The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series)

by Lise McClendon

  This was not a question but a command. Melina looked at me, her face draining of its color.

  Inside Hondo slumped against the door frame in the living room. He straightened as we walked in. I wondered why he was here, then stopped in the entry to the room. On the sofa sat two policemen in uniform. They looked up; one was Carl Mendez, sitting with his hands flat on his thighs. He regarded me coldly. The other policeman I didn't know, nor did I recognize the plainclothes cop who sat in the easy chair by the window.

  "Get up, Frederickson," Knox said to the plainclothes cop. He rose, nodding to me as he passed to stand next to Hondo. "Have a seat, Miss Thorssen," the detective said.

  Perching on the chair, I regarded them all. "What's going on?"

  The lawyer opened his mouth to say something but the detective broke in. "We want to ask you some more questions, Miss Thorssen. Your sister called Mr. O'Brian. We thought it would be a good idea."

  I swallowed, my throat parched. "About the woman?" Mendez didn't have the guts to look up from his hands.

  "Officer Mendez tells us you asked him to run her name through the computer the night before she was killed. Is that true?"

  I glared at Mendez. "No. It was the night she was killed."

  "Alix," Hondo broke in. "You don't need to answer any questions."

  "It's all right. I have nothing to hide."

  "Why did you ask Officer Mendez to do that?" Knox said.

  "I told you she was a client of mine. I had called the FBI to find out about a painting she wanted to buy. To see if it was stolen or forged. That's what I do." I shifted in the chair uneasily but looked the detective in the eye. "When the FBI agent called me back he told me she had asked about something else, something that I thought might have

  significance in Wade's case."

  "You called the FBI in Butte?"

  "No. The Art Forgery Unit in Chicago." I gave him Kenyon's name. "About three days ago." The days were blending together. "He called me back the next day."

  The detective made some notes in his spiral notebook, then looked at Frederickson. The policeman reached to the floor for a paper sack. He pulled out a large plastic bag with a lump of something inside

  and handed it to Knox. The detective turned it over in his hands and passed it to me.

  Inside the plastic was a wad of cloth, blue and faded, that felt heavy in my hand. "What's this?" I asked.

  "Do you recognize it?" Knox said. I frowned at it. I looked at Melina, who held her hands clenched at her sides. Hondo's red eyebrows were jammed together. I couldn't look at Mendez.

  "No." Knox took it back. Pulling open the Ziploc top he extracted the fabric from the bag and held it on the corners. A knit T-shirt fell, wrinkled, from his fingers. An ugly splotch of something black dried on the lower corner. In faded white-and-black lettering it read: "Grand Tetons."

  My jaw dropped. "Oh."

  "You recognize it?" the detective asked, peeking around it. "It's mine." I had bought it the first year I lived in Jackson. It was a tourist souvenir that embarrassed me now. I hadn't worn it in years.

  Knox lowered the shirt to his lap carefully. "It was found in the Mercedes, next to the deceased. The blood on it matches hers."

  Melina covered her mouth. My headache throbbed behind my eyes. What did he say? I looked at Frederickson, at the other uniformed cop, at Mendez, and back to Knox. "What?"

  "Alix," O'Brian said, clearing his throat. "I would advise you to say no more at this time."

  The detective ignored him. "I ask you again, Miss Thorssen. Did you know the deceased? Did you meet her the night of her death?"

  "You don't have to answer, Alix," Hondo repeated.

  I shook my head. "No. No." I looked at Mendez. "My car was stolen. Tell them! I haven't worn that shirt for years. I kept it in my car but ... It must have been taken when they went through my car!"

  "They?"

  "Whoever stole my car!" My voice rose. I didn't seem to be able to control it. "Tell them, Carl."

  Mendez straightened. "She reported the car stolen on Wednesday. It was recovered two days later, yesterday, on the Flathead Reservation. Her belongings were . . . scattered around the area." His voice was flat and official.

  "Somebody took the shirt," I said. ''Whoever stole the car."

  The detective looked thoughtful as he put the shirt back in the bag. "Was the car dusted, Mendez?"

  Carl blinked, jerking his neck involuntarily. "Uh, no sir."

  I stood up. "I --I was just so grateful to get it back. I didn't think-"

  Knox stood too. "That was Mendez's job, Miss Thorssen." The other policeman got up. "We'll have more questions for you. Don't leave the area." At that the cops filed out, leaving the three of us stunned and silent.

  That night sleep did not come. I lay in the enclosed sleeping porch praying for a breeze. Drenched in sweat, I rose, dressed, and grabbed my car keys.

  Mendez's house was not dark though it was two-thirty in the morning. I took a small comfort in his insomnia. Parking the Saab, I thought of confronting him with my anger, my sense of betrayal. But he was just doing his job. He owed me nothing. The look on Knox's face when he asked if the car had been dusted for fingerprints was deadly.

  The night air seemed cooler here near the river. If I listened hard I could hear the water rushing. The wild river, wondering what had happened to its berry-tangled banks, its twists and turns cut by summer floods. What were these square hulks, buildings and bridges, cement embankments impeding its evolution? Who were these fair- skinned inhabitants that plied its waters with noisy boats and stole its scaly friends? The meanderings of a river, still free.

  Thinking of the river calmed me. I relaxed and dozed in the seat. The Saab Sister, so recently violated, now seemed like the only safe place for me, the only place that belonged to me.

  17

  A HARD SHIVER racked my body. I jolted in the seat, bumping my knee on the steering wheel. My breath had fogged the windows; I ran my palm over the glass to see who had knocked. A hazy figure stood in the dawn twilight. Bird sounds filled the rarefied air, its grayness tinged with rose, blowing in chilled and fresh through the crack. I rolled the window down to see the face.

  "What're you doing in there?" Mendez bent his face down to the window. His forehead was covered with beads of sweat. He wore a soaked shirt and jogging shoes. He was breathing hard from his run, hands on his hips.

  My brain still felt like the inside of the glass: foggy, opaque. I cleared my throat to give myself some time to think, then jerked the door handle. It was locked. I fumbled to unlock it and open the door. The morning coolness hit me as I stood on the pavement, my mind functioning at last.

  "I wanted to talk to you," I said. I contained the hurt from yesterday, the anger. I would not let petty emotions take control. If my Norwegian upbringing trained me for anything, this was it.

  Mendez cocked his head, looking at me from under dripping brows. His dark skin glistened with moisture.

  "Come in for a minute." He turned his back and started up the walk to his house. His invitation fell short of convivial. No doubt he felt I had compromised his position as a law officer. I shouldn't have asked him to run the woman's name through the computer. And he shouldn't have taken me to pick up the Saab. Did that mean he considered taking me up on the Little Bitterroot, helping me with the mission's vandalism, unprofessional? Then it was personal. But now his tone was brusque, polite without the concern that he had shown before.

  He left me standing awkwardly in his living room, a neat but shabby arrangement of secondhand furniture that seemed to fit a bachelor policeman. I sank onto a faded green couch that smelled like cigarette smoke. A black and white cat jumped up to greet me. The feel of the cat's fur made me think of Valkyrie, my wandering pony. She could be halfway to Colorado. God, Paolo hadn't called back.

  Mendez came back with a towel around his neck and two cups of coffee. He handed me one and perched on the edge of a blue chair. I warmed my hands arou
nd the mug as the cat jumped off the couch and went over to rub against Carl's shins.

  "Listen, Mendez, I want to apologize for putting-"

  "You met Gato?"

  I frowned: Why wouldn't he let me say I was sorry? He rubbed the cat's back.

  "Let me just say it: I'm sorry." I spit it out and shut my mouth. Let him have it his way. I still needed his help. He said nothing, watching the cat arch her back and purr against his legs. I set down my coffee cup and rubbed my forehead, trying to get the words to flow. "I need to know. Were there any fingerprints on the paint canister? The

  one in my car?"

  He sat back in the chair. "Two sets. One of them was mine."

  "And the other?" He stared at me for a long minute, then took a sip of coffee. "Mine?"

  "Probably. Yours weren't on file."

  I drank the coffee, feeling it charge through my veins. A sick, dizzy feeling hit me, like things were crashing in. I took another sip of coffee and sat up straighter to fend it off. "Thanks for the coffee."

  Carl watched me walk to the door in silence. Then, as my hand went to the knob, he stood up. "Just a minute." He disappeared into a back room. I watched the sun warm the precision-mowed yard through the screen door. In a moment he returned and shoved some papers into my hand. He stood close to me. I could smell his sweat. He wiped his

  face with the towel again, over the dark beard he hadn't shaved yet.

  "What's this?" I asked.

  Two sheets of computer paper linked at one end and folded. Opening them I saw her name: VARDIS. I tried to smile at him. "Thanks." His jaw had gone stiff again, jutting as it tensed. He looked at me, pursed his lips.

  "Damage is already done. My ass is in a sling about the car anyway."

  Through the door, across the small porch, down the steps, I clutched the paper as though it was my saving grace. There were so many questions, unknowns, and I had much work to do. But this was something to hold onto, to grasp, even if it was a straw.

  I had hit the sidewalk when he called from the porch, looking up and down the street. A nervousness in his eyes stopped me as he approached. He whispered hoarsely: ''What are you going to do?"

  I blinked at him, trying to concoct a reasonable reply. I had no idea, no plan. So I said, "I have a plan." My voice was only a whisper as I elaborated. "I'm going to find out who killed Shiloh Merkin and who killed Charlotte Vardis. The murders, they must be related."

  "Why?"

  "They were both looking for this thing called a bluejay pictograph. Some sort of Indian painting. I think they were both killed trying to get their hands on it. If I find it, I'll find the murderer." I sucked in a little air, surprised at my theory as much as he appeared to be.

  Carl looked at the toes of his running shoes and then into my eyes. "This isn't a game. Somebody is killing people. You could be next."

  I met his gaze. "I know that." I swallowed hard. "Somebody is trying to frame me for Charlotte Vardis's murder. You can see that. I'm poking my nose into somebody's business. They don't like it. That means I'm getting close."

  He examined my face with his dark eyes. We stood three feet apart, faced off. I had already asked him for too much, this had to be good-bye.

  "Meet me for lunch. One o'clock. Montana Pies." He turned on his last word and jogged back up the walk to his house, bounding up the stairs two at a time without looking back.

  "Paolo. At last." I sank back in Wade's old office chair, running my hand across the front of the desk. A smile of satisfaction crossed my lips as I regarded the desk's orderly surface: a neat stack of related files on one comer, clean notebook paper for doodling with theories on another, five sharpened pencils lined up next to the paper. The wood top was dusted and lemon-oiled, the glass shade on the lamp wiped clean. Even the telephone, stretched in from the hall, had been exactingly dusted. It was 9:00 A.M.

  "Alix, have you been trying to reach me?" Paolo said, a blithe cheerfulness in his voice that annoyed me. "We had the opening last night for Geneva Betz. I had a little too much wine, I think. You know I used to be able to drink all night, then get up and swill espresso in the morning and never have this brick on my forehead feeling." He chuckled and I imagined he was rubbing his eyes.

  I had forgotten completely about the opening. Paolo had probably been crazy all day with last-minute preparations. I usually hung the shows. I had planned on being back for Geneva's; she was a friend and local artist whose work had been improving rapidly over the last few years. She was ready for the big time, in my opinion. And here I had forgotten her opening.

  "Oh, God, I'm sorry, Paolo. I meant to be back. But, well, you heard what happened?"

  "Hang on while I get a cup of coffee, will you?" he said, setting the receiver down without waiting for my reply. I ground my teeth, waiting for him, imagining the mess my desk had taken on in my absence and Paolo's feet resting on it as he spoke to me. He returned at last. "Oh, hey. The sheriff called about your horse. Yesterday morning she was prancing around the square in the very early morning time. I heard some tourists were taking pictures of her. Kind of some excitement. Maybe they thought Valkyrie was a moose, eh?"

  I had to smile. "In the square. That show-off horse. Where did she go then?"

  "Sheriff tried to catch her but she was too wild. She ran off down the street toward the Elk Refuge."

  "That's where she went last time." I pictured her browsing through the field the elk had vacated for the summer, turning up bits of leftover alfalfa pellets and hay. She'd be fine there.

  "So what's been going on up in Montana?"

  "You heard what happened here, didn't you?" I repeated.

  "Hmm, what?" The slurp of coffee being sipped.

  "Charlotte Vardis. The murder. Wasn't it in the paper there?"

  "I didn't read the paper yesterday," he said. "But anyway, you know the paper here." He made a disparaging noise and sipped more coffee. "What happened? You mean that customer? That Charlotte Vardis?"

  "Yes, that one." I filled him in on the details until he sounded alert and awake. I told him about the police finding my shirt in her car, stained with her blood. "Now you've got to tell me about her."

  "She only came in one time. Then I talk to her on the telephone once." He paused to think. "You know, I thought she was a little strange to be buying a Jackson Pollock masterpiece."

  "Didn't she look rich?"

  "Oh, she look plenty rich. Expensive leather coat that she did not really need in the summer. But I guess she did come in during the late afternoon. Kinda coolish that day. Lots of makeup. Rich-lady tan, like she worked on it in the winter in the south of France."

  I knew customers that fit that description, dripping with earrings and necklaces, fingers heavy with precious metal and gems. They wore jeans with exotic skins sewed into them, or fine imported sweaters of mohair, or ski outfits trimmed with mink, or exquisite Italian boots on their tiny, wealthy feet. Every hair on their heads would be coiffed just so, every wrinkle painted over. Nothing he had said so far seemed out of the ordinary. "So

  what was it about her that seemed strange?"

  "She wasn't interested in the art. Oh, I know; lots of rich peoples don't really like the art. They just like to buy it and say they have it. Show how much of the culture they have. But we had that wonderful show in here, lots of color and big canvases, and she had to wait for me because I am with another customer."

  He paused to catch his breath. "So I tell her there's a rest room in the back when she asks. And when I am finally done with the customer I find Charlotte sitting in your desk chair. She could have been looking at the paintings. But no, she wanted to stare at your ugly little office." He chuckled to reassure me that it was only a joke. An

  irritable twinge at his humor passed quickly.

  But wait. "She was sitting in my desk chair?" Now I was irritated.

  "Yeah. She didn't touch anything, I don't think. Just sat there with her little blue gloves on, wrapped around her Gucci bag, and asked about
you."

  "What about me?"

  "About you finding out about the Jackson Pollock. Said all kinds of things about how great you were. She knew all about you. She wanted to know when were you coming back because she needed to know right now. How she wanted you to find out absolutely everything you could about this painting because it was so important to her."

  "She didn't sound very disappointed when I told her it was probably a fake," I told him.

  "Hmmm. Well, she was pretty weird, like I'm telling you. Real, what you say, animated."

  A picture of her behind the wheel of her Mercedes came back: She was no longer animated, no. Whatever energy she had expended trying to charm the Argentine had evaporated into the cosmos. But then every day's energy evaporated, didn't it? Expended, vaporized, used up: one day at a time. It was just that Charlotte Vardis's storehouse of energy, her breathing, living self, weird or not, had been raided.

  Cleaned out.

  I hung up the phone and began scribbling down what Paolo had said about Charlotte Vardis: animated, not interested in art, interested in me, wanted to know when I was coming back, needed to find out about Pollock right now.

  The computer printout Mendez had given me lay next to the paper. I unfolded it again and reread it. Vardis had a criminal record but not a significant one. Her ex-husband had apparently filed a complaint of assault against her after they had divorced. She had been fined and paroled. This had all taken place in Oklahoma over two years ago.

  Apparently her ex hadn't left her destitute. Her address was still in Oklahoma so she had a second home in Jackson, or at least was well-heeled enough to rent long-term. In Jackson it took a lot of money to rent anything, let alone buy. My little apartment over the gallery, though small and drafty, was worth a small fortune now.