The Death of Blue Mountain Cat

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  Wang was the manager of Caleb’s condo. He was efficient and discreet and would never contact Caleb at work for a trivial reason. Caleb’s only client for the afternoon had canceled, so he decided to go see Wang. When he entered the lobby of his building, the doorman handed him a note from the building manager. “Please see me at your earliest convenience. Thomas Wang.”

  Wang was in his office, and he looked very relieved when he opened the door for him. “Doctor, so good of you to respond promptly. You received an…animal.” With a sweep of his hand, he indicated a small, wire-and-plastic animal shipping crate in the center of his oriental carpet. Affixed to the outside of the carrier was an envelope. Caleb opened it and read:

  29 November

  Dear Jack,

  Tampa is exquisite! Divine weather, beaches with sand white as granulated sugar and littered with bronze gods, water warm as blood, brilliant, saturated colors. The rocks could have been sculpted by Henry Moore. It’ll take ten years to pay for all the film I’ve exposed. If I didn’t have the show coming up, I’d never come back. You must come.

  But you won’t. So here’s a little souvenir. I rescued it from a pack of SAVAGE urchins. But then what? I know I can trust you to keep it safe or, at least, dispose of it in a P.C. manner. It’s had all its shots—courtesy of a divine DVM I met on the beach. (I’m going to immortalize him—or at least parts of him.).

  Anyway, I’ll be here another week if you change your mind.

  Ciao.

  love,

  Jeremy

  Health and rabies-vaccination certificates accompanied the shipping manifest in another attached envelope.

  The crate contained a tiny kitten, white underneath, with bright splotches of orange and black above. It had a white blaze on its face, yellow eyes, and long, graceful, white whiskers. Caleb picked it up—her, he noted—and put his hand under her. The kitten planted all four tiny feet on it and tucked her tail around them. Looking around, she took in the room as if Caleb’s hand was her usual observation post and his assistance her right. He laughed. So perhaps, Freud had his friend.

  He turned to Wang. “Would you mind putting the crate down by my storage space?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Thank you.”

  The kitten was asleep by the time Caleb got upstairs with her. Inside, he put her on the floor by the door, and she stood at his feet, scanning the room with eyes and ears and nostrils.

  Freud was not amused. He sauntered into the room like Abdul Aziz surveying his domain. He ignored Caleb, who’d had the nerve to arrive home at an odd time, and sat in the center of the Harati doing his Sultan of Turkey routine.

  Then he spotted the kitten and switched, instantly, into hunter/killer mode. His eyes widened as he crouched. His tail whipped from side to side. He froze.

  The kitten, who’d been watching this performance with great interest, toddled forward.

  Freud pounced but landed just short of the smaller cat. His hair stood up. His mouth opened in a snarl.

  The kitten beat him to the attack. Simultaneously, she fluffed her hair out—doubling her apparent size—and hissed and struck Freud with her needle claws. Almost faster than Caleb could follow, her tiny paw batted the larger cat.

  Freud retreated with a face-saving hiss.

  Caleb laughed and picked the kitten up, all fears for her safety vanished. And as he stroked her to settle her ruffled temper, he told her, “I think we’ll call you Psyche.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Eastbound on Belmont, waiting for the light to change, Thinnes noticed the bumper sticker on the rusty Econoline stopped in front of their unmarked car. I GOT A GUN FOR MY WIFE—BEST TRADE I EVER MADE. The van had Michigan plates.

  He was about to point it out to Oster when his partner said, “That kid’s up to something.” He jerked his head in the direction of an Hispanic male, five three or four, about eleven years of age, loitering two storefronts east.

  Truancy, if nothing else, Thinnes agreed. Two elderly women waiting at the bus stop seemed to be the objects of the kid’s interest. One was built like a brick shit house, and a pro tackle would have hesitated to confront her. The other was a purse snatcher’s dream, tiny and feeble. “See if there’re any wants—” The rest of his sentence was cut off by the horn blaring from the car behind their own.

  The light had changed. The line of traffic started up, and the Econoline took off. Thinnes glanced in his rearview and saw the guy in the car behind theirs giving him the finger with his right hand, leaning on the horn with his left. Thinnes glanced toward the kid they’d been watching and saw him disappear into an alley midblock. The jerk behind them kept honking.

  “That does it!” Thinnes jammed the gearshift into park and opened his door. As he rolled out of his seat, the honking stopped. Stoplight-red Chevy Cavalier, he noted. Not new but clean, Illinois plate, current city sticker.

  The offender rolled his window down as Thinnes approached his car and yelled, “Move it, asshole!” Westbound traffic slowed. Gawkers. Thinnes waved them on. He put his left hand on the roof of the car and leaned over the window. White male, midtwenties, medium build, probably medium height.

  “Are you in need of assistance?” Thinnes asked.

  “Move your fucking car, asshole.”

  Below-average intelligence, Thinnes added to his mental inventory. Even the street kid recognized the Caprice as an unmarked police car—half a block away. Thinnes flipped open the right side of his jacket so the offender could see the star fixed to his belt. He kept his voice even. “Detective Asshole, to you, pal.”

  The man paled. “I didn’t realize…” He seemed more disturbed by the discovery than the situation warranted. “I’m sorry, Officer Aa— I was just in a hurry. I’m late. Sir.”

  And you’re gonna be later, Thinnes thought. He said, “Step out of the car, please.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Out of the car!” Thinnes kept his right hand above his belt—not too far from his piece—as he opened the car door with his left. He kept his eyes on the subject.

  The man sat with his hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead. No doubt weighing his options.

  Thinnes put a hard edge in his voice. “Do it now!” As the subject started to comply, Thinnes said, more softly, “Keep your hands where I can see them.” He backed up as the subject stood up. “Turn around. Lean forward and put your hands on the roof. Spread your feet.” The man complied slowly. “You have any needles on you, or anything that might hurt me if I search you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. I’m going to do a quick check of your jacket, then we’ll talk.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “You’re temporarily detained.” As he spoke, Thinnes did a quick pat down. No weapons. “Okay, step around here.” He pointed to the space between the Cavalier and the Caprice, which now had its portable blue Mars light flashing—Oster doing his part. With his peripheral vision, Thinnes could see him talking on the radio.

  Motorists behind the Cavalier were backing up to go around them. No one else honked. “See your license?” Thinnes asked the offender.

  The man took out his wallet and handed over his license. Thinnes watched him while pretending to study it. Mark Leon. Address on North Kenmore.

  Oster got out of the squad and started back toward them.

  “This your car?” Thinnes asked Leon.

  Leon was watching Oster. “Ah, no. My girlfriend’s.”

  “She have a name?”

  Leon dragged his attention back to Thinnes. He was sweating although it was cold enough for his breath to form a cloud around his head. Thinnes wondered why.

  “Listen, what’d I do?”

  Oster said, “Car’s registered to—”

  Thinnes shook his head sharply, cutting Oster off, and said, “Well?” to Leon.

  “You checked the registration. You know her name.” He spoke to Oster, who didn’t answer. Oster sidled along the passenger’s side
of the Cavalier peering in the windows. He spotted something and gave Thinnes a thumbs-up.

  Thinnes said, “The question is, Mr. Leon, do you know her name?”

  Leon’s eyes darted from side to side. “What?”

  Planning to make a break, Thinnes decided. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?” He kept talking, not letting Leon have time to think clearly, not letting him watch Oster open the car door and start his search. “You don’t remember your girlfriend’s name?”

  Before Leon could answer, Oster said, “Look what I found.” He came toward them holding up a plastic bag of a dried plant material. “Bet this isn’t catnip.”

  Suddenly Leon dived toward the space between Thinnes and the unmarked car. But Thinnes was ready. He grabbed Leon’s left wrist with one hand and the shoulder of his jacket with the other, using the man’s own momentum to swing him around and slam him onto the Cavalier’s hood.

  Oster stepped to Leon’s other side, moving quickly for a man of his bulk, and pinioned the suspect’s right hand behind his back.

  “Nice try,” Thinnes told the prisoner. “Close, but no cigar.” He snapped the cuffs on him and frisked him more thoroughly while Oster called for backup.

  “I haven’t done anything!” Leon snarled, as Thinnes opened the back door of the Caprice for him.

  Oster held up the plastic bag.

  “That’s my girlfriend’s stuff.”

  “What’s her name, Mr. Leon?” Thinnes asked.

  “You had no probable cause to stop me!”

  “What’re you, a lawyer?” Oster demanded.

  “I know my rights. You got no case.”

  “How about interfering with the police?”

  “I want to talk to a lawyer.”

  Thinnes started to say, “Get in,” when he was interrupted by a stream of profanity from the bus stop that would have done credit to a teamster. An old, rusty voice. The smaller of the two older women they’d seen earlier was swearing like a stevedore as she and her heftier companion struggled with the previously observed juvenile, trying to drag him toward Thinnes and Oster. “Police!” the larger woman yelled.

  The kid kicked at his captor’s ankle and jerked free when she flinched away. He took off.

  Leon leaned forward from the waist and said, “Yeah!” Both Thinnes and Oster grabbed him and hustled him onto the sidewalk closer to the action.

  “Get him!” both women screamed at the detectives, pointing after the kid. When they didn’t immediately take off running, the smaller woman screeched, “You worthless bastards! You’re wasting time on speeders while God-fearing women are attacked under your noses.”

  “You tell ’em, Grammaw,” Leon urged.

  She charged closer and snarled at him. “You shut your yap.”

  “Just our luck,” Oster told Thinnes.

  Thinnes shrugged. “It corroborates the police investigation we were conducting.”

  “Thinnes,” Oster said, “they warned me not to get involved with you.” When Thinnes didn’t answer, he sighed. “I’ll call for backup.” He climbed into the Caprice to use the radio, leaving the door open while he talked. By the time he’d finished transmitting, Thinnes had heard more than anyone would ever want to know about the purse snatching. There’d been smaller ruckuses raised over bank robberies. Thinnes was a captive audience, standing holding Leon’s arm to prevent him from bolting.

  Oster got out of the car rubbing his hands like a used-car salesman with a likely prospect. “Maybe you ladies would like to sit in the backseat of our car—to stay warm?”

  They decided they would, and Oster closed them in with relief.

  “What about me?” Leon demanded.

  “You can sit in there with ’em if you like.”

  Patrol took forever to show up, but when they did, they had the purse snatcher in the back seat. They’d heard Oster’s initial call, one of the officers explained, about wants on a juvenile suspect fitting the detainee’s description. When they saw him come running out of the alley with a woman’s purse, they’d picked him up. Then they’d heard Oster call in the crime.

  “Nice work,” Oster told them.

  In the back of their car, the little woman—Thinnes was starting to think of her as a human mynah bird—started bouncing up and down, banging on the window and demanding to be let out, promising, “I’ll kill him!”

  “They’re all yours,” Thinnes told the beat coppers. “You got the offender, there are your victims.”

  “Jesus,” one of them said.

  “Your reward for fast, efficient service.”

  When they got back to Area Three, Thinnes and Oster split up. Oster went to get lunch. Thinnes left Leon to cool off in an interview room while he did his paperwork—case report, arrest report, and complaints. When he’d had them approved by the Watch Commander, he took Leon to the lock-up.

  “Run his prints,” Thinnes told the booking officer. “It’d be nice to get the paperwork done before this guy’s back in circulation. And just maybe there’s an outstanding warrant on him.”

  Before he went upstairs, he stopped at the District Nineteen desk and showed the sergeant the Cavalier’s registration. “You got a car you can send over to look for this woman and ask if she loaned her car to anyone?”

  Up in the squad room, he started on a warrant to search the Cavalier. Jolene Wilson, the “girlfriend” Leon hadn’t been able to name, was the car’s owner of record. Or maybe an unrecorded victim. Maybe the real owner of the dope. Thinnes didn’t much care. He was more than sorry he’d ever gotten involved, but he had to follow through, if for no other reason than to prevent some shyster lawyer from suing for false arrest on Leon’s behalf.

  If he had time, Thinnes always wrote the text of his search warrants out on scrap paper so he wouldn’t have to revise on the typewriter. It made them look more professional. He was halfway through transcribing the narrative when Oster came into the squad room with McDonald’s for the two of them.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Search warrant for Jolene Wilson’s car.”

  Oster dropped his bag on the table. “Are you crazy?”

  Thinnes looked to be sure Oster was really listening. “Leon was too nervous for just a little grass. He’s into something heavy. Trust me on this.”

  “I’m trying.” Oster eyed the polystyrene cup next to the typewriter. “You want a refill?”

  “Thanks. Hey, five bucks says Wilson never loaned her car out.”

  Oster shook his head. “No deal.”

  As Thinnes was reading over the finished draft of the search warrant, Rossi came in waving a sheet of paper. “What we got here is a bust for petty theft. Juvenile—he won’t even do time. And possession of marijuana—probably a misdemeanor amount. For this you guys tied up two detectives and a beat car for half a day?”

  “Two beat cars,” Thinnes said mildly. “Can’t transport victims and suspects in the same car.”

  “And you still haven’t figured out who killed the Indian. Either one,” he added before anyone could ask which.

  “That’s about it.”

  “I’m having you transferred!”

  “That a promise?”

  “What’s a promise is you better have Bisti’s killer on the wall by the end of the week or I’m having you transferred—to crowd control at the Harold Washington Library. And I’m not authorizing any overtime—you don’t need it if you got time for this bullshit!”

  “Are you asking me to avoid doing my sworn duty to uphold all the laws just because I happen to be assigned to Violent Crimes?”

  “You? Shit! Cut that asshole loose and get back to work.”

  “Maybe you’d better put that in writing.”

  “I put anything in writing, it’ll be writing you up for insubordination.”

  Thinnes didn’t say anything more, just looked at Rossi until he turned and walked out of the room. Then he went back to reading his search warrant.

  The phone rang and, when Thin
nes picked it up, the booking officer asked, “Detective, you want me to cut this guy loose?”

  “Nope,” Thinnes said. “We’re going to throw the book at him.”

  The judge didn’t consider Thinnes’s hunches probable cause, but he liked to hear them anyway—so he said. He was swayed by the fact that Mark Leon had had a controlled substance in his possession and was unable to name the owner of the car he’d been driving.

  Thinnes had put drugs and guns in the warrant as a matter of course.

  “He really has no standing to challenge a search,” the judge said, “but I can see where you might want your evidence admissible if Ms. Wilson turns out to be involved.”

  Thinnes nodded, and the judge signed the paper with a flourish.

  “What’d ya bother with this for?” Sergeant Houlihan of the motor pool handed the warrant back to Thinnes. “You wanna see what’s in a car, just ask. Nothing in here I can’t open.”

  “The term ‘inadmissible’ mean anything to you?”

  Houlihan raised his hands and waved them at Thinnes. “Waste of time—you look. You find something, then you get a warrant.”

  Thinnes didn’t bother to argue. He followed Houlihan to where the red Cavalier was parked and held his hand out for the key. Oster, who seemed fed up enough to walk out, said nothing to anyone.

  Thinnes inserted the key and popped the trunk. Before he could even look, Houlihan said, “Christ!”

  “Shit!” Oster said.

  Thinnes looked down at the human form wrapped in sheets of polyethylene, trussed with clothesline cord. “I believe we’ve located Jolene Wilson.”

  Forty

  Jolene Wilson’s mother lived in an old, yellow brick building that was wrapped around a small dirt courtyard cut in half by a cracked cement walk. The Wilson apartment was in the rear with its front windows facing Belle Plaine over the court. The lobby was typical for the building’s age—walls darkened by years of neglect, wainscoting by countless coats of old varnish. The space smelled of mildew. The white, octagonal ceramic floor tiles were stained and cracked. The lightbulb was dead in its high ceiling fixture overhead. One mailbox in the bank of six had been pried open. Few of the doorbells were intact; loose wires poked from the hole next to the Wilson name. 3B.