The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series)

by Lise McClendon

  She rubbed her face with a hand towel nonchalantly, seeing us in the sink's mirror before she turned. I knew before she lowered the towel that her face would be hard. I had underestimated Zena.

  "Hello, Alix." Her long black hair was wavy, caught into a hand at the nape of her neck. She wore a rumpled cotton skirt that skimmed her ankles and a loose tank top. The towel-rubbing had reddened her cheeks but didn't disguise the dark circles under her eyes. "How's Melina doing? I've meant to stop by again."

  "Too busy?"

  "Very," she said coolly. "Elaine, can we talk later?" She grabbed her embroidered purse. "I have to go to work. Freddy'll have my neck."

  "I'd like to hear what Elaine has to say now," I said. "And you too, Zena."

  Zena's eyes narrowed for an instant. "I have to go."

  "That's too bad," I said. "I've been hoping to hear all about the bluejay ceremony."

  Elaine and Zena exchanged wary looks. Elaine tried to smooth her white slacks but her hand shook so badly she gave up. Zena turned her gaze to me, full of ice.

  "The what?"

  "Last night," I prompted. "Lolo Pass. Full moon?"

  Elaine let a little gasp escape. "You followed us?"

  "Quiet," Zena snapped.

  "I followed you. I saw your rattles and your charcoaled faces and the bluejay shaman dancing around the campfire. An enlightening evening, I must say." The two women were silent. Elaine shifted her weight back and forth. I stepped back and shut the door, leaning against it.

  "I don't care what kind of rituals you conduct. I really don't." I wiped the sweat off my upper lip. The storeroom had begun to heat up. "If you need a crazy guru, that's your business." Zena opened her mouth to say something. "Yes, I know it's Tilden. And he is crazy. He may have killed Shiloh, Elaine. Have you thought about that?" Elaine only stared at me, her eyes widening. "And someone else is dead too. A woman named Charlotte Vardis. Someone wants the police to think. I killed her." I stopped for a moment and sucked in some ~ calming myself. "I want to know what Shiloh and Charlotte Vardis had to do with this-- cult. Zena?"

  She tossed her black bangs off her forehead like a proud horse. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  Damn. "Elaine?"

  Zena glared at her for an instant, then broke away, walking deliberately to the towel rack and hanging the hand towel precisely on it. Fussing. Leaving Elaine to make her own decisions. Good.

  "Shiloh was in the cult, wasn't she?" Elaine nodded, her hands gripped so tight her knuckles whitened. Her pink sleeveless top began to stain with sweat. "How long?"

  She shrugged. "Couple years, I guess."

  "You guess. You haven't been a member that long too?"

  She shook her blond curls. "No. No. I went last month for the first time. They needed someone new."

  "Who was there?"

  Her eyes flashed up at me then surrendered. "Me, Shiloh, Sylvie, Dr. Tilden."

  "Not Zena?"

  Zena had been fussing with her face in the glow of the low-watt light bulb over the mirror. She turned now and faced me. "This is my first moon cycle."

  I checked with Elaine. She nodded. "She took Shiloh's place."

  "Whose place did you take?" I asked.

  "I don't know," Elaine whispered. "Someone quit over the winter."

  "You don't meet over the winter?"

  "Only in the summer. May through August on full moons." Her body began to shake. She clenched her teeth as her eyes filled. Her freckled face reddened in anger. "I hate him. I hate him! I won't go back. That's what I wanted to tell you, Zena. I'm not going back tonight."

  "Tonight?"

  Zena blinked bloodshot eyes. "Four nights in a row."

  "All night long!" Elaine shouted, stamping her foot. "I can't do it. I just can't. I have to work. So do you, Zena. He says I have to do it for Shiloh. To give her spirit a peaceful journey. But I --" The tears choked her throat.

  My mind raced. "Was there ever a woman named Charlotte Vardis in the group? When you were there?" Elaine shook her head. I looked at Zena. She shrugged. "Have you ever heard of her at all?"

  Again they shook their heads. No. No one knew her. No one in the whole damn town. Except me. I took another deep breath. "All right, then. We go tonight."

  Elaine gasped and stared at Zena. Nothing seemed to ruffle the cool zinnia, the porcelain flower. Never wilts in the heat, that's the zinnia.

  Elaine sputtered: "But we can't take you. He said he would--"

  "He would what?"

  She shook her head until I was afraid it would come off. "We just can't. I'm afraid of him. He might do anything."

  "All the more reason to put a stop to it. Zena?"

  She blinked slowly, detached from Elaine's emotional outburst. "What?"

  "Are you in? Will you back us up tonight?"

  "What do you propose to do?" She put her hands on her hips.

  "You pump him for information. That's all. Ask him about Charlotte Vardis. You replaced her, Elaine. She must have been a member of the group last year. If we can link the two women to Tilden and to each other then the police can take over. They'll investigate Tilden. As it is there is no proof linking him to either murder."

  Zena cocked her head. "Just ask him some questions? All right. For Melina. I have no great ties to the man."

  We left Elaine splashing water on her tear-streaked face as Zena and I stepped out into the harsh light of the bookstore. Melina's friend and I only nodded a simple goodbye. We would see each other later. I hoped Zena would show. Elaine I could handle. But Zena's reasons for joining the cult of the hoppin' bluejay shaman remained a mystery to me.

  At the door I turned back. Zena stood behind a desk with counters on two sides, serving the bookstore from the center of the room. I stepped back to her as she was putting her purse under the counter.

  "I'm curious about something. What is that painting on the wall of the cave? That big one."

  She pulled a dust rag out and began to move it over the counter although it was littered with flyers and pamphlets. "That's the bluejay shaman. He's half-bird, half-man."

  "Is there a name for that painting? Something Tilden called it?"

  Zena thought for a moment. "No, not really. Well, he did refer to it as the new painting." She stopped wiping for a moment and looked me straight in the eye, quite a departure for her. "I got the feeling he dabbed it on there himself," she whispered.

  Something about last night's ceremony rattled around in my head as I hit the sidewalk. When Mad Dog tapped a woman on the head and they adjourned to the recesses of the cave, what did they do back there? I should have asked. I would tonight. The question fermented in my brain. Then another: Where had I parked my car? I stood frowning in front of Freddy's Feed and Read, puzzling about the mundane and the obtuse. Puzzling so hard, in fact, that I didn't see Mendez until he stepped out of the police cruiser.

  The sidewalk baked under my running shoes. I could feel the heat rise around me, waves of penetrating vapor, distorting the elm trees across the street and the pots of cascading flowers beside the bookstore's entrance. I wasn't accustomed to this kind of heat, relentless, energy-sapping, day after endless bright day. The temperature turned up a few notches as I stood there waiting for Mendez.

  His jaw flexed as he grit his teeth, his face expressionless. They must teach this in the police academy. Show No Emotion 101. But a practiced face-reader like myself could see the tension in his neck, his jaw, his eyes.

  "I've got to bring you downtown." Mendez stood squarely before me, eye to eye. His voice was less than official. "I've been looking for you all day."

  "What for?"

  "Questioning."

  He looked away first, shifting his feet and hooking his thumbs on his belt. His tanned arms stuck out unceremoniously below the blue uniform shirt. The .38 sat on one hip, a radio on the other.

  "I see." My voice cracked in a way I hated. He looked back into my face, searching for something. He took my arm like I might make a r
un for it, opened the cruiser's door, and put me in. At least he didn't handcuff me and push my head down.

  The chatter of the dispatcher didn't fascinate me this time. I wondered if I should call Hondo. How deep was this hole someone had dug for me? And was it Tilden? Had he gone to all this trouble? He knew where my car was the day it disappeared. He knew because I had just been to see him. He could have followed me out the building or seen me park from his window. What had he said about Shiloh? I don't think she ever found what she was looking for. We had been talking about finding truth, a spiritual peace, a pathway of knowledge. But is that what Tilden meant? Maybe he meant she was looking for the bluejay pictograph. But what exactly was that?

  Frustration. I gnashed my teeth as we swung around the corner and into the police station parking lot. An old gas station sign on a metal stand read Full Service. Yeah, I thought, getting out with the aid of Mendez's beefy paw on my arm, give me some gas.

  23

  THE WELCOMING COOLNESS of the police station made my memory lapse; I forgot my frustrations. My questions without answers. My quandary, imbroglio, pretty kettle of fish. For a moment all I felt was the coolness. The blessed relief. But as the sweat began to dry on my back the reality of the predicament reared its ugly, fiery head.

  The interrogation room was one of a million. Cement-block walls. Linoleum floor speckled in gray and slashed with black heel marks. Institutional gray metal furniture. Crime in Missoula was usually clean. Maybe the occasional revenge slasher. A drug bust, sure. It's a college town. Shoplifting, burglary. All the time. But rarely did a rich out-of-state socialite show up in her Benz with a bullet through her temple.

  Knox came in with another man. The second man wore a wrinkled tan suit; he shed the jacket and loosened his tie. His boyish face glistened with oily sweat. I squinted at him from across the table, trying to place him.

  The policeman wore the same expression that Mendez had practiced. Knox regarded me for a silent minute, his big face solemn and placid. The eyes that had been so kind yet official at Melina's house now appeared simply official. The air-conditioning had cooled me now and I shivered.

  "Miss Thorssen." Knox put his red hands on the back of a chair and leaned forward toward me. His voice boomed around the small room, inappropriately loud. "This is Mr. Albrecht. He's the assistant county attorney up in Lake County."

  That was where I'd seen him. Wade's hearing. Lashing into Wade, making him out as a possible serial killer. I squinted at him. His baby-blue eyes were cold. "What's he doing here?"

  "Observing. Listening," said Knox. I waited. What more did they want from me? My stomach began to tighten into knots.

  "Do I need a lawyer?" I tried to match the policeman's voice in decibels, finding the effort gave me strength. "Am I being charged with something?"

  Knox shook his big head slowly. There were only a dozen or so hairs left on it, wound around his ears, surrounded by freckles. "We just want to talk."

  I nodded and tried to breathe. I wished Mendez had stayed. But I could no longer count on him being on my side. Especially after standing him up for lunch yesterday.

  ''Tell me about the shirt, Miss Thorssen," he began, leaving the statement hanging as if I had some new information to add to what I had already told them twice.

  "What about it?"

  Albrecht pulled a chair out, swung it around, and straddled it. How casual. Knox cleared his throat: "Anything you can remember about it. Where and when you saw it last, for example." He sat down in a gunmetal gray chair and crossed his legs. At least we were on the same visual plane now.

  "Well. As near as I can remember I last saw it when I was packing for this trip. But was dark, so I can't be sure it was actually in the trunk. I assume it was." I cleared my own throat, which was suddenly parched.

  "It was dark?" Knox said, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. God, he wasn't going to smoke in this tiny room, was he? "Why was that?"

  "Because it was at night." I struggled to keep my voice as even and unemotional as his.

  "And when was this?"

  "Friday night. A week or so ago."

  "The day before your brother-in-law was arrested for murder."

  I looked at Albrecht, who returned my gaze. "Right."

  "You were hired by the department as a--" He looked at his notes. "A consultant."

  "An appraiser, " I corrected. "l own a gallery in Jackson. That load of stuff in the U-Haul trailer?" That stuff I had pushed clean out of my mind. Was that what this was about? My dropping the ball on my job?

  The policeman drew a cigarette from the package. "You arrived when?"

  "Late Friday night. About two. Early Saturday, I guess."

  "And when did you first talk to the deceased? Miss Vardis." It was Albrecht now, wiggling. He couldn't stay out of it.

  "On Thursday, I think. My partner called me earlier in the week."

  "Mr. Segundo?" Knox referred to his notes.

  "My partner." I squirmed. "Check with him. He talked to her in the gallery." The ring-around-the-collar on Albrecht's white shirt smelled even from this distance. "We have," the attorney said with a triumphant smile. Of course he had.

  I glanced at Knox. He hadn't changed positions. The cigarette wrinkled under the rolling of his pudgy fingers. The packet in his other hand looked limp and empty. Maybe he needed matches.

  "Your sister corroborates it all too. But she is your sister," the lawyer said.

  I glared at him. "What do you mean?"

  "Maybe Fraser is taking the fall for her and you're helping concoct the story to keep your sister out of it. Maybe Fraser and Shiloh had a little something going. Maybe--"

  Knox sat forward, laying the crumpled pack and the lone cigarette on the metal table. He broke in: "We aren't suggesting anything, Miss Thorssen. We're just trying to get some information about a murder."

  I slid a look at Albrecht. What a fishing expedition. His mouth was clamped in a line. Keep it shut, shyster. The policeman continued. "Tell us about Charlotte Vardis. Everything you know about her."

  I sighed. "She stopped into the gallery in Jackson when I was up here," I began, then told them what Paolo had recounted to me how she had come in wanting a painting researched. Then how Paolo and I had done the calling and I had returned the call to her at the number Paolo gave me.

  "You gave us that number," the cop said.

  "Right."

  "No such number."

  I blinked. "What do you mean?"

  "That number has been disconnected for the last six months. It used to belong to a restaurant that went out of business before Christmas."

  I shook my head. I remembered dialing, talking to her. The connection had taken a little long, but not so long as to be unusual with long distance.

  "You wrote it down when your partner gave it to you?"

  "Yes. In my notebook. Do you want to see it?" I reached for my backpack. I pulled out the spiral pad, its yellow cover encrusted with something that had melted. Candy, it looked like. Yech. I fished out a tissue and wiped it. On the fifth page was her name. "Here. Charlotte Vardis. 307-739-9110." I jabbed a finger on my scribbled writing as I pushed the palm-sized notebook across the table.

  Knox touched the notebook with a scarred finger, then pulled glasses from his shirt pocket. He was dressed in polyester western-cut pants and a blue shirt pulled across his broad shoulders. The chrome-framed glasses wobbled on his big nose. He shoved the notebook back. "Did you know Ms. Vardis was in Missoula?" he asked.

  "No."

  "She checked into a motel here last Friday. The 23rd."

  "She was in Jackson on Monday. Paolo talked to her."

  I glanced between the men. So there you have it, gents. She drove to Jackson and back here. Figure it out. Do you want me to draw you a picture? A thought popped front and center. "She was here then. When Shiloh was murdered."

  Albrecht jerked his head up. He had been close to dozing in the quiet of the small room. His eyes narrowed. "Do y
ou know of some connection between Shiloh Merkin and Charlotte Vardis?"

  I hesitated. Did I? I guessed they were both looking for a mysterious pictograph with a birdman on it. I knew Charlotte was looking for it, a year ago anyway. Moody said Shiloh had asked him about it. Was she looking for it or was she just curious?

  "Miss Thorssen?" The attorney had straightened his posture.

  "I don't know for certain if there is a connection," I said. "But I can tell you this. When I called the FBI in Chicago, to find out about the Jackson Pollock painting for Charlotte Yantis, I had the agent run her name through their computer." I cleared my throat, visions of water beginning to appear as oases on the tabletop. "He told me she had asked about something called a bluejay pictograph some time last year."

  "What is that?" the detective asked.

  I shook my head. "I guess it's some kind of Indian rock painting. I really don't know. I haven't been able to find out anything about it, even if it exists at all."

  Albrecht stood up. His lip began to curl. "What does that have to do with Shiloh Merkin?"

  I took a deep breath. "I don't know."

  The ink wouldn't come off my fingertips. I felt dirty, my dignity fouled. Bad enough being grilled by the cops, guilt by association. Then to stand before a counter with a huge hand poking your fingers into an ink pad and onto a card. An official card with all your vital information on it. Like a criminal. And then the ink wouldn't wash off.