The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series)

by Lise McClendon

  I looked at my watch. It was just after four. As we entered the outskirts of Missoula Elaine sat up. The heater in the old Valiant had warmed her up.

  "I'm never going back. Never," she muttered.

  I glanced at her. The black on her face gave her an ashen, muddy look. She was a mess. "I don't think you'll ever have to go back."

  She wasn't listening. "I hate him. I hate him!" Her hands gestured wildly in circles. "That man and his poetry! He's crazy!"

  I glanced at her. "Poetry?"

  Her wet curls sprayed droplets onto the car seat. "In that cubbyhole back there. Where he tried to get you to sit? That straw pile."

  "But what about poetry?"

  "He makes you listen to poetry. Salish poetry."

  I gripped the wheel tighter. "On the straw?"

  She nodded. "For hours. You have to sit there while he recites Salish poetry or something. Stories. It goes on for hours and hours. He makes you sit there staring at him, like you could even understand one word!"

  The pit in my stomach hardened. "That's all that goes on back there? On the straw?"

  "That's all?! Isn't that enough? He picked me last month and I thought I was going to die before he finished. It was agony. Pure agony. Torture! I'll never go back. Never."

  The lights of Missoula grew brighter. We passed the mall, pink mercury lights blazing in the barren parking lot. The streets were empty. The sane people were all in bed.

  Melina had waited up for me. The house was ablaze with light on the dark•windowed block, streaming white onto the burnt lawn. As we reached the house the sky began to lighten in the east. The moon set in the west. The Valiant chugged to a stop by the curb. I put it into park and left the engine running. Heat blasted from the vents; I turned down the fan and faced Elaine. "You can get home all right?"

  She dabbed her dirty face with her sleeve. Black stuck to the fabric but her face did not improve. "Sure." Her voice was barely a whisper but I was too beat to argue with her. "I'll call you later." I stepped out into the street, the cool freshness of the air surprising me. The sidewalks had been washed by the rain. Leaves and broken branches lay in scattered heaps as testament to the wind's fury. I rounded the car and gave her a wave in the headlight's glare.

  Mendez's El Dorado pulled up, mud sprayed up its sides from the slippery drive out on the dirt road. Beads of water clung to the hood's waxed surface. I stood staring at it for a moment, my head clogged with fatigue. He got out of the car as the Valiant pulled away. In the light from the porch and windows he looked pale, his lips purple. I squinted at him, then saw the shudder convulse through his body.

  "You're freezing," I said. "You're getting hypothermic. I've seen skiers. Didn't you have your heater on?"

  Mendez looked vaguely toward his car. "It, ah, it doesn't work." He stuck his hands in wet pockets, then brought them out again. The air blew down the street, not quite a wind, but with a chill on it. I frowned. I hadn't planned on asking him in. Just looking at him reminded me of the stupid mess I had made of tonight. And then what Elaine had told me? I didn't want to think about it.

  "You better go home and change into something dry," I said. Melina's face came to the window. "My sister's been waiting up. I'll have to explain it all to her. It'll be boring."

  He looked up at the house, saying nothing. I knew you could get a little weird with hypothermia, like you couldn't decide what to do next. His jaw began to shake, chattering.

  "You can get yourself home, right?" He frowned at the street behind me. A policeman ought to know every inch of this town. But his eyes seemed clouded. His teeth clacked together convulsively. "Oh, shit, come on." I grabbed his arm and led him up to the house. He was strong. His feet didn't seem to work too well so it was almost like dragging him. Once we got to the steps he seemed to liven up, grabbing the railing and hoisting himself up. Melina met us at the door.

  "What happened? Are you all right?" Melina fretted as we stepped in. "Jesus, I've been out of my mind!"

  "You're not the only one," I said, depositing the shivering Mendez on a small throw rug. "I'll tell you about it. First we've got a case of hypothermia to take care of."

  Melina stared at me, then at Mendez. "Hypothermia?" She stepped up to him and began to feel his windbreaker and tousle his hair like a mother would a child. "God, you're blue." She took his shoulders and led him to the stairs. "We'll get you in a hot shower. Alix, put on some coffee."

  Twenty minutes later Carl emerged in an old pair of Wade's flannel pajamas and robe. They hung on him like he had shrunk in the wash. Melina and I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. I had washed my face and changed into a pair of sweat pants and a turtleneck and wool sweater borrowed from Mel. I took one look and burst out laughing.

  He stood in the doorway, his hands vanishing up the voluminous plaid sleeves, his bare toes poking out of the pant legs. His face had a wounded look on it as I guffawed, covering my mouth. Melina shot me a look, then set Mendez down in her chair. She poured him a cup of coffee as I tried to control myself.

  "Now drink this, Carl," she said, setting a steaming cup in front of him. I thought she was going to put the cup to his lips herself, she was being so damned maternal. But he smiled up at her and did it himself.

  "Tell me all the details tomorrow, Alix." Melina stood in the kitchen door. I started to protest her leaving but she turned to go. "Good-night."

  My laughter was gone now. The tension, humiliation: I felt sick suddenly. I stared out the window at the dawn creeping into the big elm tree in the backyard. Mendez just sat sipping his coffee, his hands around the hot mug for dear life. He hadn't said a word since he'd been in the house. He didn't have to. I knew what he would say, The sentences would all have "should have" or "could have" in them. I shoved my chair roughly across the floor behind me. My feet wouldn't stay still. The silence was killing me.

  "Listen, just don't give me any lectures, okay? I know I screwed up. So just don't tell me all the things I should have done. Okay?"

  His face was getting pink again. He turned to me from the steam of his cup and spoke at last. "Are you all right?!'

  My jaw dropped. "Am I all right? Yes. You asked me before. There are other things, bigger issues, things I haven't told you, things I have almost figured out." I paced back and forth on the small linoleum floor. "I don't know why ... Is that all you can say, are you all right?"

  Mendez sat back in the chair and began rolling up the pajama sleeves. Melina had put his clothes in the dryer on the back porch. I could hear them going round and round. His gaze when he turned to me was free of hypothermic clouds. "It seemed like the safe thing to say. Besides, I meant it. I was worried about you."

  I folded my arms. "Well, don't be." He looked at me with those dark eyes. "All right." I took a deep breath. "I'm grateful. Okay? Okay, thank you." There. You said it, now shut up already. I turned and put my hands on the edge of the sink. What a coward I was. Turn around and look him in the eye and say it. But I couldn't. The coffeepot was almost empty. I poured the dregs of it into my cup, more glad to have something to do than to drink it. But I did, sip by sip, staring out the window over the counter at the house next door as its summer colors came to life in the morning light.

  "I'm glad you're not hurt," Mendez whispered behind me. I hadn't heard him pad up. I jerked my head at the sound of his voice by my shoulder. I was still jumpy.

  "Hurt?" I put down my cup. A laugh that was more like a snarl erupted from me as I turned, took three paces away from him, and leaned against my chair. "That was hardly likely. You know what Mad Dog Tilden does to his victims back there on the straw? What evil torture he has devised? What perverted act he makes them do?"

  Mendez turned to face me.

  "I bet you can guess though, can't you?" I waved my arms around like a TV preacher. "You see it all in police work. Molestation, sodomy, rape, mutilation, murder. The mind boggles with possibilities. I know mine did!" I couldn't stop. The knife, my tongue, just kept plunging into me
, again and again. "I didn't try to guess too far. I figured a simple S&M bondage thing, maybe more S than M, but rape for sure. I had it all figured out, like I've got everything in this whole mess so figured out! So I fought, I kicked, I pulled hair, I scratched. He wasn't doing that to me! Not to me!"

  I pounded my chest with my fist, my voice having lost all control. Mendez looked up from his cup. I couldn't stop. "They tied my feet. The women who are supposed to be helping me get information are helping tie me up! I've been betrayed! I start to panic. The twine is cutting into my ankles! But then, voila! My knight in shining armor shows up to save the damsel in distress."

  I walked to the window, then turned to finish. "But what do I find out on the way home? There is no S&M. There is no rape. That's all a figment of my imagination. What there is, is a madman." My voice dropped to a whisper and I seemed breathless suddenly sapped. "A madman who tortures his victims with poetry."

  Mendez stepped closer. "Poetry?"

  "Salish poetry. Endless, incomprehensible Indian poetry. He makes them sit ... and ..." My breath came in gulps, convulsive gasps. "And listen to ..." I doubled over then, holding my stomach, moaning, afraid I would be sick.

  "Sit down," Mendez said, pushing my chair under me and guiding me down. I kept my head over my knees, gasping for air.

  After a moment the spell subsided. "So you see there was no reason for you to come after me. No reason at all." I was looking at the ceiling when it went blurry. Tears began to stream down my face. To spite me, I thought, since tears were weakness, inner pain that should be kept inside. But they wouldn't stop.

  Then Carl was holding me, just holding me against Wade's ratty old robe with the coffee stains and the dandruff. Holding me against his warm chest, muffling my cries. Even as I cried I scorned myself. I tried to tell myself I was crying for Wade, for Melina, for their marriage held in fragile balance, for Rollie long since gone, for the spirits of Shiloh and Charlotte floating unexplained somewhere around us, waiting for retribution. But it wasn't true.

  We held each other for the rest of the night on the couch. Arms wrapped around each other, the thin purple Indian blanket over us, belly to belly on the Danish modem sofa, Carl and I slept. I smelled the campfire in my hair and soap on his neck. His breath warmed my ear, tickling it. He massaged my neck until I relaxed, feeling the oi-ya-ya in my brain as sleep swam over me.

  The birds chirped morning songs. There were lips on my neck. I opened my eyes and felt a ton of bricks on my forehead. Like a hangover. But I hadn't been drinking so this must be what a fuck-up hangover feels like. Before I could concentrate on it distractions came. The lips searched further, moist and curious. Then cool hands on my ribs. Then breasts, hips, shoulders, thighs, every part of me. I was awake.

  Carlos, I whispered in his ear. He had the softest eyelids in the world. When we were together, one being, the walls inside me fell down. I was no longer a cunning businesswoman with a wicked eye for color and a vengeance for justice. No longer a strong sister who made it without daddy's love. No longer the daughter who propped her mother's head with a tiny hand as she cried lonely tears. No longer any of them.

  The love we made was like in a dream, slow and sure and gentle. Savoring, unhurried, natural. And incredible, did I mention that? Yes, incredible. Oi-ya-ya.

  26

  CONCENTRATION WAS OUT. The spread on the top of Wade's huge desk had been straightened, restraightened, copied, reorganized, and filed. But still the answer eluded me. The fuck-up hangover returned in spades, only now it seemed a prediction of the future as much as a reflection of last night.

  Mendez--Carlos--- was the reason, of course. Now I cursed him under my breath, even though I had said quite opposite things in his ear. I didn't need distractions. I couldn't work that way. One-track mind, and all that. I had to be obsessed.

  I stared at the piles of papers, willing them to speak, to crack open, spill their secrets, their guts. Picking up Charlotte's stack, I read through it again. There was so little on her. I wondered if the cops had found out anything more. How had she arranged that phone call I made to her when I thought she was in Jackson? The phone company could have forwarded it. But wouldn't the cops have those records? And why?

  That's the real key. Why had she called me? Was it an alibi for Shiloh's murder? Why would she kill Shiloh? For the bluejay pictograph? I picked up Shiloh's stack. Clipped to the back was the journal that Tilden had given me about Manitou Matrix and its leader Orianna Gold Flicker. I unclipped it and read it again.

  Search for Inner Beauty and

  Wisdom Drawn from Native Religions

  When Orianna Gold Flicker was a child she

  spent hours each day in a tête-à-tête with Mother Nature

  in the woods behind her parents' house in upstate New

  York. She found strength in the order she found there,

  in the plants' intricate structure and the insects' life

  cycle. In the balance of day and night, winter and sum-

  mer. When she grew up she dreamed of being a

  biologist or a naturalist, or perhaps working in a zoo with

  animals.

  But after a chance meeting with a psychic when

  she was a teenager Orianna's life was changed. A fork in

  the road, she says. A new path chosen. A path toward

  transcendental perception drawn from the earth and

  from the native religions that celebrated the seasons, the

  earth, moon, and sun.

  My eyes scanned down the close type. I frowned. Dreck, tiresome dreck. But maybe later on, something buried deep in the article.

  "We are fiercely protective of our friends in the

  movement," Orianna says, caressing her hand-carved

  wooden flute. "And we are sensitive to their need for

  privacy. We are not out to exploit our brothers and

  sisters on reservations or wherever they may live. We

  have a common bond. My Indian blood runs hot in my

  veins..."

  I slammed the journal closed. I should have talked privately with Orianna. She might have let something slip, something about Shiloh. Maybe a rivalry between them. But the big woman wouldn't let me close. I realized that early on. Aligning myself with Tin-Tin and Moody had barred me from being her friend. Her secrets were carefully guarded, her persona carefully manicured. If she hated Shiloh she would have one of her henchwomen do her in. She wouldn't sully her spiritual hands with someone's blood. She had too much to lose.

  The iced tea on the corner of the desk was beaded up, sweating in the office. Outside the day was cool, refreshing after the terrible heat. Low clouds came and went like the clouds before my eyes. I struggled to see the whole picture. The last pieces would surely make it all come clear.

  I had showered the smell of Mendez off my skin but I couldn't get it out of my nostrils. I drank iced tea, trying to ignore it, to keep my mind on the problem. Wade's problem. My problem. Shiloh's problem. Charlotte's problem. They wouldn't rest until their murderer came to justice. I felt it. I knew it. I wouldn't rest either.

  I picked up Seymour Smith's file and stood up, pacing the room, talking aloud to help me concentrate. "Seymour S. Smith, born 1885, died who-knows-when, joined faculty of department of anthropology at University of Montana 1922, taught there until 1933. Previously taught at University of Wisconsin where he received his doctorate in 1919."

  Flipping the page of my notes, I read the part about his articles. "Published in various anthropological journals, starting in obscure ones and moving up to his final article published in Annals of American Anthropology in 1932. After that Seymour began to be sucked down into the quagmire of his fabricated life." I swept the sweat off my lip and longed to be outside in the cool air. Kicking the rattletrap fan, I kept pacing.

  The student newspaper began researching Professor Smith's background based on a tip from another instructor recently moved from Wisconsin. As school began in the fall
of 1932 he taught his usual courses: Intro to Anthropology, Statistics and Research, a graduate seminar on Montana Indians. Then the newspaper published its expose: Seymour had never gotten a doctorate from Wisconsin. In fact he had no doctorate at all, merely a master's in education from a small college in Mississippi. An investigation erupted. By winter term he was suspended from teaching. He hung on through appeals until summer, when his position was eliminated during "budget cutbacks."

  I gulped down iced tea and turned a page in the file again. This was the best part.

  Hearings into Smith's competency were heated and emotional. Every faculty member in his department testified in his favor. Students cried and pleaded to let him stay. He was well-regarded in the anthropology community nationally for his publications and research. Everybody loved him. But he was a fraud.

  The icing on the cake at the hearings came when the dean of the college--a close friend of Smith's--reluctantly called in the editor of a prominent academic journal to testify. Smith had submitted a manuscript for publication that had been heavily scrutinized by the editors. Smith claimed that he had found a certain native painting that illustrated the Salish Indians' bluejay shaman. He described it copiously in the article, the editor said, including where it was located in the Bitterroot Mountains.

  Something in the article rang false to the editors. They decided to dispatch an independent researcher to hike to the spot described in the article. Not only did the researcher not find the painting but the terrain where Smith said the painting existed was flat and green with meadows and a small creek, hardly territory for a large rock painting on the side of a cliff wall.