"Go take one yourself. It's a vacation. You can do whatever you want."
He put his arm around her waist and leered. "Not exactly anything. Not on this vacation anyhow, surrounded as we are by your children."
"Well, nearly anything. I'm going to rescue Shelley from the genealogists and see if the boys have suffered any permanent mental disability from a day with the video games. I'll come fetch you later and we'll have a nice dinner, okay?"
Mel agreed and limped off.
By the time Jane found the meeting room where the debate was going on, it was over. Applause spilled out into the hallway as she approached. The door was flung open and Doris Schmidtheiser plunged out, her movements jerky, her big angular face red and working with emotion. Though Jane tried to dodge her, they collided. Papers and folders flew everywhere.
Jane knelt to help Doris pick them up. The older woman muttered tearfully, "I'm sorry. I wasn't looking…"
"Quite all right. But I'm afraid you're going to have a time sorting this all out—"
But Doris wasn't listening. She'd grabbed an armload of papers, hoisted herself up and was practically running away.
Jane picked up the rest of the papers, tamped them down, and slipped them into an accordian-type folder Doris had dropped. She'd get them to her later, when Doris had calmed down. Jane peeked into the doorway and spotted Shelley. She waved a greeting and then got out of the emerging audience's way.
"What a rout," Shelley whispered when she joined Jane in the hallway.
"Mrs. Schmidtheiser ran into me as she came out. She was really upset," Jane said. "What in the world happened in there?"
"Let's go have a glass of wine by the pool," Shelley suggested.
When they were comfortably settled with tall tulip glasses of white wine, Shelley said, "I don't know exactly what happened. Most of the debate was like a foreign language to me. All sorts of sources were flung around. The genealogists, of course, knew the relative merits of them. I didn't have a clue. But it was apparent that Gortner got the best of poor old Doris at every turn. I don't think it was that he had a better case — although I could be wrong — but that he had a more scathing manner and presentation. You know — the kind of thing where you don't present your own side as much as you make fun of everything the other guy says."
Jane nodded. "The kind of thing kids are great at."
"Exactly. It was like watching a pretentiously clever teenager make fun of somebody. It was pathetic. Doris would trot out some document and flash it on the overhead projection screen and go on in a deadly manner for a while. Then Gortner would make some slick, dismissive comment like, "Surely you're not suggesting that this qualifies as a primary source…?" And the audience would laugh."
"Of course they would," Jane said. "That's a line that always brings the house down."
Shelley shrugged elaborately. "I don't explain 'em, I just report 'em. I have no idea what's funny about that. It was hideous. Poor old Doris. Not that she didn't manage to get in a few slugs of her own."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, sort of loony, dark allusions to 'enemies within' and that sort of thing. Suggestions that others in the Holnagrad Society weren't all they should be in regard to both the purity of their research and the respect owed her. I got the feeling she was taking digs at Lucky — Dr. Lucke. But I can't be sure. There might be another entire 'party' of people in this thing. Still, her venom was like nothing compared to Gortner's."
"I feel sorry for her, too, but when you promote a bizarre idea you've got to count on a certain amount of flak. And she set this up herself. It's not as if she walked into it as innocently as a lost lamb. Speaking of lost lambs, where are all of ours?"
Shelley looked at her strangely for a moment, then gestured to the pool. "Those two water rats are our sons, and the glamour girls showing off across the way are our daughters. Did you think I chose to sit around the pool because I like what humid, chlorine-stinking air does to my hair?"
Jane laughed. "I hadn't even noticed them. Shelley! Don't you see what this means? It's the first hint I've ever had that motherhood is a curable condition!"
Chapter 7
"Oh, I asked Paul about the deed thing," Shelley said.
"Deed thing?"
"Remember? Tenny said something about HawkHunter wanting Mr. Smith to give the resort to the tribe."
"Oh, right."
"Well, it's actually sort of interesting historical stuff. The tribe did own this land originally. This land and another hundred or so square miles. The government gave it to them, which is bizarre when you consider they were here first and the U.S. government granted them their own land. Anyway, back then, there was a rule that if Indians wanted to sell their land to somebody, they could, but they had to have a Presidential order approving the sale."
"Why?"
"I presume because they didn't have the same concept of land ownership and a lot of people were out to rip them off. Anyway, there was a missionary here at the time, and the tribe wanted to sell him this big chunk where the resort sits now. Of course, it wasn't anything then but uninhabited land. So they all worked it out to everybody's satisfaction and got the President's approval to the sale."
"So what's the problem?"
"The problem was that by the time the document was filed, the missionary was dead. HawkHunter's argument is that the tribe sold the land to the missionary, not to his wife and children. The deed doesn't mention heirs."
"Ah… I see how that could be tricky. Isn't Paul concerned?"
"No. You see, the President's signature was dated before the minister's death. It just wasn't filed until a week later. That's the most important point Another is that the tribe accepted payment from the minister's widow, which indicates that they did recognize and approve that the land was going to the heirs. Apparently there have been a number of cases in the last ten years or so with tribes trying to reclaim land, and although some of them have won their suits, the court is obligated to consider intent. Also, the land has had title-insurance all that time, so if by some extraordinarily unlikely chance it came to court and the court ruled in favor of the tribe, the title insurance company would be stuck with the bill."
"So the investors aren't concerned that the tribe has any real legal claim on the land?"
"No, they're not the least concerned about the legalities of the thing. But I think some of them might be very worried about the public relations aspect of it. That demonstration in front this morning was sort of colorful and interesting and lasted only a half hour or so, but if the tribe becomes really militant about all this, it could be bad for the resort's business. It doesn't look good to have stolen land from the Indians and then desecrated their burial ground. Even if neither accusation is really true."
"So Paul and the investors are wavering?"
"Oh, I have no idea how they feel about it. I was just airing my own idea of how they might feel. All they seem interested in is their balance sheets and financial projections."
As she'd been explaining all this, Shelley had glanced around from time to time to make certain they weren't being overheard. Now she gave Jane a subtle end-of-discussion signal as an older couple came into the pool area.
The man went to speak (rather fiercely, it appeared) to the young person who worked at the concession stand where snacks as well as swimming paraphernalia were sold; the woman approached Shelley.
"There you are, Mrs. Nowack. And this must be your friend Mrs. Jeffry!"
"Mrs. Smith, I haven't seen you since just after we arrived. Yes, this is my friend Jane. And you must call me Shelley."
"Oh, good. And I'm Joanna. And my husband's Bill, as you know. Well, well. How are you enjoying your stay? May I join you?"
"Please do," Shelley said.
It would be impossible not to warm to this woman. She was the quintessential grandmother type. Plump, with faintly purple, beauty-shop hair, Joanna Smith even had a big soft bag with her from which she pulled a garish, half-done granny square and proceeded to crochet while they talked. "I hope Tenny's taking good care of you," she said, peering over half glasses that were looped around her neck on a cheap, gilt-painted plastic necklace.
"Wonderful. Yes."
"I knew she would. Tenny is a dear, dear girl. I don't know what we'd do without her. She's my sister's girl, you know. Her father came out here from Tennessee and missed his home. That's why they named her Tennessee, you see. I thought it was an awful thing to do to a child when she was born, but it suits her."
"It is a pretty name," Jane said. "I think it used to be very common to name people for places. My grandmother's best friend was named Philadelphia."
"Is your sister involved with the resort, too?" Shelley asked.