The Death Of Blue Mountain Cat Part 35

"One more question. Hale, did you stab David Bisti?"

There was another long pause as Elvis worked the question out. "Th'artist?"

"Yeah."

"No. I done...the others. Not him."

"Thanks, Hale."

"Get the SOB..."

Sixty-Six.

Late the next afternoon, Thinnes saw Evanger in his office talking to the detective sergeant. Evanger spotted Thinnes and jerked his head in a come-here gesture. "Come in," he said, when Thinnes got to the door. The sergeant nodded and excused himself.

Thinnes left the door open and leaned against the jamb. "Nice to have you back."

"Thanks," Evanger said. "You're the only one who thinks so."

"Just the only one who'll admit it."

"Have you got the details worked out on the Hale case?"

"We're going on the theory that Hale became a liability the minute we connected him with Redbird. When he put the touch on Wingate, he signed his own death warrant. They were supposed to pour cement this morning. If Dr. Caleb hadn't been there, it's pretty sure Hale would've ended up as part of the foundation, but when he showed up with Caleb, Wingate had to change his disposal plan to include two bodies." Thinnes shrugged. "There wasn't any other reason to start up that torch, much less push it over the edge. Wingate wasn't in any danger at that point-Hale couldn't have gotten at him up there. All he'd have had to do was sit tight till the cops arrived."

"Anyway, nice work."

"Question is, can we make it stick?"

Evanger shrugged. "Time will tell. Wingate can buy the talent...Anyway, thanks for clearing that old John Doe shooting."

"He fits the description of a missing person on file with the Albuquerque PD. A Navajo Indian named Sam Albert that worked for Wingate. He had a drinking problem. I can't prove it-yet-but it looks like he was a loose cannon, and Wingate just told Hale to get rid of him."

"I owe you one."

"Then you can transfer me to days."

"Sure. Ryan's working solo."

"I've got a partner."

"Rossi's got to have some-"

"Let him have Ferris. They deserve each other." Thinnes started to leave, then had an idea. "I don't suppose you could get Rossi transferred?"

"Oh, no. We need Rossi. What else can we threaten you guys with?" Thinnes laughed. "Seriously," Evanger said. "The only fly in the ointment is, the museum case is still open. We're still catching flak for that."

"You know how it goes-the difficult we do immediately, the impossible..."

"Tell you what. If you and Oster close it before New Year's, you can write your own ticket."

"We'll see what we can do."

Thinnes didn't feel like moving. The ordinary business of the squad room went on around him while he sat and thought about relations.h.i.+ps. In balance. Deadlocked. Sometimes when the cops started poking around, they threw things off-kilter, and things got f.u.c.ked up. Or maybe it was Bisti's death that had set things in motion. Certainly if he hadn't died, Hale wouldn't have shot Redbird. And if the police hadn't been poking around in Hale's life, Wingate wouldn't have felt the need to get rid of Hale.

A phone rang, and the sergeant called from across the room, "Thinnes, where's your better half?"

"Who wants to know?"

"His missus."

"He left half an hour ago. Should be there any time."

"Thanks." The sergeant relayed the information and hung up. Then he walked over to stand near Thinnes. "You 'bout done with your paperwork on last night's activities?"

"About."

"Rossi wants you to wait for him, to brief him before you leave."

"In that case, I left with Carl." When the sergeant gave him a look, he added, "The boss said we could have off until Monday."

"Then what're you doing here?"

"Just knotting some loose ends."

The sergeant nodded and went back to what he'd been doing. Thinnes called home.

Rob answered his h.e.l.lo with, "Hi, Dad. You working late tonight?"

"Just a couple more hours. What're you up to?"

"Ma and I are going Christmas shopping. We're going to shop till the stores close."

"That'll be about ten o'clock Christmas Eve."

"Oh. Well, maybe we'll just shop till we drop. Want to come?"

"No thanks. I'm already ready to drop. Maybe you and I could go tomorrow. You could help me pick out something nice for your mother."

"Sure."

"Have fun."

He called Evidence next. He identified himself and said, "Bendix on today?"

"Yeah," the tech said. "Just got sent out to a scene on North Kenmore." He gave Thinnes an address south of Bryn Mawr.

Thinnes said, "Thanks," and hung up.

The sergeant called from across the room, "You still here, Thinnes?"

"Depends who's asking."

"Some doctor-Caleb."

"Which line?" When the sergeant told him, he punched the number and picked up the receiver. "How're doing, Doctor?"

"Fine, thank you. How's Mr. Hale?"

"He didn't make it."

"Ahhh. Have you been able to verify what he told us?"

"We're working on it. But if he was telling the truth, we're back to square one on Bisti's murder."

"Perhaps we could meet and go over the facts again together. There may be something we've overlooked."

"I have a couple of errands to run. How 'bout in an hour or so?"

"Could you meet me at Clark and Balmoral?"

"What's at Clark and Balmoral?"

"A nice little restaurant where we can break bread and try to narrow our suspect list."

Our suspect list. Funny, Thinnes thought, how they'd drifted into partners.h.i.+p.

Bendix was standing in the apartment doorway with his hands on his hips and the usual unlit cigar in his mouth. If Thinnes's arrival surprised him, he hid it. "You come to gloat?"

Thinnes shook his head. "Came to pay up." He took two twenties out of his wallet and handed them to Bendix.

The aging cynic scowled. "What the f.u.c.k is this?"

"West was murdered."

"The h.e.l.l, you say. I saw the autopsy report-natural causes. Booze."

"I can't prove it, but his nephew gave it to him, just to kill him. It's moot now; the nephew's dead. But a bet's a bet, and you were right."

Bendix took the money, shaking his head. "You're somethin' else, Thinnes. A real piece of work."

Sixty-Seven.

Noah Hopewell was waiting on customers when Thinnes entered Native Artists, so Thinnes had plenty of time to look around. The store was laid out like an old-time trading post without the food, and with a few antique guns mounted out of reach for show. Small valuable items were displayed like p.a.w.n in the gla.s.s display case that served as a counter. Everything else was stacked on shelves or tables, or hung from the walls or ceiling. Indian art. And stuff made in Taiwan to look like Indian art. Fabulous animals and plants painted in bright colors on brown bark panels-HECHO EN MEXICO. Wool blankets with Southwestern designs, and ponchos-or were they serapes? He didn't know. Leather s.h.i.+rts and leggings with fringe and beadwork, and beadwork belts, and belts with silver conchas. Silver jewelry. Jewelry made of coral, sh.e.l.l, and colored stones. Pottery. Kachina dolls. Feathers and feather headdresses. Drums and baskets. A small totem pole. Painted animal hides. Paintings of animals and Indians. Sandpaintings. What had Lauren Bisti said about those? "Is what he did any more irreverent than gluing sandpaintings to cardboard to sell to tourists?"

He remembered Rhonda telling him-in the once-upon-a-time when she was still a teacher and life was simpler-that children and primitive artists-or very sophisticated ones-represented things symbolically rather than realistically. Which is why children's drawings have such large heads and hands and small bodies. The figures in the sandpaintings seemed childlike, but were obviously abstractions. And in an abstraction, everything is removed that isn't absolutely necessary to identify the thing. It jibed with what Caleb had said about an artist's purpose-to manipulate perception. Thinnes tried to figure out the purpose of the sandpaintings but, beyond guessing they were symbolic, he was mystified.

When Hopewell finished with his customers, he came over to Thinnes. His knees must have been as arthritic as his hands; he moved very slowly. "May I be of a.s.sistance?"

Thinnes pointed to one of the sandpaintings and said, "What does it mean?" It showed four tall, thin cornstalks, with leaves and ears of corn, that had human hands, feet, and faces, and corn ta.s.sels for hair. Surrounding them on three sides was a thin rainbow, also with human features.

"I can only tell you what it is," Hopewell said. "Corn yei-spirits. To understand all the implications would require a lifetime of study."

"Somebody told me it was sacrilegious to glue sandpaintings down and sell them. That right?"

Hopewell sighed. "Yes and no." Thinnes waited. "If these were the actual dry paintings used in the healing ceremonies, it would be unthinkable-some would say-even to photograph them, because when they're correctly rendered, they have great power. But when they are not drawn correctly, or when details are omitted, they have no more power than any other work of art."

Thinnes waited to see if he had anything to add, then asked, "Which one of these is a cougar?"

Hopewell pointed to the sandpainting of an animal that looked like a straight-bodied lizard with a trapezoidal head and the same humanlike hands as the yei. "You've come to ask more about the artist who died," he said.

Thinnes nodded, resisting the urge to use Bisti's name. Irene Yellow had made a big deal about not speaking the name of the dead. And Hopewell hadn't mentioned his wife's name when they interviewed him before. "Where did you meet him?"

"I met him in New Mexico. When he came out there. That's when he met my daughter. He was a belagana but he wanted with all his heart to be one of the Dine."

"I thought his father was Navajo."

"Being one of the People is more than a matter of genetics." Hopewell paused for a long time. "My wife was a teacher. She used to read about all kinds of things and tell me-because I never had time to read, but I like to know things...Funny. Since she died, I read all the time." He shrugged and there was a long pause. Thinnes began to think his train of thought had derailed. Finally, he said, "One of the things she told me is that people have to be taught a language when they are very young-before the age of two-or something happens to the language part of their brains and they lose the ability to learn, or they can never be fluent." He said the last word as if it were a foreign term and waited to see if Thinnes understood.

Thinnes had heard the theory. He nodded.

Hopewell continued. "I think that being of the Dine is like learning a language. It is very difficult to be fluent unless you were born to it. Not just the language, but everything. It's a way of life, a way of looking at everything, from solitude-which is highly prized-to revenge, which traditional Navajos think is insane. They probably wouldn't worry too much about catching a killer. They would say that anyone who'd do something so bad was sick-in need of healing, or a witch-someone to be avoided."

Two women came into the store. Caucasians with blue eyes and pale faces. One was wearing a fringed buckskin dress under a coat patterned like an Indian blanket. When Hopewell moved away to wait on them, Thinnes studied the sandpaintings. He lifted one down from the wall for a closer look-two characteristic Navajo figures, tall and thin with headdresses and weapons. Blue and black triangles, in the background, formed stylized mountains pointing toward each other from the top and bottom of the picture. A card stuck to the back said: The Hero Twins, Monster Slayer and Born For Water. Sons of Changing Woman. They slew all of the Monsters but those helpful to the People-Hunger, Old Age, Poverty, and Dirt.

The last time he'd talked to Hopewell, the old man told him Navajo children were "born for" their father's clan. That made Born For Water the son of water. He tried to remember where he'd seen something like it before.

When the woman left, Hopewell came back. Thinnes pointed to the Hero Twins and said, "What's the meaning of the blue mountain?"

"It's one of the four sacred mountains that mark the boundaries of the dinehta. It was made of sand and turquoise." He nodded toward the painting. "Some versions of the story have it that Born For Water didn't kill any of the Monsters, that he only witnessed their extermination. According to Waters, he's a pa.s.sive G.o.d, the child of the benign, blue south."

"How does that relate to-the artist who died?"