The Death Of Blue Mountain Cat Part 20

"Hold on to it," Thinnes told him. "Someone'll be by later to pick it up."

His next call was to Ballistics. As soon as he said, "Thinnes, Area Three," the tech told him, "We're working on it, Detective. Check back this afternoon."

"You're not working on anything of mine," Thinnes said. He'd gotten the ballistics report for the Wilson case the day after the autopsy. "I wanted to ask you to check an old open case as soon as you get time."

"What?" He sounded tired.

Thinnes gave him the number of Ferris's John Buck case and said, "The MO matches that John Doe we had recently. Maybe you could compare the slugs and see if we've got the same shooter." He gave him the John Doe case number.

The tech sighed. "Yeah. Okay. We'll get on it."

"Thanks." Thinnes put the tox report into the Uptown Indian's case folder and went out to talk to the state's attorney.

Ferris was gone by the time Oster showed up. "What're we doin' today?" he asked. Neither of them commented on the fact that they weren't scheduled to be in for hours and, consequently, weren't on the payroll.

"I was about to bring the commander up to speed on the Wilson and Bisti cases." He meant the commander of Area Three detectives.

"You want me to come?"

"Not unless you want to."

"Not particularly. You got something else for me to do?"

"Feel like going Downtown?"

Oster shrugged.

"I need an old case file from Records." He gave Oster the case number.

"Yeah, okay. I'll do that. You want I should ask about the tox report on Wilson?"

"They'll fax it to us when it's ready. It isn't as if we don't have enough to hold him on without it."

"Then why am I going all the way Downtown for one lousy, old case report?"

"I'd like you to personally take it up to Fingerprints and have them run the victim through NCIC."

"Why?" He meant, Why, when that's been done already, or should have been?

"It was Ferris's case."

"Say no more."

"Same MO as our Uptown Indian."

Thinnes spent exactly twenty minutes with the CO, then had the next two hours free. He and Swann went to lunch at a sit-down restaurant where they could get a steak sandwich and a beer. They were in good spirits when they got back. Oster, on the other hand, came back from 11th and State looking so dragged out that Thinnes was sorry he'd sent him. He had a McDonald's bag with him that he put on a table and tore open. He got himself coffee before he started in on his Big Mac.

Swann hung up the phone and finished jotting something on a piece of paper. "Hey, you guys know there was such a thing as a Navajo Tribal Police?"

Thinnes was getting coffee. "No," he said, "but it makes sense." He brought his cup over to where Swann was sitting.

"He sounded like he knew what he was doing. Use-ly, when you're dealin' with some podunk sheriff's department, you got a better chance of gettin' somethin' from Deputy Dawg than from Deputy Redneck."

"An Indian tribal police force probably doesn't have any rednecks."

"That'd explain it."

"How 'bout you guys just cut the c.r.a.p," Oster said. He glared at Swann. "Just tell us what you found out."

Swann gave him a what's-with-you look, which he ignored, then shrugged. "The s.h.i.+pping company you asked them to check out-near Farmington-from the phone number you found on your victim, the Uptown Indian? Officer Tso told me, as far as he's been able to find out, it's legit. According to the owner, they haven't s.h.i.+pped anything to Chicago in the last two months. They do send art supplies to Wisconsin. Regularly."

"What kind of art supplies?" Thinnes asked.

"According to the s.h.i.+pping manifests, clay, clay slip, glazes, and botanical dyes. That kind of stuff."

"He give you the address?"

"Yeah." Swann handed Thinnes the paper.

"I don't suppose they're missing any citizens?"

Swann shook his head. "None matching your Uptown Injun."

Forty-Four.

Sat.u.r.day morning Rhonda had to work, so Thinnes's hopes of a day alone with her were dashed. He followed her around the house until she was ready to leave, then asked Rob if he'd like to go to Wisconsin. Rob wasn't interested; Thinnes left alone.

Before hitting the highway, he stopped in at headquarters and went over the Uptown Indian file. In case he'd missed anything. And out of habit.

When he went back out to start his Chevy, it gave a discouraging groan, followed by the stomach-churning click of a dead battery. d.a.m.n! He spent the better part of an hour trying to get the car started, borrowing jumper cables and b.u.mming jumps. It was freezing; the car kept dying. Finally, he gave up and went inside.

"What d'ya 'spect?" Mike asked, when Thinnes called. "Gotta get serviced now 'n' then."

Thinnes arranged to have the car towed to Mike's shop, on Fullerton, and left the key at the District Nineteen desk. He'd just walked back into the detectives' squad room when the sergeant said, "Phone for you, Thinnes."

He picked it up and said, "Area Three detectives. Thinnes."

"John," a familiar voice said.

Thinnes racked his brain for a name to put with the voice. Jack Caleb!

"Rob told me you'd gone to Wisconsin for the day. I was going to leave a message."

"My car broke down," Thinnes told him. "Looks like I'll have to go another time. What can I do for you?"

"Would you like me to drive you?"

Thinnes said, "Why?" without thinking. "That's not why you called. You don't even know where I'm going."

"Sun Prairie. Rob told me."

"Why? And why'd you call?"

"Why not?"

Refusing to be sucked into the I-asked-you-first trap, Thinnes waited.

Finally Caleb added, "My car could stand the break from city driving, and I haven't anything better to do this afternoon."

Thinnes suddenly felt very strange. He hadn't really worked out how he felt about the idea of being alone with Caleb for any length of time. Intellectually, he was aware that he and the doctor weren't so different, but his gut feeling was- He still wasn't sure what he felt about him.

Caleb had brought the cat to the house and stopped by several times to see how it was doing, but most of their conversations were strictly business, especially now that the doctor was a department consultant.

"Why did you call?" Thinnes repeated.

"I was wondering what progress you'd made on David Bisti's murder."

"I wish I could say we were getting close, but we've run out of leads."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I'm serious about the lift. And I'd be happy to let you drive."

Caleb drove a Jaguar. XJS 4.0 liter coupe. Silver-blue. This year's model. Thinnes usually had contempt for yuppie cars and their drivers, but he knew Caleb was very good. He was relieved, though, when the doctor got out of the car and walked around to get in on the pa.s.senger's side.

The car had a manual transmission. As a kid, working for his dad, Thinnes had driven a pickup truck-and d.a.m.n near every other vehicle used in construction-so the Jaguar's gears.h.i.+ft didn't throw him. But it still took a few blocks to get used to it.

The doctor leaned back in the corner between the door and the seat and watched him without commenting, even when Thinnes ground the gears going into third. By the time they hit the Kennedy, Thinnes was s.h.i.+fting up and down automatically and could concentrate on traffic. The car was a pleasure to drive, responsive and comfortable. He could see why someone with the cash would own one. He had to fight himself to keep from doing Daytona as they spun north off the Kennedy, onto the Edens.

Traffic increased and Thinnes was forced to slow down. As they pa.s.sed the Touhy exit, he pointed to the CD player. "You got any disks for that?"

"Yes," Caleb said. "But how do you feel about opera?"

"Forget it."

"What have you found out, so far, about David's killer?"

There wasn't much to tell-nothing new. Beyond saying that the lead they were following wasn't part of it, Thinnes didn't go into detail about his reason for going to Wisconsin. He did confirm that his supervisor had refused to authorize the use of a department car for the trip. Caleb was as good a listener as any of the best d.i.c.ks Thinnes knew. They quickly exhausted weather-standard for the Midwest; sports-they were in agreement about the Bulls, the Bears, and the Cubs, and neither gave a d.a.m.n about hockey; and current events-the Cardinal didn't do it, but the Rock Star probably did.

For a while, after that, they rode in silence-Caleb staring out at the winter-yellow scenery; Thinnes appreciating the merits of the Jaguar as he maneuvered it around lesser vehicles. He could easily see the horsepower going to his head, like a drug. He backed off the accelerator and said, "Have you always had money?"

"I suppose by most people's standards. Yes. My father's a surgeon. And, as a workaholic..." He paused, then laughed. "The first accident I ever had, I wrapped his Cadillac around a tree."

"My old man drives a '75 Ford F150. Changes the oil every two thousand miles. He's had bodywork done on it-twice-but he won't even consider getting a new one."

North of Waukegan the land flanking the highway began to look and smell more like farm country-miles of yellow gra.s.s; paler, stubble-striped cornfields; and hedgerows of naked trees poking through threadbare snowdrifts. "What made you decide to become a shrink?" Thinnes asked.

"'Nam."

"How's that?"

"My father always wanted me to be a surgeon. We didn't get along, so, naturally, I planned to do anything else."

Caleb paused. Thinnes let the silence be.

"I was majoring in history when I was drafted, registered as a CO. One of the geniuses who a.s.signs PhDs to the motor pool must've found out my father was a doctor and decided that would make me a natural medic. It made sense, in a Catch-22 sort of way. I forced myself to learn to do it well, and I kept my sanity by studying my buddies' descents into madness.

"After the war, rebelling against my father seemed trivial, and I had to find something useful to do with my life. Since they wouldn't let me practice psychiatry without a medical license, I put aside the oedipal thing and applied to med school."

Thinnes had known plenty of guys who'd had their lives changed, their middle-cla.s.s values challenged, by the war. Some had been sobered and tempered by it, others broken.

"I was drifting through cla.s.ses at Oakton Community College," he said, "trying to decide on a major that would fit with my half-a.s.sed plan to go to work for my dad when I finished. I never gave police work a thought until I was drafted. I spent my year in 'Nam in Saigon, as an MP."

North of the state line, traffic thinned, and the green highway signs announced places like Sturtevant and Franksville. Signs on the right-of-way said, WISCONSIN ARRESTS DRUNK DRIVERS, FIREWORKS, and $500 FINE FOR THROWING LITTER OR TRASH ON HIGHWAY-KEEP WISCONSIN CLEAN. They took the 894 bypa.s.s, around Milwaukee, and continued toward Madison on I-94, pa.s.sing exits for exotic places like Heartland, Wales, and Oconomowoc. Snow covered the fields and rights-of-way, but the road was clear and in good shape. Just past the Lake Mills, Waterloo, Aztalan State Park exit, they were doing close to eighty when Caleb said, "John, I think we're being followed."

Thinnes glanced in the rearview and felt the twinge of panic motorists always get when they spot the flas.h.i.+ng lights. Police. Wisconsin state troopers. Men rumored to give each other tickets.

He signaled and pulled over. The trooper sat in his car for a while-no doubt checking the registration-before he got out. Caleb was decent enough to not comment.

Thinnes rolled down the window and pa.s.sed his driver's license through. He stared at the highway while the trooper studied the license, his breath condensing in the frozen air.

Finally he said, "What brings you fellas up our way?"

"We're on a little hunting expedition," Thinnes said.

"You have a hunting license?" He didn't point out that it wasn't hunting season.

Thinnes showed him his star.

The trooper raised an eyebrow. He took a step back and looked pointedly at the Jaguar. "Guess you must be bagging some pretty large game in Chicago."

Thinnes shook his head. "No. Jack offered to let me try her out and I couldn't resist opening her up a little. Guess I got carried away."

"Yeah," the trooper said. "Well, sorry, Detective, but your hunting license isn't good this side of the state line."

"I was going to stop in at headquarters and take out a local permit."

"Did you talk to anyone from here?"

"Sergeant Blackburn."

"Let me give him a call. See if he can meet you somewhere."