I sank back into Wade's old desk chair, running my fingernail down a gash in the wooden arm. What did it mean? This mention of the bluejay pictograph was the first anywhere I had found. The controversy surrounding it even sixty years ago was exciting. But was there a real pictograph? If so, what happened to it? It sure wasn't the new one in Tilden's cave. How was Tilden related to Smith? Were they both frauds? Did they both want to be someone else so badly they made up new lives for themselves?
Back to the piles. I reread each one, making myself go slowly though each line, letting it sink into my head. Shiloh, Charlotte, Elaine, Zena, Sylvie, Tilden-where were they? Orianna, Moody, Till-Tin, Smith. Who else? Melina, Wade, Mendez, me. Again and again, I read them.
The phone rang while I made myself a tuna sandwich. My hand hesitated over the receiver. If it was Mendez I would have to make an excuse and I didn't really want to. Just the phone ringing sent a little ache through me. I pushed it down, steeled myself, and answered. the phone gruffly. "Yes?"
"Yes, yourself." It was Melina. I relaxed at the sound of the lilt of her voice. "I guess the night didn't turn out so bad after all."
I took a bite of sandwich and said, "Mmm." A frustrated pause.
"So? Are you going to tell me about it?"
I swallowed. "What's to tell?"
"Alix."
I laughed. My sister loved to listen to my sexual adventures, since she'd been married forever. "Well, first he nibbled my ear, then my neck, then my--"
"Wait, wait. I guess I don't need the details," she laughed. "You two looked so cozy all curled up together when I left for work. Did he have to leave?"
"Yeah. He had some extra shift today."
"If he feels as bad as I do I hope it's a light crime day," Melina said. "I've got a splitting headache."
"Me too. Take two aspirin and call me after my nap."
Melina moaned. "Oh, that sounds so good. I wish I could curl up right now. I'll be home early, about four. Then tell me everything."
"Yes, boss." I hung up the phone and finished my sandwich, wandering out into the backyard where the dappled shade of the elm invited me to linger. Next to it an ancient mountain ash fluttered its leaves as if batting eyelashes. I dragged over an old webbed chaise that looked like Wade had sat on it once too often. The little round leaves of the ash lined up in exquisite order on each spray, then shivered in the breeze. The thunderstorms had drenched everything charging it all with renewed strength. Even the dead lawn showed signs of life. I stared at the sky in the spaces between the leaves. Spaces between facts. Answers, blanks. My fingers laced over my belly. A feather-gray cloud drifted in, obscuring the blue.
Then another, and another.
Melina shook me, her hand hot on my arm. "Alix, wake up. The phone's for you."
I jerked up as if I'd never been asleep. "Phone?"
"A woman. Sounds upset."
I followed my sister up the swaybacked wooden back steps, looking at the overcast sky and getting my bearings. My head felt surprisingly clear yet I knew I had been dreaming about bluejays and charcoal faces and rain and rocks and-and-and what? Whatever else it was lay just outside my consciousness, like a cloud 1was trying to grasp.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"Five." Melina opened the refrigerator. The glow from the old fridge's bulb lit the kitchen. A rumble in the heavens promised another rainstorm. "God, I should throw some of this stuff out. Without Wade to eat up the leftovers they're starting to collect."
I touched my forehead on the way to the phone. Wade, poor Wade. Already it seemed like he'd been gone forever. 1 put the receiver to my ear. "Hello?"
"Oh, Alix. I'm so glad you're there," the woman said.
"Elaine?"
"I had to call. I hope you don't mind."
"Of course not," I said. "I meant to call you today." Melina took something out of the refrigerator that looked like an embalmed rodent under plastic wrap.
"It's Zena," Elaine was saying. "I just don't know if I can trust her."
"Trust her?"
"She called this afternoon. She wanted to come over and look through Shiloh's artifacts. Her Indian artifacts. She says she's writing a book about Shiloh."
"Oh, really."
Elaine clucked her tongue. "That's what I thought. Sure, a book."
"What did you tell her?"
"I told her the things were all in storage. And her stuff all has to go through probate and all that. She didn't leave a will, you know."
"No, I didn't."
Melina had emptied four Tupperware containers and held out a fifth over the garbage can. She opened it and made a face.
"Well, she didn't," Elaine said. "I don't know if I can even touch her stuff. Maybe I should be boxing it all up. I don't know."
"I think you did the right thing about Zena." It sounded like Elaine was sipping a glass of her jug wine. "How are you feeling after last night?"
"Oh, pretty good. I took a long nap." She giggled nervously. "Actually I called in sick and slept all day. Isn't that sinful?"
"I think I'd do the same thing after-- what? Three nights in a row in that cave?"
"Tonight would have been the fourth."
"Listen, Elaine. Remember when I asked you about a bluejay pictograph and you said you didn't know about one? Could there possibly be something like that, maybe not a bluejay but some other rock painting or rock carving in
Shiloh's collection of artifacts? The ones in the garage?"
"Well, I suppose. Maybe."
"What if you and me were to take a look? It wouldn't be like Zena. Just you and me out there poking around in the garage. We wouldn't take anything, I promise. Just look in those boxes."
"I don't know, Alix. I just told Zena she couldn't."
"This bluejay pictograph might really exist. Something like the one Tilden has in the cave but smaller maybe. A professor back in the early thirties might have found it and hidden it somewhere. Shiloh could have found it. That may be why she was murdered."
"For a rock painting? Murdered for a chunk of rock?"
"I know how it sounds. But I really think it could be there in those boxes."
I left Melina on her knees, worshiping the god of Freon. Half an hour later Elaine and I pulled open the warped wooden doors to the old garage. More convincing of Elaine was in order when I arrived; then I had to wait for her to finish washing her dishes. I dried. She put away. Eventually we got to work.
"Is there a light in here?" I whispered, staring at the huge lump of boxes covered with the tarp. There was nothing else in the old building, no rusty shovels, no ancient bicycles, no mousetraps rotting in corners. The floor was clean around the perimeter of the pile. Very clean.
A fuzzy light came from the window by the lilac hedge. The one I had peered into a few days--a lifetime-ago. Elaine moved around the stack of boxes to the right, batting at cobwebs. "I think there's a string." She squinted into the ceiling, found the string, and pulled it. A twenty five-watt bulb flicked on, shedding a weak golden glow on the olive tarp.
We pulled the tarp outside. The sky darkened more, threatening rain. Inside the garage the tape holding the box flaps down yielded to our fingers as we began exploring Shiloh's stash. Elaine started on the right, I on the left, pulling out packing paper, unwrapping dance sticks, kachina dolls, delicate painted pots, beaded bracelets, every conceivable artifact of American Indian culture. From the utilitarian to the exotic, from feathers and fur to elk teeth and turkey bustles, Shiloh had it all.
"Oh, my God," Elaine gasped, digging into a box.
"Did you find it?"
"Depends on your idea of 'it,'" she said, drawing some thing from a cardboard box. "Look at this." Carefully she let a buckskin dress fall from her fingertips. It was a full-beaded Sioux dress, resplendent with blue and silver beads against the soft white buckskin.
"It's beautiful. Haven't you seen it before?"
"No. I've only seen a few of these things. Shiloh was very guarded about her
collection. I always suspected she had some treasures though," Elaine lowered the dress back in the box, pulling the packing material back around it. "Too bad she didn't will it to you. That must be worth a small fortune. I wonder where she got it."
"She had lots of friends among the Indians. But I don't care how much it's worth. It's so incredibly beautiful. I'd almost be afraid to own it."
"Maybe that's why she didn't display her things." I set aside the box I'd been working on, one containing rather plain beaded belt buckles of recent vintage and a couple of watercolors that didn't seem important. "Find anything at all on rock? Carving or painting either?"
"Nothing." Elaine opened another box, using her fingernails. Rain began to fall outside, lightly at first then pounding the roof in earnest. A drip developed, wetting the old wooden roof boards. I shoved a box aside to get it out of the trajectory of the falling water. Elaine began to slow down, pushing her blond curls off her forehead, making little sighing noises. I kept ripping open box after box, hopes rising with each new one only to be dashed as I set it aside for another.
"What good is it going to do if we do find this bluejay thing?!' Elaine sighed, dropping her hands to her sides in disgust. "What good, can you tell me?"
I looked at her. It was a good question, one I had been both struggling with and trying to ignore. I told her all I had figured out. "It will give us a motive for her murder. From motive we find the murderer. We also know Charlotte was looking for it. Then Charlotte may have killed Shiloh." Elaine looked at me, incredulous. "Maybe."
"Maybe, maybe! The only thing I'm sure of is that Shiloh is gone. Dead. I don't know about anything else anymore." Her voice rose like she might be getting ready for a good cry. I tried to think of some comforting words but again they eluded me. "And to think that a wonderful person like Shiloh would die for a stupid slab of stone?! That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard! Why would anyone even want this bluejay pictograph? And kill someone for it? Two people even? I just don't understand--I just don't!"
With that she sat down on the nearest box and buried her face in her hands, not quite sobbing but close to it. I stared at her, feeling inadequate. My heart was worn out with death and all the minor tragedies in its wake. But what had she said? Her words pounded in my head. Why would anyone want the bluejay pictograph! Why would they kill someone for it? Why? Before I knew it I had her hands in mine.
"Come on, Elaine." I pulled her to her feet as she questioned me with her eyes. "We have some phone calls to make."
27
THE GARAGE SMELLED of wet wood and cockroaches in the aftermath of the storm. I wiped the sweat off my face with my shirttail as the tarp floated down over the boxes as it had before. Surveying it, kicking a box or two under the tarp, I sighed and looked at my watch. 8:45. I pulled the string, plunging the garage into darkness.
The two-days-past-full moon didn't stream its welcome light through the dirty panes of glass. Tonight would be starless, moonless, a sky sheathed in gray. The rain had stopped but the humidity rose from the pavement outside as if from a steam iron. Stumbling around the Volkswagen-sized stack of moving boxes, I found my spot in the back. I had restacked the boxes to give me a sheltered hiding spot here. Crouching, immediately damp and uncomfortable, I waited, listening to the night.
Our visitor was thankfully prompt. I heard them talking as they came out the back door of the house. Their voices were too low to catch the words. The wood doors scraped across the weedy dirt as they pulled them open one at a time. I felt the scrape in my guts, tightening. My breath came shallow and quick. Elaine whispered something and the tarp moved by my head, slinking away toward them as they pulled a corner. In another minute I would be exposed. My flashlight felt cool in my hand. I extracted it from my pocket, got my feet under me and stood up.
Click. The beam froze all movement except its own, wagging from side to side, searching until it homed in on the face. Before it settled I growled my line: "Find what you're looking for?"
The flashlight stopped on the face. The round face with the blue eyes and blond curls framing it like a cherub. Elaine. Elaine? She was supposed to-- "What the hell, Elaine?" I hissed.
Her wide eyes blinked furiously, shining with fear, then flicked to her left. From the shadows behind her came another figure, slender but steady with a strong step.
"What the hell indeed." The voice from behind Elaine purred in the darkness. I kicked the box in front of me involuntarily, stumbled, disoriented in the dark, then moved the beam toward the voice, the corner. Cool blue eyes and tinted black hair shone in the light. It was Sylvie. In her hand she held a small gray handgun with the barrel pointed at me.
For what seemed like several minutes we stood pointing our respective weapons at each other. It was ludicrous. My silver chrome flashlight, no bigger than a banana and about as lethal, with postmodern ribbing and a tiny black button. Against her hard, cold steel with imminent projectiles. Ready to fly at me, through me, at any moment depending on the caprices of a slim white finger poised on the trigger. I tried to wrench my eyes away from her finger, to think, to say something, to act. My hand began to shake. I caught the flashlight with the other hand and found Elaine in the darkness.
"What happened?" I whispered stupidly, as if Sylvie were not there. Elaine's eyes shone in the dark as she looked at the gun.
"I'll tell you what happened," Sylvie said smoothly. I spun the beam to her face. She squinted but her smile was pitiless. "Elaine called me back. She warned me about you. We're old friends, Elaine and I. We go way back, don't we, Elaine?" She glanced toward her in the gloom.
"Don't we?"
Elaine scuffed her feet, looking down. "I've been going to Kali for about seven years."
I stared at her. "She's your therapist?"
"Seven years."
The scene before my eyes went hazy for a second. I felt the blood rise to my forehead, throbbing. Why hadn't she said so? "Thanks, Elaine," I spat. "A heap."
"She said no one would get hurt," Elaine squeaked. She glanced at Sylvie. "You said so."
The older woman bared her teeth savagely. "I did, didn't I?" A cold chuckle. "You shouldn't be so trusting, Elaine. We've talked about that many times, haven't we?" The mocking counselor tone was unbearable. The whites of Elaine's eyes flashed toward the light, then at Sylvie, then everywhere. I flicked off the flashlight.
A scuffle in the sudden darkness. I had the advantage since my pupils weren't quite so constricted as theirs. But the boxes made a huge obstacle course, tripping me, sending me at odd angles, awkward. When I struggled upright Sylvie stood beside me, the gun to my ribs.
"What do you want?" I snarled, my fear giving way to anger, betrayal, indignation. How dare she poke a gun barrel into my side? How dare Elaine double-cross me when I was just trying to find her lover/friend's killer? How dare they blame Wade for her madness?
"Are you going to get rid of me like you did Shiloh? Or perhaps a little cleaner, like Charlotte?" My eyes adjusted to the dimness. I surveyed the garage as Sylvie breathed hard by my shoulder. She was no longer so cool and calm.
"I want the pictograph," Sylvie said, her voice low, clipped. "You will find it now." She shoved me into the nearest stack of boxes, keeping the gun leveled at my chest. I had to know about Shiloh.
"Wouldn't Shiloh tell you where it was?" I said. "Is that why you killed her?"
Another twisted chuckle. "Open the box. Find the pictograph for me!" She waved the gun to get me to turn and get to unpacking boxes. It worked. I moved as slowly as humanly possible. Elaine stood paralyzed by the door. I wondered how long it would be until she baited through it.
"Shiloh stole it, didn't she?" I said, trying to get her to talk.
"Shiloh Merkin was a fool. A self-important fool!" Sylvie said behind me. "She wanted to donate the pictograph to the university. Make a great name for herself along the way. When Marcus found it himself. It belongs to Marcus!" The pitch of her voice rose with each exclamation. "Now find it!"
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I opened a box, pulling the tape back slowly and carefully, dropping it at Sylvie's feet. Then I pulled out a wad of old newspaper. "I can't see a thing. It could be in here and I'd never know."
Sylvie considered, then barked, "Elaine, turn on the light."
I picked up the thread of conversation, slim as it was. "But the man who found the bluejay pictograph took it illegally. Tilden has no right to it."
"He has every right to it!" she cried. "No one knew it existed for sixty years. Shiloh was the one with no right to it."
I laid another wad of newspaper aside. "So you killed her?"
Silence. Then Elaine piped up: "Did you, Kali?"
"Find it. Now!" She poked the gun in my ribs from behind. I lurched forward against the box. I wanted to tell her I didn't think it was here. To say I knew nothing. But looking bought me time to think. To figure out a way to get her to talk. I moved the box aside and leaned down to undo the tape on the one underneath. The barrel on my ribs followed me, sure and steady.
"Donating the pictograph would have exposed the cult, wouldn't it? Tilden must have been frantic about that."
Sylvie said nothing, digging the gun into my ribs harder.
"His reputation as a scholar would have been tarnished by her revelations. Dresses up in leather and smears black all over himself. Hops around a campfire under a full moon. Coerces women to join the cult."
"There was no coercion!'! Sylvie hissed. "We had to turn women away. Women we couldn't trust. When we began there was a waiting list of twenty women who wanted to join."
The Bluejay Shaman (Alix Thorssen Mystery Series) Page 21
