance.

  "Bickford Street," I repeated, urging her to her files.

  "I don't recall anything over there," the girl said, turning toward a stack of contracts that lay in an untidy heap in a wire basket. "Let me see."

  She licked her fingertip, which ended in a dagger of red nail. Sighing, she leafed through the thin crackly papers until she reached the bottom. "No record of any moves on Bickford Street." Her eyelids half closed again as she delivered the information. I thought she might fall asleep.

  "I'm sorry." I smiled at her. "I didn't say that just right. The move was scheduled but didn't actually take place."

  "You mean it was canceled?" she said. I smiled, delighted with her newfound genius. Could have been canceled anyway, I wanted to say. God, I hate to lie. "Why didn't you say so?" she chided me.

  In a minute she dug a contract from a file drawer and tapped it with her long nail. "Supposed to be last Saturday. She paid extra for a weekend pickup and everything. I remember now. I told her---I5-percent surcharge. And then she canceled it." She grimaced her disapproval

  I looked embarrassed, as if perhaps I was "she." Or at the least a relative or friend. "I know. Something came up." Definite understatement there. I poured on the charm. "What time did she call?"