The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series)

by Lise McClendon

  "Lava soap," Mendez said. The afternoon was almost expired, exactly the way I felt. At least I had spent a few

  minutes visiting the drinking fountain on the way out. "I've got some at my place."

  I didn't answer. Giving up on my fingertips, I rolled down the window of the cruiser and stuck one arm out. The police said they needed my prints to sort out the ones in Charlotte's car. It made sense. But I still felt dirty. The breeze caught my arm as it hung limply, flapping against the side of the car. I tried to think ahead to tonight, to plan. To forget about the cops and their suspicions. You'll be staying with your sister awhile. Don't leave town.

  Albrecht must have told them I went to see Wade in Polson. But I was back. Didn't that prove me trustworthy? The warm wind blew my hair off my neck. I ran my fingers through it to get it off my face. Then I got a good whiff of my underarms and dropped my hands to my lap.

  Mendez parked in front of his house. The grass grew tall and straight, neat and newly mown. I followed him up the steps and into the house. His bathroom, with old, worn porcelain fixtures, smelled of Comet. God, he was a neatnik.

  "There's the Lava." He patted the fat gray bar of soap and shut the door after himself, leaving me alone to scrub on my fingers. I twisted the flaking chrome faucet, letting the cool water splash over my hands. I bent and washed my face and neck, running wet fingers through my hair. The mirror told me I looked like a dishrag.

  On this night I needed to be tough, to be strong. I practiced a tough look in the mirror, narrowing my eyes and curling my upper lip. I thought of Mad Dog Tilden. I gnashed my teeth, letting a low growl grow in my throat.

  A knock at the door. "You getting it off?" I froze. Getting it off?

  "Is the ink coming off?" he said, louder.

  "Oh, yeah." I reached for the forgotten Lava soap. "Little by little."

  As I scrubbed the sandpaper soap over my fingertips the mirror told me my face had reddened. I could blush at the drop of a hat. Why had the sexual innuendo of "getting it off" popped into my head? I scrubbed harder. Ridges began to disappear. All right, face it. Mendez was attractive. He reminded me of all the good things about Paolo: dark, exotic looks, warm, penetrating eyes, strong and muscular. Here I was in his bathroom, his private space. Under other circumstances I probably wouldn't be pushing him away.

  I thought about Paolo and his new girlfriend, the rock climber. They seemed so wrong for each other. But it could be just chemical. Sometimes the old beaker just boils over and there's nothing to do but put out the flame. Paolo had gone on to other flames, namely Ms. Rock Climber. Hell, he had probably put out most of the fires in Jackson. What a jealous thought. I didn't feel that way. Paolo would always be a dear friend, even if I couldn't look at him when he wears those white peasant shirts. May his Bunsen burner glow forever bright.

  I dried my hands on a spotless blue towel. I couldn't get over how tidy this guy was. My mother would love Mendez. I bet he even does windows. My hand stopped on the doorknob. What was I thinking? I was running for my damn life here! I needed to be tough, cunning, and smarter than all of them. I needed to be all together in the here and now. I couldn't be thinking about reactions, chemical or otherwise, with an attractive man. I let out another low practice growl as I walked into the hall.

  Mendez leaned against the porch railing, smoking a cigarette. I pushed through the screen door, my hands in my pockets. 'Thanks for the soap." The police cruiser sat by the curb. I had always liked their flashy graphic colors, the bubble tops spilling colors into the night. But now it symbolized the enemy. "I've got to go."

  He took another drag on his cigarette. I only glanced at him, then looked away, concentrating on my growling attitude. "Where to?"

  "Back to my car. Over by the bookstore."

  "Then where~"

  I bit down harder on my molars. "Back to my sister's." I flashed my eyes at him to show my anger.

  He slid down the railing toward me. I stiffened. "You didn't show up at lunch. I had to eat with a couple of suits. Kept talking about some Japanese movie they saw--a samurai thing."

  "I like samurai things--ah, movies," I said.

  He looked in my face. I looked away. "I wanted to tell you something I heard about Vardis." My ears perked up. "Yeah, I thought you'd be interested," he smiled. "She was involved in some kind of art deal that went sour down in Oklahoma. We got a sketchy report about it from the cops down there. No charges were filed against her but the auction house made a complaint."

  "What happened?"

  "Seems she was hot on something they were auctioning. One of those big, fancy auctions with a catalog and all. I think they said it was an antique rug. Navajo. She got obsessed with it. Came by every day to study it, touch it. The dealer had to warn her to restrain herself a few times because she was going to wear the thing out fingering it." Mendez took another drag on his cigarette, blowing out the smoke as he continued. "So finally the auction starts. She bids on the rug. But somebody else wants it too. The bidding goes up and up. At the end, she gets it. She's delirious. But she doesn't have the cash. She went too high. So she had to give up the rug to the other bidder."

  I waved away a haze of smoke with my hand. "How did she take it?"

  "Not well. The auction was over and the bidders were doing their paperwork, picking up their items. They give her the bad news, she goes nuts. Has to be driven home by the security guards."

  My nose started to sting from the cigarette smoke. So she was nuts? She was rich but not rich enough? She liked Indian artifacts? Maybe. But what else? I had the feeling there was more to it that was beneath the surface.

  "So why didn't you show for lunch?" Mendez asked, breaking into my thoughts.

  "I was busy."

  He let out a laugh. "I bet. Doing what?"

  I stared at him. Didn't he get it? This wasn't some social trip, a girl's vacation. What was he laughing about? "What difference does it make? I didn't show up because I didn't want to show up. All right?" I stamped down the steps. "I've got more important things on my mind than having lunch with a cop who will probably bring along his handcuffs for dessert!" I turned on the sidewalk. "Now, do I get a ride back to my car or do I have to walk in this god-awful heat?"

  Mendez tossed his cigarette into the bushes and stood up. I didn't look at him as I marched to the cruiser but I knew his jaw would be tense again, his eyes hard. Good, I thought. That'll make it easier. I reached the car before he did.

  Even the dispatcher on the radio was silent.

  24

  THE NIGHT WAS clear again. The moon rose late, after midnight, just past full. A goose egg swathed in a misty nest of angel-hair clouds over the Clark Fork River as it came down the divide east of Missoula. The eerie light streamed in the side window then the back, as I drove Elaine's ancient Valiant south along the Bitterroot River, then west into the mountains. Zena drove her own car, with Elaine along. It was the one thing she insisted on, that she drive Elaine up and that I follow in Elaine's car. She wouldn't listen to reason. I had more questions for Elaine. She needed to be drilled for the questioning, to be pumped up.

  Now that was impossible. I had done some drilling at Elaine's before we left. But the silence of my own thoughts and the divergence from my plan made my guts wrench. Zena had her own ideas. She would ask him whatever I wanted for Melina's sake but she seemed detached from the whole caper. Unreliable, was what I was thinking.

  As we turned off the highway on the third dirt road, making our descent into the narrow canyon with the marshy bottom, I resigned myself. If we found out nothing tonight I would try another tack tomorrow. There was no turning back now. I could do nothing but rely on the two women. The thought made my stomach flip.

  At the floor of the canyon frogs were singing. Scents of pine, sagebrush, and fish settled in the cool bottom. I slipped on the hunting jacket that had been my father's, pulling it tight. No game birds tonight, Rollie. No runty quail. Big game tonight. Big game.

  Zena flipped on a f
lashlight. Elaine began to protest. "But he said no lights."

  I remembered Elaine had turned on a light in frustration last night. Now she tried to get her comrade to stick to Tilden's crazy rules. Zena turned toward the dense woods and started walking. Elaine looked at me, her eyes wide with fright, and hurried off. I had no choice but to follow.

  The moonlight disappeared as we entered the trees. The beam of the flashlight bounced ahead of me. If anything it made things worse, drawing my eyes to the light and away from my feet, making the shadows around me blacker. I stumbled on roots. Branches scratched my face, bumped my hat off my head, slapped my legs.

  No time to worry. No time to plan. Put the right foot down on solid ground. Bring the left foot over that rock. Don't step on the rotten log. Look up, a tree dead ahead.

  The route Zena plotted for us was direct. At least more direct than my circuitous one the night before. This time I was just a shadow of the other women. I struggled to keep close to Elaine's back as the trees began to thin and we came into the open. I had been following so close that my nose carne within an inch of Elaine's blond curls when she stopped beside a boulder. I remembered this boulder-and-tree field as just below the cave. Over Elaine's head the moon shone on the high rock cliff.

  Zena clicked off her flashlight and handed it to me. I slipped it into my pocket. Here the moonlight was bright, turning the rocks into strange bluish forms that seemed capable of springing to life. One to my right took on the form of a huge slab of blue Jell-O.

  "I'll split from you here," I whispered. "There's a boulder over there I'll climb up on. I can see the cave from there." Zena and Elaine nodded, their faces solemn and tight. I touched Zena's arm as she began to move away.

  "You know what to do, right? Bring up Shiloh first," I said. "Then, Elaine, try to find out whose place you took last year. I'm sure it was Vardis. If that doesn't work, bring up the murder. You read about it in the paper. Mention Charlotte Vardis's name. See how he reacts. Ask him if he knew her."

  Elaine nodded. I looked Zena hard in the eye. "This is important. For Melina."

  Her face was illuminated by the moon, with purple shadows under her eyes and nose. She looked away at the moon, blinked, then turned to go. Elaine followed her around the rock and its neighboring trees, up the hill to the cave.

  When I found the boulder that had cradled me last night I leaned against it for a moment. The surface was cool and rough, with lichens that looked green and gray in the moonlight. Tiny crystals sparkled in the gray granite. The rock felt like the Lava soap that had decimated my fingertips.

  My breathing slowed from the hike. At last I pulled myself up on the rock. We had timed our arrival for an hour earlier than the others; my watch said one-fifteen. We were late but still they wouldn't arrive for forty-five minutes. I settled in, pulling the jacket tighter. I found a pile of needles that had blown into a shallow of the rock and sat on them.

  In the cave I could see Elaine and Zena changing into the sacklike costumes and putting the black paint on their faces. Their voices sometimes floated down, too low to hear the words. In fifteen minutes they were finished and sat down on the floor of the cave to wait for the others.

  At one-forty•five a distant rumble startled me. I wasn't sure what it was. Their cars maybe? An earthquake? Then it came again, stronger and closer. I peered through the treetops toward the ridge. A black cloud the size of a blimp, tinged with moonlight but dense and forbidding, moved quickly toward us.

  I swore. A thunderstorm was not in the plan. Would they go on with their ceremony? The cave would stay dry, I supposed, and cozy with the fire. I, on the other hand, would be a drowned rat in no time. Before I had time to think of preparations for rain I heard footsteps in the forest below. Two figures moved quietly, only a twig breaking or a pebble rolling away to announce their arrival. My viewing rock was forty feet or so north of their path; they passed me without a glance.

  When they reached the cave Elaine and Zena had built the fire, its first flames licking the wood. Tilden and his wife's faces were already blackened. They slipped off coats and stood in their ceremonial outfits: hers a sacklike dress, his the skimpy breechclout. Sylvie began applying black makeup to her husband's arms and legs. He stood like a statue, arms extended, while she painstakingly rubbed the black over him. She moved expertly across his arms, then his back, and down his legs. She stooped to do his ankles and feet before putting the black away.

  The thunder rumbled above the cliff again. The clouds had moved quickly, now covering almost half the sky in a gray blanket. The moon shone from the east under them, like the proverbial silver lining. They were ready to begin. The women sat cross-legged around the fire now. Tilden had his back to them, facing the rock painting of the bluejay shaman on the back wall of the cave. I wanted a better view. Neither the moonlight nor the firelight penetrated far enough to get a good look at it. For now the dim outline of the stick figure would have to do.

  The stiff wind that swept down over the ridge, smelling of rain, took me by surprise. I was crouched behind part of the boulder that rose gently into a prow like a ship's. Then suddenly the sky burst with light. The scene went from thick black to strobe light blue, turning the hillside into a stark postcard moonscape.

  I hunched down reflexively. The lightning felt like a spotlight. One, two, three: I counted the seconds until the crack of thunder hit. Four, five. The deafening clap echoed off the granite ridge, doubling its power. I held my ears, the deep-bellied roar bombarding me. It rattled around inside my head for long seconds.

  When it finished and the woods grew silent, the wind again brought the promise of rain, I huddled on my rock, wondering what to do next. Could Elaine and Zena carry on if I went back to the car? Would they even know if I did?

  I swore under my breath. Nothing was going as planned. A drop of rain hit the boulder beside me. A tree would do for shelter. Maybe I could still see the cave, send the women telepathic messages to keep them on course. Right.

  Another raindrop. Gotta find a tree. I crab-walked over the top of the boulder and readied to slide down the side of it to the ground. Without warning the clouds crashed together and performed their light show. Blue, blinding flash-light everywhere. I should have been ready. Instead the suddenness of it made me hurl myself off the boulder in a giant leap instead of the dainty seat-of-the-pants slide I had planned. I landed in a crouch position in the moist dirt.

  The thunder hit, a rumbling, earsplitting din, echoing off hard rock, absorbed by the pine trees. My hands clapped over my ears, I waited until all the vibrations shivered away. The moss where I had landed felt soft and damp.

  "What do we have here?" The voice came from behind me. I toppled over from my crouch, feeling the wet ground soak through my jeans.

  "Get up."

  I obeyed, getting a look at Sylvie Kali, in black face and burlap sack dress, standing like a sentinel before me, hands on hips.

  "Hello, Sylvie," I said, trying to keep things light.

  She said nothing, grabbed my arm and pulled me up the hill toward the cave. We stumbled around stumps and downed trees, rocks and rabbit burrows as she pulled my jacket off my shoulders. The campfire grew brighter. At the mouth of the cave we stopped. I gasped for breath. Sylvie appeared to be in better shape; she was surprisingly strong. I got my first good look at her. She had dyed her gray hair black and braided it. Strips of leather held the ends. Her eyes shone from the blackened face, white and glistening in the firelight.

  "Look what I found hiding in the bushes," she said to the group. "Melina's sister."

  Elaine and Zena gave me wary looks. Mad Dog Tilden stared at me blankly, then turned his gaze to his wife. "The ceremony must continue. You have broken the circle."

  Sylvie's jaw went slack. "But she was out there spying. She could hurt you, Marcus."

  Tilden didn't seem to hear his wife. "Get her dressed."

  "Wait a minute, I didn't come to dress up in a sack. I'll just go now and let you do your thi
ng in peace. I'll --" I began to edge away toward the mouth of the cave. Sylvie put her hand on my sleeve and held tight.

  "I think we should tie her, Marcus."

  Tilden had dropped his head to his chest as if praying or meditating or something, and said nothing. Sylvie took that as a yes. In a moment I was down to my underpants and bra, my wrists and ankles strapped with twine, and a burlap bag with slits over my head. Sylvie threw my clothes into a corner with the others' and pulled out the black makeup. I let her slap it on my face. I didn't fight. I wasn't really afraid. This was such a great opportunity to see this craziness close up. Now I didn't have to rely on Zena and Elaine, the unreliables. I could question Tilden myself.

  As Sylvie shoved me over to the campfire next to Elaine I got a look at the rock painting. Zena was right; it looked new. The bright blue paint looked fresh. Drips from the careless job still clung to the rock. It was big, four or five feet tall and three feet across. And it was crude. No one could steal that, nor would they want to. I squirmed to get comfortable, loosening the twine on my ankles, so I could sit cross-legged like the rest of them. My hands were inside the sack, tied together in the front. I felt a breeze between my thighs, barely covered by burlap. The fire burned low now. Tilden stamped in the din behind me.

  "Very good." His voice was shallow and flat. "Four spirits. The four directions. The circle is complete. Tonight is the night of all nights." As he began to move around us, Sylvie picked up the deer hoof rattles and found a beat. Elaine and Zena followed suit.

  The mad professor was a sight. His hair was smeared with black makeup and stood at odd angles on his head. The black on his face made his unpainted eyelids stand out like an owl. The breechclout hung on his bony hips, flapping indecently. "We begin again. No more interruptions," he said. He lifted his knee then and began to prance to the beat. I watched him go around a few times until the novelty wore off.