The Death of Blue Mountain Cat

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  “Off-the-record,” Rick said. He pulled a little tape recorder out of an inside pocket and offered it to Caleb.

  Caleb transferred it to his own and, parodying paranoia, said, “Where’s your backup?”

  “In the car. This whole evening is off the record.”

  They sat companionably until Caleb’s beer was nearly gone. As the bartender approached, Rick said, “You hungry?”

  “Not enough to go in there…” Caleb gestured toward the restaurant door. “…before Ivan leaves.”

  “I hear you. We could go somewhere else…”

  Caleb had come on the bus, though he didn’t mention that to Rick. They took Rick’s car, an aging Chevy Blazer, back Downtown. Caleb suggested the restaurant, which was moderately expensive, so he also offered to pay. It was a test of sorts, the kind of place with real flowers and crystal and linen, and silverware in layers. The waiter presented them with a semi-interesting wine list; Caleb waited for Rick to make a selection.

  After a few minutes’s study, he put it down on the table. “I daresay I could tell cabernet from Chianti but, to be truthful, I’ve never had the money to develop a taste for the good stuff. I’d just as soon have a beer.”

  Caleb appreciated his candor.

  Midway through dessert, Rick said, “I didn’t see you at the march this spring.” Washington, D.C. The gay-rights march. They’d progressed to the point in their relationship where he didn’t have to explain which march.

  Caleb laughed. “I was there.” He thought about it for a moment. “Sort of.”

  Rick waited for him to elaborate.

  “I went by myself, just for the day. It was a strange experience. I felt very alienated. Everyone else seemed to be with someone—friends or family, or loved ones. Or with an organization. I didn’t feel as if I fit any of the categories. I didn’t have a lover or a group, or any agenda beyond civil rights.” He shrugged. “I promised myself I would join something when I got back, but I’m not much of a joiner…”

  “Join me.”

  They headed back to Newton—Boystown, Rick called it—and barhopped until they found a place with live musicians and slow dancing. Between dances, they talked. It was nearly three when Rick stopped the Blazer in front of Caleb’s building. Caleb felt, simultaneously, relief and sadness, reticence and lust.

  Rick said, “Aren’t you going to ask me up for a drink?”

  “You might get the idea that’s not all it was for.”

  Rick leaned over and kissed him. “You had a good time tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  Rick slipped his hands under Caleb’s jacket to brush his fingertips up and down his sides. It was the first time they’d touched since they left the dance floor. Rick knew what he was doing—like the light man at The Phantom, orchestrating the magic. “You know I’m safe. You had me investigated.”

  Caleb blushed. “That was something else.”

  “So you know I won’t mug you or steal the silver.” He nudged Caleb’s lapel aside and gently bit him on the pectoralis.

  Caleb gasped.

  “I have to admit,” Rick went on. “I approve. You can’t be too careful these days.” He gently pushed Caleb away, then straightened his tie and smoothed his lapels. “We wouldn’t want to scandalize your neighbors…”

  Rick was suitably impressed with the condo. Caleb put jazz on the stereo and made them both drinks, then watched him explore the living room like a cat in a new territory. He pronounced his verdict as he settled onto the couch, intimately close. “Very nice.” He made it seem to include his host as well as the surroundings.

  Caleb was suddenly—and ironically—aware that he felt trapped.

  “What’s wrong?” Rick asked.

  “I’m not prepared for this.”

  Rick seemed to relax. “Not to worry.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and withdrew a small, flat, square, foil-wrapped packet for Caleb’s inspection. “I am.”

  Caleb felt the hot wave of a blush color his face. “That’s not exactly what I meant.” With part of his mind, he could trace his own discomfort; part of it was numb with panic; and part of it noted—quite dispassionately—that Rick was enjoying himself. Caleb didn’t hold that against him. Viewed objectively, the situation was absurdly amusing.

  “You don’t know the first fucking thing about safe sex, do you?” Rick asked.

  “Theoretically, I’m a genius. But my last relationship was monogamous. And before that, it wasn’t an issue.”

  “How antediluvian. Well, we’re not all into rimming and fisting. By the time I was old enough to join the gay community, safe sex was ‘in.’ Most of my first lovers had lost someone to AIDS.”

  Caleb couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

  “You have a lover you didn’t tell me about who’s going to barge in on us?”

  “No.” He couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Chris’s portrait.

  Rick caught the gesture. “You want to tell me about him?”

  “Christopher,” Caleb said, looking at the portrait, “died. I guess I haven’t gotten over him.”

  “Ah,” Rick said. “How long ago?” He studied the picture.

  “More than five years.”

  “And how long since you made love with someone?”

  “So long ago I’ve forgotten how.”

  Rick stepped closer and slipped his hands beneath Caleb’s jacket. “Let me refresh your memory,” he said, pulling Caleb closer. He glanced at Chris’s portrait again. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

  A few moments later, in Caleb’s bedroom, Rick put his hand on Caleb’s shoulder. “You have to relax and relinquish control, even though I know what control freaks you shrinks are…”

  “Tell me about your first time,” Rick said. “Was it as awful as mine?”

  They were stretched companionably on Caleb’s bed, enjoying the aftershocks. Caleb rolled on his back and thought.

  “We were in Saigon for R and R. I went with a number of my buddies to a bar. The idea was to pick up some B-girls and get laid. I was self-medicating for performance anxiety—with straight rotgut, the house brand. The problem was that, at nineteen, I was still a virgin. I wasn’t sure I could get it up. I didn’t know what to do. And without the usual urges, I couldn’t just let the woman do her thing and trust nature to take its course.

  Rick grinned—obviously savoring Caleb’s retrospective discomfort. He balled the pillow up and propped his head on it.

  Caleb didn’t hold it against him—conflict is the essence of story. He continued. “Eventually, I devised a strategy. There was a singer there, a beautiful young woman—not a prostitute—who didn’t fraternize. In fact, she had an escort watching her all the time. I think she might have been French or half French, and her escort wouldn’t even let the patrons talk to her. I figured if I seemed drunk enough and got stubborn and refused to have anyone but the singer, my buddies would give up on me and go off without me. Then I could slink back to the barracks and sack out.

  “My sergeant, a tough black man from Alabama, was watching the whole show and, a few drinks later, he peeled me off the bar stool and took me out of there. We walked until I was sober, then went to a hotel. He was gentle and considerate and he practiced what he’d been teaching us about safe sex.”

  “Got you off to a good start, I’d say.”

  Caleb was nearly asleep when he felt the familiar shaking that told him Freud had jumped up on the bed.

  As the small, warm body curled itself against his thigh, a voice at his ear demanded, “What the hell’s that?”

  It took him a full three seconds to remember that he wasn’t alone. Rick! “My cat,” he said. “He makes himself scarce when I have company. I guess he’s decided you’re okay.”

  “Doesn’t it give you the creeps to have it appear like that, without warning?”

  “When you have a cat in the house, you’re protected from all the strange, empty-house noises that would otherwise drive you mad. W
henever you hear something odd, you can tell yourself, it’s only the cat.”

  Thirty-Five

  Matthew Dennison, PhD, ignored the detectives’ invitation to come to Area Three headquarters and talk about David Bisti’s death. So Thinnes and Oster invited themselves to the University of Chicago, to visit him. Having to go all the way to the South Side put Oster in a foul mood; the search for Frederick Haskell Hall, once they got there, did the same for Thinnes.

  “He even gonna be here?” Oster demanded as Thinnes parked in a FACULTY ONLY space and threw their OFFICIAL POLICE BUSINESS sign on the dash.

  “The woman I talked to said he has office hours from one to two and hadn’t told her he wouldn’t be in. If he’s not here, we’ll just use the time to see what we can find out about him.”

  Inside, they did an end run around the department secretary. Thinnes flashed his star at the student waiting in the chair next to Dennison’s door. “We need to consult the professor about a technical matter. Maybe you could come back in half an hour.”

  The kid’s eyes widened, and Thinnes could see Dennison’s stock go up with him. “Ah…Sure.” He took his book bag from the floor under his seat and left, looking back at them several times as he lumbered off down the hall.

  Thinnes leaned against the wall, next to the door, to wait; Oster took the vacated chair. About ten minutes later, the door opened. Thinnes moved away from the wall. Oster stood up as Dennison escorted another student out.

  Oster said, “Professor Dennison?”

  Dennison looked from Oster to Thinnes and back, and said, “Yes,” cautiously.

  Oster held up his star and said, “We need a word with you.”

  “I don’t think so.” He backed into the room and tried to close the door.

  Oster took hold of the door and stopped him closing it.

  “You can’t come in here,” Dennison said, but he backed up as Oster stepped close to him. Oster followed him into the room and made a point of looking at his watch. “Office hours one to two. I got 1:38.”

  Trailing them in, Thinnes said, “We can go anywhere we need to in a homicide investigation, Professor.” He closed the door behind them.

  “I spoke with my attorney. I don’t have to talk to you.”

  “That’s true,” Thinnes said. He thought, It’s funny how people use the word ‘attorney’ when they’re trying to impress someone. “But if you don’t answer our questions, we’ll have to ask your colleagues and students. And we won’t be telling them that we’re here to get your professional opinion.”

  “Is that what you told Fred?”

  “That’s right.”

  Dennison thought about that for a minute, then said, “What do you want to know?” He looked more like Thinnes’s idea of a gym teacher than a college professor, but his office looked exactly like the kind of place an anthropology type would hang out, down to the skulls on top of the bookcase.

  “Tell us about the night David Bisti was murdered.”

  He didn’t have anything to add to what he’d told Viernes that night. He hadn’t seen or heard anything, and he’d been put out that they made him wait several hours to tell them so.

  “Murder’s inconvenient for everyone, Mr. Dennison,” Oster said.

  “Doctor Dennison.”

  “Yes, of course. We’re reinterviewing everyone who was there that night in hopes someone might have remembered something more.”

  “Not me.”

  “What brought you to David Bisti’s show, Doctor?” Thinnes asked.

  “I heard he was using genuine Indian artifacts in some of his pieces, possibly illegally obtained artifacts. I wanted to see for myself.”

  “Was he?”

  “They certainly looked it.”

  “So why didn’t you go to the authorities?”

  “After his death, the question seemed moot.”

  “Had you met Mr. Bisti before?”

  “He brought me a piece—a very fine Anasazi pot—to get my opinion before he bought it.”

  Oster said, “Black-market stuff?”

  “He said it was from private property.”

  Thinnes asked, “The real thing?”

  “I thought so.”

  “You don’t still?”

  “I mean, at the time, I told him I thought it was authentic. I haven’t had any reason to change my mind.”

  “Okay,” Oster said, “so how much was it worth?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “C’mon. You buy these things for museums.”

  “No. I don’t. I…We don’t buy things like that any more—it encourages the vandals to destroy sites to get more. And once they’re removed from their original site, the pieces have no archeological significance.”

  “There wouldn’t be a black market for the stuff if it didn’t have any value, Doctor,” Thinnes said.

  “I didn’t say they didn’t have value, Detective. Of course most of them have intrinsic aesthetic worth. And even the poorest examples of Anasazi work will bring something from collectors.”

  “Somebody mentioned a group of preservationists,” Thinnes said. “You know anything about them?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean by preservationists, but anyone of good conscience would try to put a stop to the black-market antiquities trade.”

  “What can you tell us about that?”

  “Just that it’s responsible for the destruction of hundreds of archeological sites every year.”

  Oster asked, “What makes the pot of someone who’s been dead a long time so much more valuable than the pot of a living artist?”

  “Scarcity, perhaps. There won’t be any more Anasazi pots. Or it may be like the difference between the man who wins the lottery and the one who’s left with a handful of losing tickets—just luck. Maybe today’s potter’s work will be worth $25,000 after he’s dead, too—if it lasts long enough.”

  “The stuff just had the luck or whatever to last?”

  “Or someone saved it. Or it lasted because it was better.” Dennison smiled. “The indigenous peoples of the Southwest were consummate potters, although they never developed the potter’s wheel. The people who made the bowl Bisti asked me to look at used the coil-and-scrape method. They built up the sides of the piece with successive coils of clay, then worked the coils together with a scraper—probably a shard from a broken pot—to make the finished sides smooth and thinner than the original coils. The designs were made of clay slip of a contrasting color, or with various indigenous mineral and plant materials.”

  “There’s no test—for radioactivity or anything—to tell how old something is?”

  “Only if it was once living—wood or bone. Then you can radiocarbon-date it. Ceramics and stone artifacts are usually dated by association. They’re assumed to be the same age as the datable objects they’re found with.”

  “Could they be faked?” Thinnes asked.

  “I suppose it could be done. But why bother?”

  “People go to a lot of bother for money.”

  “The people with the knowledge of the old techniques wouldn’t do it. And contemporary artists—with the potter’s skills—wouldn’t have the knowledge.”

  “So these things can be counterfeited?” Oster asked.

  “No.” Dennison seemed startled. “Well—I guess. If they were successful, who’d know?”

  Thirty-Six

  “Sometimes what you fear is what you most desire,” their therapist had told them. “If you’re angry enough with a loved one, you might develop an obsessive fear of his being killed because to wish he’d die is unacceptable.” She’d smiled. “It gets confusing because sometimes your fear for the safety of a loved one is normal and justified.”

  Rhonda had taken the biblical command to forsake all others to heart. In therapy she’d finally admitted her rage at Thinnes—she’d sided with him against her family only to have him abandon her, emotionally, for the department. In the hospital, after he was shot, she’d told him, “I�
��ve been waiting for this since you joined the force. I guess now we can get on with our lives.”

  Now she was still a little distant, a bit distrustful, still afraid, he guessed, that things would go back to the way they were. She was like a cop who’s been lied to too often. He thanked God—figuratively. He didn’t actually believe God bothers much with those who don’t help themselves—that he’d woken up in time.

  So he was keeping his hands where she could see them—so to speak. He was on parole and he wanted to go straight.

  When he woke up Thanksgiving morning, he felt panic as he realized Rhonda’s place in the bed was empty. He located her across the room. She’d started to dress—gotten as far as taking off her nightgown—and was standing, looking out the window through a narrow gap in the drapes, holding the bra she planned to wear.

  The sudden want he felt was painful. He crossed the room slowly, not startling her. She had one hand on the window sash. She didn’t turn. He put his arms around to cup her breasts in his hands. His own nipples brushed her back as he rested his cheek against her ear, then kissed the smooth curve between her neck and shoulder.

  She leaned back against him.

  Amazing! A year ago—Hell, six months ago she would have squirmed away or stood like a department-store dummy. Now, she rubbed her ass against him and tried to catch his cock between her thighs.

  “Say it,” she demanded.

  He knew what. He kissed her neck again and let his tongue trace a path up to her earlobe. Why was it difficult? It seemed like a weakness, like admitting you were an addict—I’m John; I’m a Rhonda-holic.

  “I need to hear it.” She turned to face him as she said it. As she turned, he let his hands ride over her skin—still silky after all the years. She pressed against him. “I need to hear it.”

  When it was put like that, he couldn’t help himself. He said it.

  “I love you.”

  Thinnes parked his Chevy beneath the naked elm and maple trees overarching Forest Avenue. Wilmette. Snow dusted piles of leaves raked onto the street—between the parked cars—for pickup by the village crews. It caught in the cracks between the street bricks and the sidewalk squares. The winter-yellow lawn had an undercoat of snow.