The Death of Blue Mountain Cat

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  It was obviously going to be a long night.

  The beat copper guarding the crime scene didn’t seem bothered by the bloody death, but he was happy to see Thinnes.

  Thinnes could see why. As soon as they realized Thinnes was someone with authority, the half-dozen business types swarming around the officer transferred their interest and their questions to him.

  “I’m Michael Wren,” one of them insisted, “a member of the museum board. I demand to know—”

  “Have you given your name and statement to the officer, Mr. Wren?” He pointed to the beat cop.

  “Well, no—”

  “Please do so.” Thinnes gave the patrolman a wink Wren couldn’t see and walked away before Wren could protest.

  The murder site looked like a stage set, with the body lying like an important prop under a spotlight—one of the museum’s exhibit lights. The exhibit the light should have lit, a wooden crate atop a pedestal, was tipped back against the north wall of the room, tempting gravity, threatening to spill its contents onto the gray carpet.

  Thinnes carefully wiped his feet on the carpet and ducked under the barricade tape for a closer look. He watched where he put his feet. The victim was a male Indian, somewhere around six feet in height, probably 175 pounds, between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age. Thinnes took latex gloves out of his pocket and put them on before putting a finger to the victim’s throat, over the carotid. No pulse. He was dead all right.

  There was a bloody hole in the front of his white leather shirt, and blood around his nose and mouth. None on his hands. Curious.

  Thinnes looked at the rest of the room. The east wall was a huge window looking down on Michigan Avenue; the south wall had the doors and ramp down to the next gallery, as well as an ugly painting, and a fire-escape door; the elevator filled most of the west wall; the north wall was bare except for the damaged exhibit leaning against it, a sign identifying the exhibit, and architectural details of no particular interest to the police. A woman’s purse lay near the body. He resisted the urge to disturb it before the mobil unit had taken photos and diagrammed its position. He didn’t touch the bloody knife either.

  He took the elevator back down to the lobby. Reilly had returned with a semidistracted receptionist and the information that no one had seen the man in charge—one Lewis Andrews—since he’d evicted a crasher.

  Reinforcements arrived in fairly good time, in the persons of detectives Oster, Viernes, Ryan, and Swann. Oster had been Thinnes’s regular partner since he’d returned from sick leave. John Viernes, Kate Ryan, and Leonard Swann were all supposed to be working days, but they happened to be in the squad room when Thinnes called Rossi. They’d been drafted because this was a heater case and Rossi was willing to pay overtime to cover his ass.

  Ryan was a natural redhead, and when she didn’t wear makeup—like now—her freckles stood out and her brows and lashes disappeared. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days—her green eyes were red rimmed and she couldn’t keep from yawning.

  “Ryan, you gonna make it through this tour?” Thinnes asked.

  “I just need a little coffee.”

  “Yeah,” Thinnes said. He’d seen her mainlining it back at the Area. “They just took the victim’s wife to Northwestern Memorial. Why don’t you go on over there and make sure we get a statement from her before the press does? I’ll give you a call before we leave here.”

  And if the wife was out of it for hours, no one would fault Ryan for copping a few z’s while she waited. Ryan looked grateful as she nodded and left.

  The doctor turned out to be someone Thinnes knew. Dr. James Caleb. The man who’d saved his life. Small world.

  Neither of them bothered with pleasantries. Thinnes waited until Oster was ready with notebook and pen, then said, “Take it slowly, Doctor. Tell me exactly what you saw.”

  Nine

  Caleb closed his eyes and conjured up the memory, describing it in detail for the detectives. Lauren Bisti’s back, bared by the low-cut dress. Striking. Her elbows pressed tightly to her sides.

  “Could you see her face?”

  Caleb opened his eyes. “No. Only her back, only her gesture.”

  “So you couldn’t actually see her face or expression?”

  “No.”

  “Go on.”

  “I could see David on the floor, under the light that was trained on the exhibit. For a fraction of a second, I thought he was one of his installations—with the knife in his chest. Then his chest moved and I knew the blood trickling from his mouth was real.”

  “So?”

  “It was obvious he was in shock. His face was nearly as white as his shirt and he didn’t seem to be aware of us or anything.”

  “You were how far away?”

  “About twenty-five feet.”

  Thinnes waited.

  “Then Mrs. Bisti dropped to her knees on the floor next to him and pulled the knife out.”

  “You didn’t try to stop her?”

  “I didn’t think fast enough. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that anyone…”

  He didn’t need to finish. They both knew that Lauren Bisti’s well-intentioned act—pulling the knife out of Bisti’s chest—had probably killed him, had unplugged the hole in whatever tissue the blade had penetrated, letting the blood flow unimpeded.

  “Then what?”

  “She threw away the knife and lifted his upper body onto her lap.”

  “You still didn’t try to stop her?”

  “There didn’t seem to be any point. All the indications were that his heart or a major artery had been hit and he’d lost a significant percentage of his blood volume into his chest cavity. If he’d been in an emergency room, with a team of prepped surgeons, he wouldn’t have had much chance.”

  Thinnes said, “Ahuh. What did Mrs. Bisti do?”

  “She just sat there, cradling his head in her arms and staring into space until Anita and I led her from the room.”

  “After you removed her, did the position of the body differ much from what it was when you first saw it?”

  Caleb thought for a moment. “Not appreciably. There was just a good deal more blood after she—we moved him.”

  “How’s that?”

  “When the chest is compressed, whatever is in the lungs is expelled. When she lifted his upper body…”

  Thinnes nodded.

  “She didn’t make any effort to avoid getting bloodied.”

  “She have any blood on her before she pulled out the knife?”

  “Not that I noticed. Not on her back.”

  The interview was interesting. Interview. Not an interrogation. Caleb was fairly certain he wasn’t a suspect. Thinnes’s new partner, Oster, didn’t seem as cynical as his previous one. Caleb had met Oster before. The detective seemed decent and intelligent. He looked like salesman Willy Loman gone to fat.

  “When did you last see him alive?” Thinnes asked. He looked tired.

  “The time? I’m sorry, I have no idea. Anita might know.”

  Thinnes asked Oster to get Anita, and Caleb was sure he’d been eliminated as a suspect.

  Oster returned with her and offered her a seat. He resumed his place.

  Thinnes asked her, “You were with Dr. Caleb all evening?”

  “Until David was murdered. We heard a scream, and Jack ran toward the sound. I followed him, but not fast enough to keep him in sight.”

  She seemed very calm, and Caleb wondered if Thinnes would think that suspicious. But he must have seen every sort of response to murder in his career. He’d surely recognize the nuances of shock that were obvious to Caleb himself.

  Thinnes gave no hint one way or another. He had her go over the evening for him, from their arrival at the museum to Oster’s summons. Anita abbreviated. They’d checked their coats. They’d studied one or two of the pieces, observed the interchange between David and Wingate, then between David and Irene. They’d spoken with Ivan, the Kents, and several other people. They were ta
lking to one of the museum members when they heard Mrs. Bisti scream.

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Bisti alive?”

  “Just after security escorted Irene out,” Anita said. “Someone came and dragged him off and we continued our tour of the show.” Thinnes waited. She added, “We were looking at Progress when we heard Lauren Bisti scream.”

  “Doctor?” Thinnes said.

  “That’s correct.”

  Thinnes took them out to the lobby and pointed at the people waiting to be interviewed. “Look around,” he said. Then he led them to the elevator and took them to the next floor, the one with the American Gothic installation. They followed him through that to the mezzanine gallery, where the rest of the witnesses were milling around. “Notice anybody missing who was here earlier?”

  They looked. “Harrison Wingate,” Anita said, “and the woman they threw out earlier. Irene.”

  “And Ivan,” Caleb added.

  Anita agreed.

  Oster wrote in his notebook, waited, said, “Last name?”

  Caleb said, “I don’t know. I’m not sure he has one.”

  “He an artist?” Oster asked.

  “A critic,” Anita said. “Sort of the Truman Capote of art criticism.”

  “The guy who wrote In Cold Blood?” Thinnes asked. “I’m not sure I follow.”

  “Ivan’s as much a celebrity as a critic,” Caleb explained. “And his criticism often takes the form of sarcasm.”

  Thinnes nodded. “He have anything against Bisti?”

  Caleb said, “Not to my knowledge. If he did, he’d attack him with words.”

  “Anybody else missing?”

  “The museum’s special-activities director.”

  Ten

  Bendix took out matches and a cigar and lit up, carefully dropping the spent match in his pocket as he created a cloud of foul-smelling smoke. He stood just outside the yellow police barrier tape that Reilly and his partner had strung across the gallery to secure the scene, and watched his men photograph and diagram the room. Bendix was the head of one of the department’s top mobile units. He was out of shape and balding, cynical enough to make your average street cop seem like an altar boy and as sensitive as a steel-belted radial. He and Thinnes went way back. They got along as well as your average dog and cat. But Bendix was good.

  Thinnes didn’t bother to point out that the cigar was violating Illinois’s Clean Air Act. He said, “How long are you going to be?”

  “’Pends on how many of ’em you want me to print.” He hooked his thumb in the direction of the witnesses waiting to be interviewed.

  Thinnes thought of the political ramifications of fingerprinting an alderman and a state senator. “See if you get any latents, first.”

  Bendix nodded. “ ’Bout an hour, then.”

  “Let me know when you’re done.”

  “Yeah.”

  Thinnes’s only concession to politics was interviewing the alderman and the state senator first—after a pregnant woman and her husband. Neither the alderman nor the senator had anything useful to contribute, but both asked to be kept abreast of the investigation. Thinnes told them both the same thing: “I’ll do what I can, sir.” It was a useful, noncommittal answer that made him sound helpful and respectful. Never mind that what he could do was nothing at all.

  “Hey, Thinnes.” Detective Viernes hailed him from the doorway across the lobby and waited until Thinnes came close enough so that only he would hear. “We found Andrews.” Viernes was thirty-five, five ten, and as fit and sharp as any FBI agent Thinnes ever met. He pushed the door behind him open and stepped aside to let Thinnes enter the room first.

  It was an office. The desk in it probably cost more than most cars, and there were original oil paintings on the walls and an oriental rug on the floor. Andrews, the man one of the art patrons had described as hard as diamond but smooth as graphite, was stretched out on his designer couch, so shit-faced he couldn’t focus when he looked up at them.

  “Nothing like this has ever happened,” he said, putting his words together carefully, the way people do when they don’t want anyone to know how far gone they are. “Ever! I’m ruined.”

  He’d sober up at the station. Thinnes wished they could send him in a squad roll. He pitied the poor uniform who had to clean up the car if he puked.

  Once Andrews was dispatched, Thinnes was free to use the office for his interviews. He started with the security guards and serving staff, then sent for Bisti’s business manager. Later, he would interview the man in depth, probably at Area headquarters when he’d found out enough about him to judge his answers. Just now, he needed a picture—however biased—of the victim’s life, an idea of what Bisti was like, a clue to what the questions ought to be.

  “What do you do for a living, Mr. Kent?”

  “I’m an attorney.”

  “Tell me about David Bisti.”

  “Someone will have to break the news to his mother.”

  “You got her address?”

  Kent shook his head. “I can get it for you.”

  Thinnes nodded. “Tell me about Bisti.”

  “He was talented.” As if that summed him up. There was a plaintive quality to the statement.

  “He have any enemies?”

  “I don’t know. One, apparently.”

  “Arguments with anyone lately?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Thinnes had seen every imaginable reaction to violent death in his years as a cop, from paralyzing depression to hysterical laughter at the mention of the deceased’s name. So he didn’t attach much significance to Kent’s apparent lack of emotion.

  “How did you come to work for Bisti?”

  “Lauren—his wife—introduced us. She knew I had money to invest and sold me on the idea that the work of an undiscovered genius would be a profitable way to invest it. When David got big enough to incorporate, he offered to cut me in if I’d take over the business end of things. It was a very nice arrangement.”

  “Hear about his run-in with Harrison Wingate?”

  “No.”

  “Why was Wingate invited?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  He was lying. Why? Thinnes said, “How’d Bisti get on with his wife?”

  “Very well. He adored her.”

  “How’d she feel about him?”

  “The feeling was mutual, as far as I know.”

  “He cheat on her?”

  Kent looked startled, as if he’d never thought of it. “I don’t think he’d do that.”

  “But you can’t be sure.”

  “I was his partner, not his confessor.”

  “Are you and Mrs. Bisti close?”

  Kent scowled. “We weren’t involved, if that’s what you’re getting at. Lauren idolized David.”

  “Who would stand to benefit from his death?”

  “Damned if I know!”

  Thinnes waited.

  Finally, Kent said, “I suppose his paintings will appreciate in value now that there won’t be any more, but he wasn’t Picasso.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “How was business?”

  “Very good. Until tonight. I mean…” For the first time he showed signs of losing control. “We had a little insurance but—Christ!—David was the business. You can’t just go out and buy another artist.”

  Half an hour later, Viernes came in and held up a pile of notes. “This is all those who didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, and don’t have a clue about who done it. I sent ’em home.” He handed Thinnes a second, smaller pile. “This is all those who won’t say a thing until they talk to their lawyers.” He hooked his thumb toward the much-smaller crowd. “They’re all yours.” He held up one more piece of paper. “This one knows who did it but he won’t talk to anyone but the chief.”

  Thinnes took the paper. “He’ll talk to me. Send him in.”

  The man Viernes showed into the office was in his sixties, five ten,
190 pounds, with silver hair and faded blue eyes. He was clean shaven and well dressed. He looked carefully at Thinnes, then around the room. “You’re not the chief of detectives.”

  “No. I’m the detective in charge of this case.”

  “I have to talk to the chief.”

  “On this investigation, I’m him, Mr…” Thinnes looked at the paper Viernes had given him. “Roth.” When Roth didn’t respond immediately, he added, “I don’t have time for games. You told the detective you know who killed Mr. Bisti. By refusing to tell us what you know, you’re obstructing justice.”

  Roth thought about that. “If I tell you, you’ll pass it on to the chief of detectives?”

  Thinnes sighed inwardly but kept up a perfectly neutral front. Why did these cases always bring the nuts out of the woods? “I’ll do what I can, Mr. Roth.”

  Roth nodded. “I read a great deal. I’ve read Freud in the original German. And I’ve read a great many true-crime stories and police procedurals. I know about these things. Mr. Bisti was stabbed, was he not?”

  “I’m not at liberty to divulge that information. If you know anything, let’s have it.”

  “Such impatience.” Roth shook his head. “I know that most murders are committed by family members or acquaintances of the victim. Indoor murders, that is. Outdoor murders are, sadly, most often committed by psychopaths or drunks. Well, some indoor murders are committed by inebriated persons, but no one here fits that description. So the murderer must have been his wife.”

  By the time they’d interviewed everyone, Thinnes felt like lying down. His stamina seemed to have been cut out with the two and a half feet of gut they’d removed last summer repairing the gunshot wound.

  The whole story was pretty routine—nobody saw anything. Nobody knew anything. No one could even imagine who would want to kill a nice man like the victim.

  There were too many whose alibi was “I didn’t do it” or “If I’d done it, wouldn’t I be all bloody?” The relative absence of blood was no help. Bisti had bled to death into his lungs. Until his wife moved the body, there was virtually no external bleeding, and it would have been possible for anyone to wrap a napkin or two around the handle of the knife before wielding it. No one would’ve noticed. Thinnes had long since ceased to be amazed by how unobservant people are.