Part 6 (1/2)

”They were divorced when I was ten. It was better after they split.” He seemed to be trying to convince himself as much as Caleb, who didn't express the skepticism he felt. David continued. ”They fought all the time-always about his drinking. He blamed it on her, because she wouldn't move to the Navajo reservation. She used to tell him, 'Listen, if you wanted to live on the reservation, you should have married some girl from there who never heard of indoor plumbing and higher education.' She'd be a real shrew sometimes.”

”How did your father react?”

”He'd just say, 'b.i.t.c.h,' and have another drink.”

”How do you feel about your Navajo heritage?”

”I don't know. I've been doing a lot of reading on the subject.”

”What, for instance?”

On the video screen, David grinned as his enthusiasm for the subject overcame the facade of cool he'd habitually maintained. ”Oh, the usual-Campbell and Zolbrod. And everything Hillerman ever wrote.”

Caleb had known who Campbell and Hillerman were, of course. He'd subsequently made a point to look up Zolbrod, author of Dine Bahane, the definitive English translation of the Navajo creation myth. He'd understood David's wanting to reclaim his father's heritage, but David had encountered major obstacles.

The first was his parents.

Like Jews, who are born to Jewish mothers, Navajo children are born into their mother's clan. As a non-Navajo, David's mother had none. And when Harlan Bisti followed his people's tradition and moved to the territory of his wife's family, he'd severed his connection to the Dine and to the land that gave his existence meaning. He'd lost his soul. Drinking himself to death, years later, had been a formality.

David's other and greatest problem had been himself. The rage that he'd repressed as a child, and his shame and contempt for a drunk father, were rekindled by a newborn interest in what that father lost. His anger explained the viciousness of his satire, but he hadn't been able to acknowledge rage. Like all bereaved, who sublimate their anger in their grief, he'd projected his rage outward.

”We can go into this further next week,” Caleb's voice said, finally. ”In the meantime, I'd like you to think about what's changed in your life since your creativity began to suffer. We'll start with that next time.”

”That's it? You're not going to tell me why I can't work when I do get the time?”

”How long has this problem been occurring?”

”A couple months.”

”Then why do you a.s.sume it can be fixed in fifty minutes?”

He hadn't had an answer. Caleb stopped the tape.

David came to therapy because he was blocked as an artist. It had been a simple matter to help remove the block, but that's as far as he would go. Perhaps, like Virginia Woolf, he'd feared losing his gift if he rid himself of his neuroses. More likely, as was true with most personality disorders, he'd seen no reason to change himself.

His death was as melodramatic as he'd tried to make his life appear and, in retrospect, there was a certain inevitability to the tragedy. But it was a Greek play rewritten for TV.

Caleb rewound the tape and put it in a desk drawer. He turned off the equipment, relocked the safe, and took his empty coffee mug out into the reception room. Before he crossed to the washroom to rinse the mug, he told Mrs. Sleighton, ”That was excellent coffee.”

Sixteen.

David Bisti's mother lived on the eighth floor of one of the huge, impersonal, upper-middle-cla.s.s buildings on Sheridan Road, east of Uptown. Thinnes and Oster got the super to let them in. After questioning him about the woman and her friends and visitors, they had him go up with them to her apartment. He knocked on the door and stood in front of the peephole until the door opened. He said, ”Miz Bisti, these detectives have to talk to you,” then he left.

Anne Bisti was Caucasian, about five eight, 140 pounds, blond haired and gray eyed. She said, ”Something happened to David! I've worked ERs. I know cops on the mission when I see them. How serious is it?”

”I'm sorry,” Thinnes said. ”He's dead.”

He watched carefully as he waited for her to respond. She was completely still for the moment it took the information to sink in, then she paled as what might have been a s.h.i.+ver pa.s.sed through her and she very carefully took hold of the doorjamb.

”How?”

”He was stabbed to death.”

He wasn't sure if she heard. She was completely still. Finally, she said, ”By whom?”

”We don't know yet. We'd like to-”

”I don't know who'd kill him. Please come back tomorrow.”

”We need-”

”I can't give you any help right now. Tomorrow.” She backed into the room and closed the door as if they were already gone.

Oster said, ”What the h.e.l.l?”

Thinnes had seen it before. ”Don't judge her feelings by that,” he said. He turned away from the door. ”We'd better ask one of her friends to keep an eye on her.”

”You're gonna let her get away with this? This is homicide, for Chrissake.”

”Her son died,” Thinnes said quietly. ”We'll come back.”

Seventeen.

Thinnes turned in his preliminary reports and had just poured his fourth cup of coffee-since midnight-when Ferris hailed him.

”Hey, Thinnes, you lucked out. Custer's rematch didn't make the morning papers.”

Thinnes walked over to look at the Sun-Times Ferris had spread out on the table. He flipped it closed and pointed to the headline: CARDINAL CHARGED WITH s.e.x ABUSE. ”He seems to have saved our a.s.ses. G.o.d bless him.”

Oster, seated at the other end of the table, demanded, ”Ferris, what the h.e.l.l are you doing here at this hour?”

Thinnes was surprised. Oster usually ignored Ferris's bulls.h.i.+t.

”OT,” Ferris said.