Part 1 (1/2)
The Death of Blue Mountain Cat.
A Caleb & Thinnes Mystery.
Michael Allen Dymmoch.
For Barbara D'Amato, William F. Deeck, and Joan Turchik.
Acknowledgments.
The author wishes to thank the following for answers to various technical questions or for general information on topics of which the author was ignorant: Commander Hugh Holton, Detective Jack Stewart, Neighborhood Relations Officer Michael Barone, Officers Patrice Stewart, Mary Jensen and Edna White, and Tactical Officers Gerald Hamilton and David Lemieux of the Chicago Police Department; Oakton Community College instructors a.s.sociate Professor Gary Deters, M.S., Cook County Circuit Judge Bruce Lester, J.D., Mary T. Nicolau, J.D., and Dennis A. Ramsey; opera enthusiasts Yohma Gray, Miriam Schneider, Doris Blechman, and Polly Cuncannan; artist Donna Polivka; hockey fans Sh.e.l.ly Burger and Rich Blakley; Joe Falasco, Neil, and the gang at Falasco's Automotive; James G. Schaefer and Harold Burkhardt; the staff at The Dellwood Pickle; and Ron Straff, R & R Sporting Goods, Inc., Westchester, Illinois. I have taken liberties with the information given me. Any errors are my own.
Thanks also to my editor, Ruth Cavin, her a.s.sistant Elisabeth Story, publicist Karen McDermott, copy editor Nora Cavin, and cover artists Alexander Barsky and Michael Accordino of St. Martin's Press; literary agent Ray Powers; the reference librarians at the Northbrook Public Library, Northbrook, Illinois; Judy Duhl and her staff at Scotland Yard Books, Winnetka, Illinois; Janis Irvine and her staff at The Book Bin, Northbrook, Illinois; author Robert Norden; Nancy at the U.S. Post Office, Northbrook, Illinois; and Phebe Waterman and the rest of the Red Herrings. All of you helped me bring Thinnes and Caleb to life.
And thanks to Tony Hillerman for reasons obvious to anyone familiar with his work.
-mad.
One.
Caleb stood just inside the entrance to the invitation-only showing and tried to determine why the exhibition disturbed him.
The venue was wrong. The genteel Michigan Avenue museum, with its wood-paneled, marble-tiled foyer and carpeted galleries, was too conservative, too traditional for the works of ”Navajo Artist, Blue Mountain Cat.” They should have been displayed in the Museum of Contemporary Art.
The pieces ranged from retail-store cases of exorbitantly priced Indian ”artifacts” to what the catalog described as ”installation art.” This seemed to refer to anything that didn't fit a familiar category, including groups of painted mannequins outrageously dressed. The collective impression was Andy Warhol meets Jonathan Swift in Indian country, and with the exception of the small oil, a desert landscape that Caleb had loaned the show, the pieces were grossly different from what he'd previously seen of the artist's work. They were out of touch with Nature and lacked the harmony and balance that was the Navajo way. Not that they were out of balance artistically. But they were slick, things an interior designer would use as props-what a skeptic would call pricey, without being lovely or loving. They were nothing like the playful, joyous things the artist had done when he was a student, works he'd signed ”David Bisti.”
All the works except the landscape were identified with a stylized cougar curled into the blue triangle of a stylized mountain. They were cynical. Shocking. Satirical. They mocked their audience and their subject matter-things Western and Indian. Caleb wondered why.
Behind him, echoing his thoughts, Anita Margolis said, ”Nothing short of a brain transplant could explain it.”
Anita had given David his first break, his first professional showing. But measured by these pieces, that show in her Michigan Avenue gallery was a light-year distant.
She said, ”What sort of monster have I created?”
Caleb turned and smiled. She was especially lovely with her dark hair swept up, pinned with diamonds, her black dress and jewelry elegant in their simplicity.
A waiter appeared with a tray of champagne in tulip gla.s.ses. Caleb accepted two and handed one to Anita.
”Honestly,” she continued, ”how could he?”
”Perhaps the man who's been living for his art just decided he'd like to make a living.”
As the waiter moved away, a voice behind Anita said, ”What do you think?”
They both turned to look at the speaker, a tall man, black eyed and dark skinned. He was dressed in a fringed, white buckskin s.h.i.+rt, black Levi's, and pale gray cowboy boots. His straight, black, shoulder-length hair was held in place with a headband that had Indian motifs painted on leather. The same slick style as the show. Designer Indian. In fact, the whole man seemed as carefully crafted as an ad from GQ.
”I think you'll make a lot of money, David,” Anita said.
He gave her a dazzling smile and kissed her hand. Corny as it was, Caleb thought, the kiss was probably the most genuine thing about the exchange.
”A diplomat,” David said. His smile faded as he realized the implication of her statement. Then he noticed Caleb and smiled again, extending his hand. ”Doctor.”
Caleb shook it. ”David.”
An unpleasant voice from behind them interrupted. ”Bisti!”
David turned, and all three watched a heavy man charge up to them. He was over six feet tall, with a flushed face and stony expression.
David's body language spoke alarm, momentarily, then caution. ”I'm afraid you have the advantage.”
”You ought to know a man before you libel him!”
”Ah. I take it you don't care for my art?”
”Art? Bulls.h.i.+t!” The man's face darkened a shade, and white blotches marked the tension locking his jaw.
Behind Caleb, Anita whispered, ”Harrison Wingate.”
Wingate was graying, and muscular under the overweight. His silk s.h.i.+rt, expensive suit and shoes, and the $200 tie said money; the way he moved in them said power.
Caleb s.h.i.+fted so that Wingate could see Anita better, and the big man nearly choked. ”Excuse me, ma'am. I beg your pardon.”
There was a faint drawl to his voice that hadn't been there when he spoke to David. He ignored Caleb and glared at the artist. ”You'll be hearin' from my attorney.” He nodded at Anita and said, ”Ma'am.” He nearly knocked a waiter over as he stalked away.
Before David could explain what that was about, a woman's voice spat, ”You unmitigated b.a.s.t.a.r.d! How can you have the nerve to call yourself a Navajo?”
Odd, Caleb thought.
The speaker was six inches shorter than David, oval faced, with the dark eyes and high cheekbones of a Native American. Her plain blouse and suit accented her jewelry-traditional squash-blossom necklace, a.s.sorted silver rings and dangly earrings. Her long, heavy hair was pulled back and pinned with a silver brooch. ”You insult us with this tras.h.!.+”
According to the catalog, the installation she referred to was Native American Gothic, a burlesque of Grant Wood's cla.s.sic. In this version, a pair of dark-skinned department-store dummies-crudely whitewashed and dressed in business attire-stood in front of a cardboard-cutout hogan adorned with a gaudy, stained-gla.s.s Sacred Heart. The male figure wore a suit and, instead of a pitchfork, carried a lance strung with crude imitation eagle feathers. In his other hand, he held a skull-taboo among the Navajo-onto which rhinestone tears dropped from his cheeks. The skull was tagged: ”Genuine Indian artifact, $2000.00.” The female figure was painted like a cheap wh.o.r.e and offered the viewer a hip flask of Old Grand-Dad priced at ”1/10,000 of a soul.” A mirror behind the figures enabled viewers to see themselves gawking and to notice that the whitewash and the costumes of the two figures covered only their front sides.
”Wolf-man!” the silver woman spat.
David seemed more amused than offended. ”It's not real, Irene.” He walked over to pluck the skull from the hand of the mannequin, grasping it by the crown and upending it. ”See,” he said and thrust it at her. ”Made in U.S.A.”
Caleb edged closer. He would have sworn the skull was genuine. He held a hand out. ”May I?” David shrugged and handed him the skull, the lower jaw of which was wired in place.