Sacred Ground Read online

  She put it on speakerphone so he could hear both sides of the conversation.

  "Mr. Sleighbow," she said as soon as she had identified herself and what he had asked her to investigate, "I have to be up front with you. There are more unanswered questions than answered ones with Calligan so far as I'm concerned, but the job you asked me to do is finished. I can't find any evidence of any threats to Calligan and his property prior to the explosion. Whatever else is going on, he did not deceive Romulus in that regard."

  David looked blank. He obviously could not see where her statement was leading.

  "Oh?" There was a long pause. "I find your phrasing interesting, Miss Talldeer. Do you have any reason to think Rod Calligan has attempted to deceive Romulus Insurance in any other way?"

  She sighed, as David frowned, and she made an abrupt gesture to him to warn him to be silent. "Let me just say this much, Mr. Sleighbow. The information I have leads me to think that Mr. Calligan is less than ethical in his business practices. He is continuing to suffer accidents-some appear to be outright sabotage, and some simply seem to have no possible natural explanation. It may be that he has some business rival that he has annoyed, or some less-than-legal associates that he has angered, and he is attempting to cover their retribution up by claiming that it is all the work of Native American and ecology groups. I am not going to attempt to guess what kind of policy he took out with you, but I suspect that such a situation would not be covered, especially if he deliberately concealed illegal activities and associates."

  "You are quite right, Miss Talldeer," Sleighbow replied, his voice even and betraying no emotion. "And those are interesting speculations."

  "They're only speculations, sir," she said warningly, making a hushing motion at David, since he looked ready to jump in again. "I have not found any evidence to indicate anything of the sort. All I have found is that he is considered to be less than ethical by his peers, and that there do not appear to have been any terrorist-type threats prior to the explosion. Other than that, I can only say that while I have not actually met the man, the things I have uncovered would make me unlikely to use his services even if he were the only contractor in the three-state area. I certainly would not recommend him to anyone else. My personal feelings are that a man like that collects enemies, and a man like that may well have been involved with some kind of organized crime figure at some time. But that is, strictly a personal feeling and I have no facts to justify it. And I will admit to a slight prejudice against him because he seems to be attempting to make Native Americans into scapegoats for what has been happening to him."

  There was a moment of silence, punctuated by the ticking of someone using a keyboard. "I respect and appreciate your candor, Miss Talldeer," Sleighbow said at last. "And I also respect the 'hunches' of a private investigator with some experience. 'Hunches' seldom prove to be as mystical as most people think." The keyboard clicks returned. "I've noted your observations. If you have no objection, I would like to authorize you to continue to investigate. However, in light of the fact that there have been more 'accidents' and that you yourself said that you are not Nancy Drew, you may feel free to withdraw, and I will find another investigator to take up where you left off."

  David was practically bursting out of his chair, but he kept quiet, at least. Jennifer pretended to give the matter a moment of thought, although her answer was a foregone conclusion. "I would like to continue, sir," she said. "I hate to leave something half done."

  "Good." A few more clicks signaled a few more keystrokes. Jennifer was now certain that he was recording this interview and adding it to the records. "You're on indefinite retainer. I respect your honesty enough to be certain you will tell me when you feel your investigation has come to an end. Two suggestions, please. Don't hesitate to call me if you feel you are in over your head. I'll see to it that you are fairly compensated. And if you do uncover some kind of criminal activity, please report it not only to me but to your local police and the state's attorney general."

  "Yes, sir," she promised, with some satisfaction. Sleighbow hung up then, and she took the phone off "speaker" mode.

  David practically exploded. "What were you doing?' he shouted. "I thought you were-"

  "Didn't I just, truthfully, manage to get the suspicion away from the Rights Movement?" she interrupted.

  "Yes," he said, after a moment. "But what was all that crap about organized crime?"

  "Complete truth, just not all the truth." She leaned back in her chair and regarded him through narrowed eyes. "Calligan is the kind of man who might be involved with criminals, even organized crime. I said I didn't have any evidence. Sleighbow just gave me carte blanche to go look for some.

  So now I have a legitimate reason to continue poking around Calligan Construction. I could hardly mention that I'd seen the Little People while I was poking around Calligan's site illegally."

  David subsided. "I guess not," he said, reluctantly. "But I don't see why you couldn't do what you want."

  She shrugged. "I have to have a reason for staying on Calligan's back if the cops ask," she pointed out. "My own personal curiosity doesn't count, and since I'm Indian it could be taken as harassment, and that's illegal. I've got plenty of evidence that no protest group threatened Calligan-now I have to prove that there weren't threats from sources he wouldn't report. It's still work, David, and. it's work I can do while I'm checking up on other things." She! stared up at the ceiling for a moment. "You know," she said, half to herself, "I'd kind of like to find something to nail Calligan to the wall. If half of what I've heard about him is true, he's long overdue to be nailed. I suspect him of being behind Bob Anger's broadcast this morning."

  David looked blank. "Who?"

  She blinked, and focused on him again. "You mean you haven't-oh, that's right, you haven't lived here for a while, Local talk-show host, makes Rush Limbaugh look like a Franciscan monk. The only reason he hasn't been sued is because the people he insults are either too poor to sue, or he doesn't name names when they have the money for lawyers." She reached into her drawer for the padded envelope that had come by messenger from the office of the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, pulled the cassette out of the envelope, and stuck it in her cassette deck. "This was the broadcast this morning."

  She watched David's face as he listened, his expressions running the entire gamut from incredulous, to disgusted, to angry . . . trying to guess the moment when he would ballistic.

  She was a little off. Before he could explode, she snapped the recorder off.

  "There's more where that came from," she offered. "About another forty-five minutes' worth. Where are you going?" she added, as he launched himself for the door.

  "I'm going to do something about that-"

  "Wilma Mankiller's office is already handling it," she said, cutting him off. The news that the Principal Chief of the Cherokees was already involved stopped him with his hand on the door. "They sent me a copy of the tape, since I passed the word that I'm on the case to her office. I told them when Sleighbow hired me, just on the off chance that anyone in Cherokee Nation had anything useful to tell me that I hadn't already heard on my own."

  "Oh yeah?" he said, still poised to go out. "And just what are they doing about it? That bigoted jerkoff, I mean."

  "Ignoring it," she replied blandly. "And him."

  "What?" He stared.

  "Think about it, David," she said impatiently. "This idiot is only looking for publicity. Anything any Indian says or does about this is just going to give him more of what he wants. A few of the media press went over to Wilma's office this morning for her comments. Fortunately, she had a good zinger waiting for them. She simply looked at them and said, 'I thought you guys were here for the real news,' and gave them press releases about the improvements to the Tribal Police system."

  "She's got to be doing more than that!" David cried.

  Jennifer shrugged. "Why?" she responded. "This guy is nothing, David. The only people who believe
him are people we'd never touch anyway-people who not only don't have a clue, they couldn't buy one if you gave them a roll of quarters. We've got a real problem to deal with. Let Wilma handle Bob Anger. If he keeps it up, she'll find a way to get him put down. Probably," she added thoughtfully, "by convincing the 'Morning Zoo' DJs to turn both barrels on him.

  What they did to Oral Roberts is nothing compared to what they can do to him."

  David shook his head, but returned to his chair. Jennifer went back to her list, crossing off "Call Sleighbow."

  "You know," she said after a moment, "this business with Bob Anger-"

  David looked at her hopefully. "We should do something about him?"

  She shook her head violently. "God, no! No, now that I think about it-it smells like a trap. As much of a trap as that medicine-pouch was. We were meant to lock horns with Anger-to give his accusations some legitimacy."

  He frowned at her. "Yeah? What makes you say that?"

  "The timing, mostly." She ignored his growing scorn and took out the cassette tape to stare at it, as if by doing so she could make it give up its secrets. "Someone is getting nervous. Someone knows that you and I are working together, now. That someone is the person who tipped Anger off." She glanced at him sharply. "And before you ask, no, it isn't 'just a hunch.' It's my own trained deduction combined with Medicine skills. I sense the hand of The Enemy here, and threat from the West, the country of war and death, Here-" She held up the cassette and shook it for emphasis. "I see a false war-trail here; The Enemy has gone elsewhere. If we follow the bluff, we will lose him."

  David shrank back a little in his chair, acutely uncomfortable. "Well ... if you say so…"

  "I do," she told him firmly.

  He sighed, and although she could see that he was struggling against a sharp retort, he kept his mouth shut. "All right," he said after a moment. "What's the plan?"

  "Oh, your favorite." She pulled out a list, and groaned. "Legwork, legwork, legwork," she said sweetly, and handed him his half of the list.

  Jennifer leaned over the table at Ken's Pizza and batted her eyelashes flirtatiously at the plainclothes officer across from her. He batted his eyes right back at her, then wiped his mouth with a napkin.

  "So, Jen, what is it you want out of me this time?" he asked. "You never buy me lunch unless you want something."

  "Moi?" she exclaimed in mock-horror. "Want something? Why, Wild Bill, I am crushedl How could you say something like that? Can't an honest citizen buy lunch for one of Tulsa's finest without wanting something?"

  "Not when they're you, they can't." But "Wild Bill" Cody, a casual friend of Jennifer's who'd recently been promoted to the Detective Unit, didn't look or sound as if he was unhappy about the situation, so Jennifer decided to continue pursuing the intention that had led her to meet Cody at headquarters and invite him to lunch.

  She pouted. "You eat my pizza, you drink my soda, then you make terrible accusations that I'm bribing you."

  "Statements, not accusations," he retorted. "And the Three-Ninety-Five all-you-can-eat Lunch Buffet is below the five-dollar limit that constitutes a bribe, as you are well aware. So what do you want? I don't fix tickets and I don't give out confidential information."

  "I know that," she said with annoyance. "All I want is office gossip. You used to be in Fraud. What's the word on Rod Calligan?"

  "Current or history? Never mind, both, I know." He took a long pull on his cola, and the ice clicked against the plastic when he put it down. "History is, Fraud has him on the list of people who might go over the line some day. You know, people who have enough complaints against them that we figure it's worth watching them in case their companies get in trouble and they start looking for creative ways to finance things? But you also know that list-"

  "Is real long." She nodded. "That's the way it is around here. A lot of people skate on thin ice but never fall in. Any hint he's ever been involved in the illegal artifact business?"

  Wild Bill shook his head vigorously. "Nothing but the usual contractor-type stuff. But that's where the current gossip comes in. There are a lot of people looking really closely at this explosion of his. Could be what he says it is. Profile from the FBI says it also fits with someone who's trying an insurance scam. So we're stalling. Other thing is, normally when there's real terrorists involved in a bombing, someone slips up. Leaves fingerprints, or something that can be traced back to them, or-more often than not- somebody has to boast about what he did. Whoever set this one is either real lucky or real slick, and terrorists don't fit that profile."

  She nodded, wryly. "Uh-huh. They're too busy being passionate and idealistic to be slick. Gotcha. So?"

  "So we're being real careful. And Calligan is being a real pain, because we haven't arrested anybody." Cody played with his glass. "He doesn't bug the department about it- but every time somebody comes around to ask him a couple more questions, he always brings it up, real resentful." The officer gave her a look from under his bushy eyebrows. "That's off the record. Anything else is confidential."

  "No problem." She picked up the check, and fished a ten out of her purse to cover it, handed both bills to a passing waitress, and waved away change. Cody rose, and so did Jennifer.

  "That's all you wanted?" He seemed mildly surprised.

  "That's all," she said cheerfully. "Painless, wasn't it?"

  "Wish my dentist was that painless." He grinned broadly. "Make sure you call me next time you need office gossip. I can always use a free lunch."

  "And I can always use a friendly face. Don't get into any trouble, Cody," she said, as they parted at the door. "And don't forget what my grandfather always says."

  "What's that?" he asked, pausing for just a moment.

  "Don't believe everything you hear." She arched her eyebrows significantly. "At least when it comes from the mouths of guys you have on lists." He "fired" a finger at her. "Gotcha, Jen. Be seein' you!" She laughed. "Next time you need a free lunch!"

  _CHAPTER TWELVE

  So, another day like the past six. Same song, different verse. David glared at the neat little scrap of paper-torn off as precisely as if it had been cut-and shoved it into his pocket. Legwork. Right. Jennie was awfully fond of sending him off chasing things, and half the time he thought it was just to get him out of her hair.

  He wasn't used to being ordered around by a woman, much less by one who used to be his girlfriend. It was kind of hard to take.

  But Jennie just wasn't the same girl he knew back in college-she was so serious all the time. Businesslike, impersonal. Hardly ever smiled, for one thing, much less laughed. Except when she was trying to get his goat, being sarcastic, or trying to give him a hard time. She always had some kind of smart answer, too.

  And she didn't fit his idea of a real woman anymore, not with that cool, emotionless attitude of hers. Like she'd been taking lessons from Mr. Spock or something. Not a hint that they had ever been close.

  She dressed so damned aggressively, in jeans, leather jackets, boots-or really severely tailored suits-no makeup, no jewelry, nothing feminine. She was obviously used to doing everything herself; even when he offered to drive her somewhere, she declined. Too damned independent, that was what it was. She wouldn't give up control for anyone or anything.

  He'd tried making suggestions about this case; mostly she didn't even give him an argument. Instead, she just ignored them, acted as if he hadn't even said anything.

  That was bad enough; he was used to people listening to him, and asking for directions. He didn't like being ignored. But what was the most humiliating was that when he'd gone ahead and followed through with his own ideas himself, what he'd tried had usually backfired on him. Like two days ago, when he'd tried to tail Calligan's new foreman, the guy who'd moved up from assistant after the first foreman went up with the dozer....

  He'd figured the foreman probably knew something, and tailing him seemed like a good idea. After all, no one on the whole crew had a better opportunity to plant somet
hing like a bomb than the foreman or the foreman's assistant. The man had spotted him, and had tried to lose him. Stupidly, he'd tried to keep up. That was when the foreman picked up his cellular phone and called the cops.

  Too late, he'd seen the man talking on the handset and looking back at him. That was when David figured out what had just happened and had tried to get away.

  At that point, the foreman had turned the tables on him and had started tailing him, keeping up a running cellular report as he did so.

  The end of that story was inevitable. The cops had pulled him over, and he'd spent the rest of the afternoon at the station while they checked all fifty states for any outstanding warrants on him, even parking tickets. They didn't find any, but when they came back now and again to check on him, their file folder with his name on it kept getting thicker and thicker. He figured that before the afternoon was over, he'd cost them a couple hundred bucks in fax charges.

  They couldn't hold him forever without charging him with something, but they could keep him for twenty-four hours at least, and they didn't have to make his stay comfortable. And they had the right to question him every time a new addition to his file came in. He could have shut up and demanded an attorney, but he figured that would only make things worse. They knew he was an activist by now, and for all he knew, Oklahoma had a "stalker" law he could be charged under. Or they could try and hold him on suspicion in the Calligan sabotage.

  So he chose the appearance of cooperation. His story, made up out of desperation, was that he was trying to see if the foreman was the source of the anti-Indian stories in some of the papers. He knew what Jennie would have done to him if he had dared to drag her name in. Finally they let him go with a warning that any more incidents would leave him open to harassment charges, and that Oklahoma did indeed have a "stalker" law he could be prosecuted under. But now he was "red-flagged," and he was pretty sure they had that full file on him just waiting for the moment he did something else stupid.