The Death of Blue Mountain Cat

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  Rossi’s jaw started to drop, then he snapped his mouth shut. “Then what the hell are you doing here?” Failing to talk to the next of kin was a major deviation from SOP.

  “Wife’s in the hospital, under sedation.”

  “So why aren’t you over there waiting for her to come out of it?”

  “Because I got better things to do.” Thinnes didn’t bother to say that detective Ryan was baby-sitting the wife and would take a statement if she made one. If Rossi was on duty, he should know it.

  “Better than following procedure?” Rossi demanded.

  “You want to take me off the case? Fine with me.”

  “That’d let you off the hook. Forget it. I want this shit cleared up today!” He turned abruptly and stalked out.

  “What’s eatin’ him?” Oster said, mildly.

  “Politics. Murder on the Magnificent Mile gets everyone stirred up.”

  “Shit!”

  “Rolls downhill,” Thinnes agreed.

  About an hour later, Oster said, “Well, Thinnes, looks like you’re two for two on this one.” He put a sheaf of papers on the table, next to the file Thinnes was working out of, and headed for the coffeemaker.

  When he returned and was sitting down, Thinnes asked, “How’s that?”

  “Looks like it might not have been the wife after all.” Thinnes waited; Oster continued. “She’s the one that had all the money. Nobody said Bisti married her for it, but a couple people said it didn’t hurt him any. Everybody I talked to said they were devoted. She had a hundred grand life insurance on him, but that’s chump change for someone in her bracket—from what I gather.

  “If he was screwin’ around, he was pretty damned discreet. Ditto for her. Neither of ’em’s a drinker. I got a call in to Vice on whether he was a high roller.”

  Thinnes nodded. “What about their personal finances?”

  “Separate checking accounts; healthy balances. Every credit card known to man—some rarely used—all current. They own the condo they live in—” Oster shrugged. “Lived in—and Bisti’s studio loft on Wells. Joint.”

  “Let’s go back and see the widow.”

  Ryan was sitting in the hall outside Lauren Bisti’s room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She was reading, but she wasn’t so deep into her book that she didn’t see them coming. She looked tired and relieved to see them.

  “You look like you been run hard and put away wet,” Oster told her.

  She pushed her red-blond hair back from her face. “I do you guys a favor and you insult me. Thanks, Carl.”

  “You are the most beautiful detective at Area Three,” Thinnes said. She grinned. “What’ve you got for us?”

  She hooked her thumb toward Lauren Bisti’s door. “She’s still sleeping off whatever they gave her last night. And I’ve turned away two reporters—one posing as a doctor—and three people claiming to be relatives. Two of ’em named Kent.”

  “They come together?” Thinnes asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Either of them mention the other being here?”

  “Hun-uh. Todd Kent made some kind of noise about being a lawyer and said, ‘We’ll see about that,’ when I told him he couldn’t go in. But he hasn’t come back.”

  “Who was the other relative?”

  “Anne Bisti.”

  “Small world,” Oster said.

  “One more thing, Ryan,” Thinnes said. “She remember what happened?” Ryan shrugged. “Thanks, Ryan. You can take off.”

  Oster took Ryan’s chair. Thinnes went to find the resident they’d spoken with the night before or—failing that—to find someone who could be on hand in case what they asked Mrs. Bisti put her back into shock.

  She was technically awake when they went in with the resident, but wouldn’t have passed a sobriety test. She looked like the faded copy of a beautiful woman. Thinnes and Oster waited while the doctor took her pulse and explained that her visitors were police officers who’d come to ask her questions. They asked him to wait out in the hall or somewhere near by, and he said he’d be at the nurses’ station.

  The room brought last summer back to Thinnes. He’d spent it in the hospital. This hospital. He didn’t remember the ER. He’d been in shock by the time Caleb—unwilling to wait four to sixteen minutes for a fire-department ambulance—had driven him to the emergency entrance. But he remembered the rooms well enough.

  He pushed the memory away with a shudder and said, “Mrs. Bisti, could you tell us what happened?”

  After a long pause, during which she seemed to be trying very hard, she said, “I can’t remember.”

  He gave her more time. When she finally shook her head, he said, “What do you remember?”

  “Going to look for David.” She was sure about that. Then her face registered confusion again. “I don’t remember finding…Something happened to him! What?”

  “Why do you say that?” Thinnes said, trying not to sound like a cynic questioning a suspect.

  “David’s not here,” she said. She sounded like a young child reasoning something out. “And you’re policemen.”

  “Where’s David?” Her voice rose on “David”; she sounded panicky. She grabbed for the call button and pushed it before they could stop her.

  Oster said, “Mrs. Bisti—”

  She ignored him. When the doctor came rushing in, she demanded, “Where’s my husband?”

  In the end, the doctor told her. He looked furious as he glanced from Oster to Thinnes and back—probably thought they should break the news. Then he took her hand in both of his and said, “Your husband’s dead, Mrs. Bisti.” He kept hold of her hand.

  She didn’t seem to hear, at first. Then—as suddenly and completely as ice in a microwave turns to water—her expression changed from fear to misery, and she started to whimper. Thinnes had heard the sound many times during his recovery—the sound of someone in great pain, too heavily drugged to be aware of it.

  She pulled her hand away from the doctor and put it, put both her hands over her face. The whimper became a wail, then a scream, then a serious crying jag during which she curled into the fetal position.

  An Academy Award performance, Thinnes decided. Or maybe real pain. It sometimes got to him that he automatically thought the worst. Occupational hazard. She hadn’t been acting last night, when she went into shock.

  After what seemed like a long time, the doctor said, “I’m going to order her another sedative.”

  Lauren Bisti uncovered her face and said, “No! It won’t bring David back.” She gave a few more involuntary sobs and sat up, pulling the covers up under her chin and shivering, underneath them, as if she were freezing.

  Thinnes stepped closer to the bed and handed her a tissue from a box on the bed stand. She reached a hand out and took it, blew her nose, and wadded the tissue up in her hand. She looked at Thinnes when she asked, “What happened to him?”

  “He was murdered.”

  She put her hand over the lower part of her face and sniffled, then took the hand away and said, “By whom?”

  “We were hoping you could tell us?”

  She shook her head. “What else can I tell you? That would help you find…?”

  He had her go over the two days before the killing. It took a long time. She had to stop, often, to get her crying under control, and she seemed to drift off somewhere from time to time. Nothing she recalled seemed unusual. David hadn’t seemed upset or preoccupied and hadn’t had any threatening calls or visitors.

  Thinnes finally gave her his card and asked her to contact him if she remembered anything else, no matter how trivial. “And we’d like to take a look at your condo and your husband’s studio, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Bisti, to see if we can find any clues as to who might’ve wanted him dead.”

  She seemed to bring her attention back from far away. “What? I’m sorry. Of course. Get me my purse, and I’ll give you the keys.”

  Twenty-Two

  Only the turquoise triangle with it
s tawny cougar curled inside advertised David Bisti’s studio. The door it was mounted on looked like an artist’s door. Made of polished hardwood planks—long sections of trees, seven feet in length and irregular widths—fitted together like puzzle pieces. No handle, bell, or knocker. It took Thinnes some time to locate the keyhole in a seam between the boards.

  “Cute,” Oster said.

  Thinnes thought it was pretty ingenious. When he turned the key, the door swung open noiselessly and with the oiled precision of a safe.

  What they found inside made him stop and wonder.

  The entry hall had a standard, eight-foot ceiling, sandstone walls, and a blue slate floor. The sunset landscape on the wall facing the door was realistic enough to seem like a window into Arizona. Thinnes stared at it a full three seconds before he realized there was a couch below it and other furniture in the room. The painting had Bisti’s signature in the lower right-hand corner. Thinnes wondered why it hadn’t been in the show.

  There were doors to the right of the entry that opened on an office and a john. A door to the right of the painting opened into the studio itself. Oster led the way.

  The room was the size of a basketball court, with a sixteen-foot ceiling interrupted by skylights alternating with can lights for night work. The walls were brick with ten-foot windows facing pricey views of the near North Side, the river, and the Loop. The floor was blue slate. And tree-filled planters divided the space into a work area—with painting and welding supplies, and works in progress; and a conversation area—with expensive-looking furniture, well-stocked refrigerator and bar, and a pond swimming with tiny silver fish. Oster walked around the entire place without saying a word, just shaking his head. Thinnes followed, taking enough notes so he could describe the place in detail in case he ever had to testify about it in court.

  Oster climbed a circular staircase in the southeast corner to a small loft built over the entrance hall.

  “Thinnes, check this out.”

  A king-size water bed was the central feature of the loft. Unmade. Satin sheets. The ceiling above it was a giant mirror. The north side of the loft overlooked the studio through a wrought-iron safety rail made of figures resembling those in Bisti’s sand paintings. Full-length mirrors—including one hiding a closet door—hung on the other walls. Oster headed over to look at an easel facing into a corner while Thinnes crossed to check out the adjoining bath.

  It was as upscale as the rest of the place—whirlpool tub, custom vanity, and fancy toilet. The towels on the bars were clean but not neat—used once or twice. Most of the things in the linen and medicine cabinets were brands you had to go to Fields or Neiman’s for—except the aspirin, razor blades, and toothpaste, and the box of condoms. Large box. Half-gone. The wastebasket was empty.

  Thinnes went back into the bedroom.

  There was nothing of interest in the dresser, closet, or nightstand, not even dust under the bed. There was a wrapper and a used condom in the wastebasket. Thinnes put on one of the latex gloves he habitually carried these days and transferred the wrapper to a plastic evidence bag. He put the condom in a paper envelope and creased its sides so it would stay open for ventilation. He put both containers on the floor near the stair, where he wouldn’t forget them, against the wall so they wouldn’t be stepped on. He made a mental note to have someone check the room for prints before they took the key back.

  “What’s wrong with this picture, Thinnes?” Oster said. He was sitting on the corner of the bed frame, still breathing hard from the exertion of climbing the stair. He’d turned the easel around and was studying the nude portrait-in-progress resting on it.

  Female Cauc. Young. Slim. Brunette. Knock-’em-dead gorgeous. She was lying on a couch in a pose he’d seen in an art book somewhere—a Spanish artist. This picture was as real as a photo. And unsigned. Mrs. Kent.

  “It’s not Bisti’s missus,” Thinnes said.

  Oster said, “Yeah, and modeling isn’t what she told us she does for a living. Maybe we oughtta go ask her about it.”

  “Maybe we should.”

  Twenty-Three

  They located Amanda Kent at Water Tower Place, where she managed a boutique owned by Lauren Bisti.

  “You haven’t caught the son of a bitch yet, have you?” she demanded, when Thinnes handed her his card. She was a tall brunette with a model’s figure and a Cover Girl face that would’ve been beautiful if her pissed-off mood hadn’t been showing.

  If something seems too good to be true…Wasn’t it Caleb’s impression of her that surface was all there was?

  Thinnes said, “We’d like you to come in with us and make a formal statement.”

  They usually didn’t bother with statements from nonwitnesses—and by all accounts, Amanda Kent was that. But the painting in Bisti’s studio changed things. It suggested some beautiful motives. If she’d pose nude for the artist, what else would she do for him? How would the wife react? And the mysterious Irene? Thinnes had seen murder done for lesser reasons.

  Amanda Kent said, “Oh, brother! David’s killed, Lauren has a breakdown, and you want me to drop everything to help you do your job. Why should I?”

  Bitch!

  “You do want to catch Mr. Bisti’s killer?”

  She got her coat—a full-length mink—from the back and told her sales girl she’d be gone an hour.

  They didn’t talk to her on the way to headquarters. She sat in the back seat, clutching her purse on her mink-covered lap, and looked out at the Drive, then at Belmont. When they got to Western and Belmont, Thinnes pulled up by the north door, and Oster got out to open her door for her. She took his courtesy completely for granted, without acknowledging it. She looked bored as she stopped in front of the building door and waited for Oster to catch up and open it, too. Thinnes parked the car.

  Oster had her in an interview room, upstairs, by the time Thinnes rejoined them. Impatience was beginning to replace her boredom—she fidgeted, took a cigarette out of her purse, and tapped it on the package. She let her irritation show when they said she couldn’t smoke in the building. Oster excused himself and went out to take his notes on the other side of the two-way mirror.

  In the interrogation room, Amanda Kent gave Thinnes one-syllable answers to his questions about David Bisti, and told him, “None of your damn business,” when he asked how she got on with Kent. Lauren Bisti, she said, was her best friend as well as her employer.

  To get a sense of her honesty, he asked her a number of questions for which he already knew the answers. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How long did you know Mr. Bisti? Where did you meet him? What time did you get to the museum?

  Then he said, “Would you say Mr. Bisti was attractive to women?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “And were women attractive to him?”

  She smirked. “You know how men are.” When he didn’t answer, she added, “I heard painting wasn’t his only talent.”

  “He fooled around?”

  “I didn’t say it.”

  “Did you ever sleep with him?”

  “That’s a hell of a question! No!” Her eyes tracked sideways, and Thinnes knew she was lying. And that she could tell he knew. She added, “I swear!”

  He wanted to laugh. “You have any idea who might’ve killed Mr. Bisti?”

  “Don’t you think I would’ve told you?”

  “That’s not a yes or no.”

  “No!” This time, she didn’t swear and she was much more convincing.

  “Did Mrs. Bisti know you posed in the nude for her husband?”

  That got her. “Who told you that?”

  “I saw the painting.”

  “I never did,” she said. Thinnes couldn’t tell if she was lying. “David’s little joke. He painted that same picture—the same pose anyway—half a dozen times. I don’t know if anyone actually modeled for him—maybe the woman he went with before Lauren. But I’ll bet he did one of those Naked Maja rip-offs of every woman he tried to seduce. Some of them ev
en fell for it. Lauren did.”

  “Are you saying he painted your head on someone else’s body?” Thinnes demanded. It was hard to swallow.

  “What I’m saying is, he had a great imagination. I think it’s called artistic license.” Her manner said, “Just try and prove I’m lying.”

  He had her write out the gist of her story. When she’d signed it, he added his John Hancock, then offered to have Oster take her home.

  “I’ll take a cab,” she told him. “I wouldn’t go with one of you guys to a bar fight.”

  Twenty-Four

  Thinnes lived in a two-story brick and frame house in Sauganash, near Northeastern Illinois University. North Side. When he got home, there was nobody there but the cat: male, domestic shorthair, twenty-four inches long, ten pounds, yellow eyes, orange striped hair. Thinnes draped his coat and jacket over the newel post at the foot of the stairs, inside the front door, and went into the family room, left.

  There was a couch and a recliner arranged around the fireplace, a healthy ficus by the front window, a coffee table on an area rug in the center of the room, and Rhonda’s office—desk, computer, bookshelf.

  He realized he’d grown uncomfortable in the house since he and Rhonda bought it. Over the years, he’d gotten the feeling it was her house. She’d found it, while he worked overtime to pay for it. She’d decorated it. She did most of the work. He only cut the grass—until Rob was old enough to do it. He’d farmed out anything more complicated to off-duty firemen and the few cops who had another life. As he and Rhonda’d drifted apart, the house had come to seem more alien.

  His enforced stay, recovering from the gunshot wound, had made him face that fact. And deal with it. Little jobs he’d found to do—recalking the tub enclosure, reputtying and painting the kitchen windows, tuck-pointing a few places where the brickwork needed it—had helped him pass the time and given him a feeling for the place he’d never had before. It had finally become home.