"Well, miss, like I said, he's kinda hard. There's some folks that just don't like him being that tight on the clock, and they kinda got a problem with that. Are you working with that fella name of Sleighbow that called me?"
She decided she might as well loosen up a little. If Sleighbow had sent this man to her, it was probably safe to be a little less obtuse. "Yes, actually," she replied.
"Well, I got some of Calligan's people here, they're Indians-they don't think too highly of the man. They said he's got an attitude about things they feel pretty strong about." He sounded as if he was feeling her out. "Pardon my asking, miss, but are you Indian?"
"Yes," she said, figuring it wouldn't do any harm. "Why?"
Silence again. "I talked to them, trying to figure out why they left. They said it was because they figure he's disrespectful of the earth, and if you was Indian too, I reckoned you'd know what they meant." The man sounded puzzled. "I don't get it, but they feel pretty strong. They say he's disrespectful of the ancestors too; the way they carry on sometimes, you'd think he was out there every day bulldozin' down churches or something."
"Well, I think I can understand how they feel," she replied, trying to think of a way to give this apparently well-meaning fellow some insight. "Imagine how you'd feel if some punks got into the graveyard where your grandparents are buried and wrote graffiti all over the gravemarkers."
"I guess I'd get pretty hot about it," Morse admitted. "I guess they are too, then."
"Could be." She checked her watch again. "Mr. Morse, thank you. If you have anything more specific to tell me, call me collect, all right?"
"That'll be fine," he said cheerfully. "Glad I could help. G'night, Miss Talldeer."
"Thank you, Mr. Morse." She hung up; unfortunately, the man hadn't told her anything she hadn't already heard from Sleighbow. Getting steamed about something and doing anything about it were two different things. And this still sounded more like a terrorist action than something concocted by a disgruntled employee. People who hated your guts came after you personally with a gun; they didn't blow up a bulldozer and take out only fellow employees.
Well. It had been a long day, and it was likely to get a lot longer. She'd better get on the road again.
The phone rang just as the Calligans were halfway through dinner. Toni Calligan started, her hazel eyes going wide, and pushed away from the table to grab it before it disturbed her husband. But Rod waved her back to her seat, before she could get up.
"I'm expecting a call," he said. "Go ahead and eat; this won't take long."
He left his dinner on the table, knowing that if it did take longer than he thought it would, Toni would automatically take his half-finished plate off to the kitchen to rewarm it. He had her well trained.
He picked up the phone on the extension in his office just as it got to the fourth ring. "Calligan," he said, shortly. If this was a siding salesman-
"Smith," said the voice on the other end. "You wanted more information, I got it for you."
Rod took down notes as Smith rattled off a short biography of this "Jennifer Talldeer" who had been assigned to him. Mother, father, brothers, grandfather living with her--there didn't seem to be a lot of leverage there, except for strong-arm tactics, and it wasn't at that level yet.
Then he got to the interesting tidbit. "Seems like she takes on some no-pay cases on her own time," Smith said. "She goes after Indian bones and artifacts and sends them back to the tribes they came from. She just shipped off a box of stuff like that within the week, in fact. If she's doing this for nothing, I'd say she's pretty motivated about it."
"Oh, really?" Rod Calligan's hand moved of itself to his good-luck charm in his pants pocket, but his eyes moved to the boxes of loot from that Indian graveyard, artifacts that had looked like they might be worth something, and which he hadn't used to salt the construction site.
He smiled.
"What do you mean by that?" Smith demanded testily.
Rod's smile widened. "Only," he replied softly, "that I think I can promise I know how to pull her strings."
_CHAPTER SIX
this had been her first full day on the case. By now, sunset was only a memory, and Jennifer was just grateful she knew the entire Tulsa metroplex like her own backyard. Otherwise it would have been impossible to find all these addresses. Some of these little suburban areas had streets that wound around through them with no plan that she could make out. This was one of them, and it took her fifteen minutes to find the right "Ridley," for there was a "Ridley Street," a "Ridley Way," a "Ridley Court," .and a "Ridley Place," all within blocks of one another. She pulled the Brat up in front of the third house on her list, only to find it dark, with no signs of vehicles anywhere. Not in the garage, nor the driveway, nor the street outside.
What is this, bingo night? It's too early in the year for Softball league, and too late for bowling. This was ridiculous; there hadn't been a single soul home so far who was on her list of Calligan's ex-employees. It was beginning to feel like an episode of "The Twilight Zone."
Well, no point in sticking around here. There was some traffic on the road, but not much. She waited until the car behind her had pulled around her parking place, then got back on the street again. Surely someone was going to be home!
The fourth name on her list was a guy who lived out in Sand Springs, not Tulsa. With any luck, whatever it was that had pulled everyone out of their houses here in town would not be something that someone in Sand Springs would want to drive all the way into Tulsa for. At the end of a long workday, a twenty-minute drive could seem much too long.
Unless it's a Garth Brooks concert or something. Nothing too much to go through for a Garth Brooks concert.
That was a facetious thought of course. If there had been anything that big in town, she'd have known about it weeks ago.
The drive out to the Springs was uneventful; sunset brought cooler temperatures, and she was able to roll the windows down instead of using the A/C. Heat lightning flickered in the clouds overhead, illuminating them for a brief moment in a flash of orange. The color always made her think of orange sherbet, a childhood hangover from nights spent sitting out on the porch, watching the lightning and the lightning bugs, and sharing a bowl with one of the cats.
Her next target lived a little out of town on a county road, and as she neared the house, she knew that this man, at least, was not off somewhere. His driveway was full of cars and trucks, and his yard held the overflow. The little white frame house was lit up inside and out, and it was clear that the owner expected all this company.
As she pulled into the driveway and parked her car behind the last one in the line (a red pickup), she had a sinking feeling that now she knew where everyone on her list was. Someone had gotten wind of trouble, and this was how they were dealing with it.
Too bad her father hadn't heard about this; it would have been nice to have had some warning.
Looks like I've walked right into a meeting, she thought grimly. And I don't think it's the Kiwanis or the Tulsa Pow Wow Club.
She turned off her car lights, and as she did so, she noticed the curtains at one of the lighted windows move.
I'd say I've just been spotted. Man-I wish I'd had some warning about this, though I guess if some of my buddies got blown up and people were looking for scapegoats, I'd get together with everyone else too. So I've got what, two dozen hostile people waiting in there? The prospect was not one she enjoyed. Still-on the bright side, it would save having to run them all down. And she could get all her rejections over with at once.
Aw guys, it would be so nice if you'd cooperate. It would look so much better on the report if you'd just play nice. . . . She squared her shoulders, put on her best professional manner, and opened the truck door.
As she came up the walkway and into the light from the porch lamps, she saw the curtains at the window move again, and a shadow move toward the door.
Here comes the welcoming committee.
Just as she reached the porch, someone opened the door and walked out to intercept her.
For a moment, a shock of recognition froze her.
He leaned up against the doorframe and crossed his arms, a sardonic expression-not quite a sneer-on his face.
She unfroze, took two more steps, and stopped, one foot on the low wooden porch. "Hello, David," she said, evenly. "I hope it's nice to see you again."
"Wish I could say the same. It depends on whose side you're on." Impossible to pretend she didn't know David Spotted Horse; not when he was the first guy she'd ever slept with, the guy her folks had thought for sure she was going to marry.
And the last guy she'd ever been at all serious about, as far as that went.
"I'm not on anyone's side, David," she replied, keeping her voice even, and not betraying what she was really feeling. "You ought to know that, if you pretend to know anything about me."
Her stomach was one tight knot; her heart fluttering. Rival feelings warred for possession of her body. It figures that he'd be here. A possible incident building, involving Native Americans, and right in his own stomping grounds? They must still be scrubbing the marks off the driveway where he peeled out of there. "There" being North Dakota, and "they" being the activist group he'd joined in college, right before he'd dropped out.. And right before they'd had that screaming fight that ended in a breakup.
She still couldn't figure out why he'd bailed out of college. When he dropped out, he was scuttling a promising career in law, and the Powers knew the Native American movement needed lawyers. But he said it was a waste of time. She stayed to graduate. His decision to bail had been only one of the reasons why they'd broken up. . .