The Death of Blue Mountain Cat

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  His stay in the hospital and his recovery had made him face mortality. He’d come around in intensive care with Rhonda—white-faced—holding his hand, and Rob pacing like a caged wolf, and he couldn’t avoid thinking he could’ve died. Rehab was a bitch, too. He hadn’t been as weak or felt as helpless since childhood.

  The cops had come to show their solidarity when he was in the hospital, when he would have liked to just sleep until the pain went away. They came in twos and threes. Even after the doctor forbid visitors, they’d sneaked past the nurses’ station, as if the rules didn’t apply to cops.

  Later, when he was home, there was no one. Oster had come once and, oddly, Jack Caleb—who was a shrink, but not Thinnes’s shrink—had showed up a week later. He’d phoned first and cleared it with Rhonda, then arrived with the cat.

  The cat helped. Skinner—Skinhead to Rob—had come equipped with a carrier, litter box, litter, food, and instructions in the form of a book on the care of cats and training of their owners. Also a book for Skinner: French for Cats—All the French Your Cat Will Ever Need to Know. Skinner didn’t care for it, but Thinnes found it amusing and Rhonda loved it.

  Skinner kept him from going nuts. He hated to admit he’d become attached to a stupid animal that barely tolerated being held and wouldn’t even come when called, but he had. Skinner followed him from room to room and sat next to him on the couch when he watched TV. Which was better than watching alone. Thinnes was sure, though, that Skinner secretly rooted for the Pistons.

  Since the shooting, he found himself hypersensitive to every twitch or ache. Before that he’d been depressed—though he hadn’t thought of the constant, dragged-out feeling as depression. The hospital had given him counseling along with the Darvon, so he could recognize depression now and fight it. But it seemed that when it lifted, he was left with aches and pains and stiff joints that he had never noticed before. “Getting old,” the doctors told him. “Normal for a man your age.” He hadn’t thought of himself as old, not even when Rob said things like: “Dad, when you were a kid—back in the Stone Age—did they have TV?”

  He took naps now. Naps—even as short as twenty minutes—got him through the twenty-four-hour watches that resulted from the city’s astronomical murder rate.

  He put his pager in his shirt pocket, slipped off his shoes, and stretched out on the couch. The pager would wake him.

  He came awake slowly, feeling sleepy and not rested. Skinner was parked by his feet, nearly folded in half in the effort of washing himself. He stopped suddenly and stared at the door. As Thinnes eased himself off the couch, Skinner pulled himself together and tucked his feet and tail beneath him. Like a cop stepping out of his house, he was instantly alert. They both listened as the mailman dropped mail in the box.

  When Thinnes opened the door to get the mail, Skinner streaked through the doorway. Thinnes didn’t bother to try stopping him. He’d come back when he was cold enough. Thinnes kicked the door shut. He looked through the mail as he carried it to the kitchen, then dropped it on the counter by the message pad.

  The message pad reminded him of Rhonda, and he decided to leave her a note:

  Ronnie, High-profile case—working OT. I’ll call later. Love, John

  He hesitated before writing “love.” Not that he didn’t mean it. He adored Rhonda. And he’d never loved another woman. He was just uneasy committing it to paper. It was the commitment part. Years ago, writing her from ’Nam, it’d been easy enough. But it hadn’t meant much then. Now there was so much—baggage was the word he wanted—it was depressing. He left the note taped to the counter.

  He still wasn’t hungry, but he hadn’t eaten since dinner the previous night. He found soup and orange juice in the fridge. While the soup heated, he filled a Big Gulp cup with ice and juice.

  The soup got him through three of Evanger’s old files. Two were familiar—he’d gone through them before—and probably never would be solved. The third was the execution-style killing of a John Doe—someone had penciled John Buck on the folder—found in an alley off Wilson. Single shot to the head from a .25-caliber weapon. American Indian, probable robbery victim. The autopsy report showed that he’d had enough alcohol in his system to be legally drunk. Thinnes could see why no one had given the case much time. Alcoholic Indians—along with alcoholics of other races—were as common in Uptown as rats.

  Ferris had done the initial investigation—just enough work so he could file the case and get on to the next one. “Victim doesn’t match anything from missing persons,” Ferris had written. “Nobody in the neighborhood could ID the ME’s photo. No prints on file.” Thinnes wondered if that meant Ferris had only checked the department’s AFIS or that he’d also contacted NCIC and the Feds. He’d been known to skip the last two on occasion. Thinnes read through the evidence list to see if shell casings had been found. None were listed. He made a note for himself to have a look at the actual evidence to see if Ferris had missed anything in his report.

  Skinner was waiting on the doormat, holding something in his mouth, when Thinnes went to let him in. Thinnes only noticed the contraband as the cat streaked through the doorway. Thinnes followed him into the family room, where he dropped his trophy in the middle of the rug. He stood over it, watching it and watching Thinnes. The mouse was still alive, dazed, and its whole body swayed slightly with the effort to breathe.

  Thinnes said, “Dammit, Skinner!”

  Skinner gave him one of his “What-did-I-do?” looks.

  The mouse took advantage of the distraction to run for cover, scooting under the recliner. Skinner was after it like a tac team after drug dealers.

  Thinnes grabbed his Big Gulp cup and dumped the remaining contents on the roots of Rhonda’s ficus tree. Blocking Skinner, he tipped the chair on its side and shoved it against the wall, making a corner between the wall and chair, simultaneously trapping the exposed mouse. As Skinner leapt onto the chair, Thinnes clapped the cup over the mouse. Gotcha!

  He slid the cup across the floor—carefully, so he wouldn’t crush the mouse’s feet or tail under the edge—to the bookshelf where Rhonda kept her typing paper. There was a pressboard protector sheet in the top of the box, which he removed and slid under the cup.

  “Just like 26th and Cal,” he told Skinner as he carried the captive to the door. “You bring ’em in—” He blocked the frustrated cat while he opened the door and released the mouse outside. “The system cuts ’em loose.”

  Twenty-Five

  When Thinnes got back to Area Three, there was an envelope waiting for him—carefully typed sheets containing detailed descriptions of the cars parked around the museum just after Bisti’s murder, including VIN and sticker numbers, DMV expiration dates, decals, bumper stickers, and body damage. Clipped to the sheets was the DMV printout for the license numbers. On this, two of the entries were circled, and Officer Curtis had noted that the vehicles were also listed on the daily hot sheet. Bisti’s car was on the list, too. A white Lexus. Illinois plate: BLUMTCT. Curtis hadn’t bothered to run the plates on the city vehicles he’d listed, but he’d described both marked and unmarked cars in detail, as well as the squad roll and the fire department ambulance. On the bottom of the printout, Curtis’s partner, Reilly, had noted that Thinnes’s Caprice was currently operating out of the twilight zone as it was still assigned to Area Six.

  Not content with noting parked vehicles, Curtis had called the CTA for the route and unit numbers of buses running the Magnificent Mile in the hours before and after the murder, and had gotten the bus drivers’ vitals. He’d also called cab and limo services for the names and/or addresses of fares going to and from the area at the time. Thinnes was impressed. Thanks—probably—to Reilly, Curtis had a great start on being a good cop.

  When he showed the stuff to Oster, Oster said, “Jesus X. Christ! Son of a bitch is gonna put us outta work.”

  A few minutes later, he asked, “Whaddaya think of Harrison Wingate for a suspect? Bisti seemed pretty determined to show him u
p. How ’bout that for a motive?”

  “Great—for the movies.” Thinnes shrugged. “But I’ll bet if you check, you’ll find he’s got some of the city’s biggest lawyers on his payroll. He threatened to sue him, not kill him.”

  “Satisfaction?”

  “Ruining him’d probably give Wingate a lot more satisfaction—especially watching Bisti’s face when the verdict came down. Apparently he left before the murder—at least no one mentioned seeing him around.”

  “I think we oughta go lean on him anyway. He hasn’t complied with our request to come in and talk.”

  “Good point. What’ve we got on him?”

  Oster flipped through the pile of notes he’d been making as he talked on the phone to various sources. “Harrison Wingate. Fifty-eight years old. Divorced—three times. Head of Wingate Construction. He’s Irish, by the way. Born here. Mother’s name was Hanrahan. Big spender. Likes to drink and gamble, but apparently can quit while he’s ahead—he’s got a clean record with the underground credit bureau. No name check on criminal history. No wants or warrants. Not enough unpaid parking tickets to get the boot. Name didn’t ring any bells with the Crime Commission or the Feds. A real straight-up guy.”

  “Who’s his chinaman?”

  “Nobody said. But if he’s in construction…”

  Oster didn’t have to finish. Being in construction in Chicago meant having political connections or adding a hefty percentage to your bid to cover payoffs for unions, inspectors, and the folks who issue permits. Thinnes knew something about that. His father had been in construction. He’d refused to take jobs in the city just because of the underground “fees.”

  Of course you didn’t have to pay. You could spend weeks of your time traipsing from rude to indifferent clerk and standing in lines Downtown, getting wrapped up in more and more red tape until, by the time you were done, you felt like a fly at a spider’s picnic. And that was just the beginning. The city has some of the toughest building codes in the country, maybe on the planet. Codes written to protect the public. Codes used as a license to steal. He didn’t know the current rate, but you’d better budget for plenty, because there were lots of inspectors. And lots of inspections. And God help you if you didn’t have reliable subs, because that meant dealing with slugs from the unions. It was amazing anything ever got built.

  They tracked Wingate to a South Loop building site that brought Bisti’s installation, Progress, to mind. Though surrounded by streets, skyscrapers, and the usual mural-covered fence, instead of desert, it was the same building, in almost the same stage of construction. Bisti must’ve painted it from life or a damned detailed photo. Except there was a forklift, a crane, and a Komatsu loader instead of a tractor. And there were no bones—Thinnes looked.

  When they flashed their stars, the mug doing the half-assed job guarding the gate pointed them toward an old construction trailer with its well-worn sign over the door—OFFICE. The trailer seemed familiar—like the one Thinnes had practically lived in all the summers he was growing up. Inside, the only difference from the trailer of Thinnes’s memory was the plastic-draped computer system. The rest was all familiar: gloves—the brown jersey disposables and leather—invoices, and odd tools and parts covered the metal desk; lengths of chain, a wall phone, a come-along, coils of rope, and industrial-strength electrical cable decorated the walls; cans marked GAS and DIESEL, picks and shovels, a welding rig with extra cylinders of oxygen and acetylene, and surveyor’s equipment stood in the corners; and boxes and barrels of other supplies were stacked along the walls. Three old folding chairs occupied the muddy space around the coffeemaker, and there were half a dozen hard hats with the Wingate Construction logo stacked on the drafting table.

  The office was occupied: male Cauc, sixty maybe, five ten, 170 pounds, near-white hair, and faded blue eyes in a face the color of an old catcher’s mitt. He was wearing jeans, worn work boots, and waffle underwear under a plaid flannel shirt and filthy sheepskin vest. His scarred, grimy white hard hat had GIBBS stenciled on it.

  Oster held up his star. “We’re looking for Harrison Wingate.”

  As he studied the star, Gibbs took his pipe and tobacco pouch from a vest pocket. He pointed out a filthy window with the pipe stem, at the freight elevator ferrying supplies upward. “Thirty-sixth floor. Meetin’ the architects.” He started filling the pipe.

  Thinnes said, “Thanks,” and opened the trailer door. The roar of the loader rushed in.

  “You fellows planning to go up there…” Gibbs raised his voice to make it heard over the machine. He pointed to the pile of hard hats. “Better get you some hats.”

  They took the freight elevator up. The thirty-sixth floor was nowhere near the top, but it was the highest floor that had windows yet—no small consideration in the Windy City in November.

  Even with windows, it was cold. As his head came even with the deck, Thinnes could see three men. Two wore expensive coats and hard hats like those he and Oster had been issued. One was carrying a briefcase, the other a portable computer and a rolled blueprint. Architects. The third man was hatless but otherwise dressed like Gibbs. Thinnes recognized him immediately—Todd Kent had been yucking it up with him in front of the security camera just before Bisti got punctured. He had to be Harrison Wingate. The impression of power Thinnes had gotten from the security video was confirmed by the man himself. Wingate had clout.

  He took the two detectives for salesmen at first—probably because of the hats. He waved at them before they even got off the elevator. “Not now. Give your cards to the foreman.”

  Thinnes opened the safety gate, stepped onto the deck, and flashed his star. “We did. We still need to talk to you.”

  Irritation showed briefly on Wingate’s face. “Shoot.” He had heavy jaws in a square face. His expression could have been a grin or a sneer, but laugh lines around his eyes made it seem like he was enjoying some private joke. Up close, he seemed even bigger than when he’d been towering over the architects.

  “In private,” Oster said.

  Wingate shrugged and pointed toward the other side of the deck. “Come into my office.”

  He was referring to the only other part of the thirty-sixth floor that wasn’t piled head high with construction supplies. It was obviously the “lunchroom,” littered with trash from every fast-food place in the Loop. And Wingate hadn’t been kidding about it being an office. Building plans were rolled out and weighted at the corners on a four-foot-high pile of four-by-twelve drywall sheets. Miscellaneous junk, like the stuff in the office below, lay around on the plans. Someone had taped Wingate’s hard hat, stenciled with his name and the slogan ONE WAY MY WAY, to the makeshift table with duct tape and added a note: BREAK SEAL IN CASE OF OSHA ATTACK.

  Wingate stopped in the center of the open space and turned to face them. “Time is money, gentlemen.”

  Oster said, “Tell us about David Bisti.”

  “He’s a fucking pain in the ass.” Wingate squinted and laughed like a man who wants you to know he appreciates a good joke but doesn’t think this one is especially funny. He planted his rump on a low pile of empty wooden pallets and pointed to another pile. “Have a seat.” He seemed amused, and something about him reminded Thinnes of a big cat. Alert. Waiting for something to show itself so he could pounce on it.

  They waited.

  Finally he said, “How ’bout you just get to the point.”

  Oster said, “Bisti’s dead.”

  “No kidding!” Wingate seemed more amused than surprised. “Somebody kill him?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Would you be wasting your time or mine if he ran his car into a bus?”

  “Where’d you go after you left the museum last night?”

  “The Berghoff.”

  “With?”

  “Prospective investors. Gibbs’ll give you the names.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “We closed the place.” He studied their faces. “That cover it?”


  “You know anybody who’d want to kill Bisti?”

  “I didn’t know him—never laid eyes on him before last night. So I’d have no idea who’d want to kill him—besides whites and Injuns. But let me take a guess. Developers? Booze distributors? And everybody I talked to at the museum was pretty steamed.”

  Wingate grinned, and Thinnes could tell he was enjoying himself. His charm made you not take his outrageous statements too seriously. He was probably a big success with women.

  “Why?” Thinnes said.

  “Huh! Haven’t you seen that crap he called art? Just go over to the museum and take a good look. You got any imagination at all, you’ll come up with a whole roster of suspects.”

  “What was the nature of the business you had with Todd Kent?”

  “I don’t know any Todd Kent.”

  “You were seen talking to him at Bisti’s show.”

  “I talk to a lot of people. Doesn’t mean I know all of ’em.”

  “You didn’t know Bisti?”

  “No. And that makes his character-assassination scheme all the more bizarre.”

  “Why did you go to the reception?”

  “It was a setup. Somebody told me a guy I’ve been trying to interest in a project would be there. And—what the hell—I’d never seen any of Bisti’s crap before, so when I got the invitation, I decided to go. Somebody figured to annoy me. Figured right.”

  They waited for him to say more. That was a big part of interviewing—waiting. The wind tore through the open levels above, whipping a plastic sheet into a frenzy.

  “Funny,” Wingate said, finally. “I didn’t hear anything about it on the news. But then they were so busy telling us about some alleged sex abuse that might have happened twenty years ago, they probably didn’t have time. How’d he get it? Somebody shoot him?”