"I was out on a case," she said simply, hoping that it was either of those two. "I called as soon as I got your message. There was something about an investigation of trouble at a construction site? I hope you haven't found someone else."
She pulled pad and pencil to take notes within easy reach. Both lay in a patch of late sunlight on the warm worn wood of her desk. She hoped that the answer to her question would be "no."
"No, we haven't," Sleighbow said, and she stifled a sigh of relief. "There aren't many people with your particular qualifications; certainly not in the Tulsa area."
Qualifications? That was an odd thing to say. And something she'd better check out before she took this job.
"I'm not certain what you mean," she replied cautiously. "There are certainly plenty of competent private investigators in this area; I'm sure there are many you've worked with before. Has one of my former clients referred you to me?"
"Not exactly-" he temporized.
It took a good ten minutes of verbal song-and-dance before she finally got Sleighbow to cough up his reason for calling her, and no one else. Yes, she had come highly recommended by former clients-which was pleasant to hear, but not enlightening. Yes, her record was quite good. Yes, he was pleased that she had a good relationship-or at least, she didn't have a bad relationship-with the local police. None of those were the reason why he had called her, nor the reason why Romulus did not particularly want to use one of their usual firms. And he wouldn't tell her exactly what the job was; he kept asking her questions. She was usually pretty good about figuring out which "interview" questions were loaded, but this guy was slick; she'd have to have a voice-stress analyzer to get anything useful out of some of the things he asked her.
"Does this have anything to do with the fact that I'm female?" she hazarded, a little impatient with the man. "Or that I'm a-ah-minority? If this is a bow toward tokenism, I'll take your job only if I'm really suited to doing it. Otherwise I would be very happy to recommend someone else who can handle it better and you'll have made your federally mandated attempt." She'd taken a "token" job a few times in the past; they had always turned out to be unmitigated disasters. Now, even if she needed the money, she always turned them down. There was a "PITA" factor- "Pain In The Ass"-that only very generous pay could compensate for.
"It has everything to do with the fact that you are Native American, Miss Talldeer," Sleighbow replied, relief quite obvious in his voice. "And no, there is no one who is better qualified, and it has nothing to do with federal mandates."
"All right," she said, feeling that this time he was coming straight with her. "If you've got time, I've got time. Why don't you start at the beginning, and I'll sit and listen."
_CHAPTER FOUR
"are you familiar with the Riverside Mall project, Miss Talldeer?" Sleighbow asked. His tone didn't tell her much, but her instincts told her to be careful. "Rod Calligan is the developer there."
"Vaguely," she replied with caution. Not a good idea to tell him she had been among the protesters when the area had first been proposed for development. He might take a dim view of that. Not that it mattered much anymore, really. She and everyone but a few diehards had finally given up on stopping the project when it became painfully clear that the developer had everyone, from the Feds on down, firmly in his back pocket. There was no other way to explain why so many issues she and the others had raised had been so neatly "taken care of." But there had been no way to prove corruption, so she had dropped out, as had most of the others.
"There'd been some trouble with Native American protesters back when the site was first selected," Sleighbow continued, his tone completely noncommittal. "When Calligan came to us, he presented us with a package that indicated that every objection had been taken care of. Frankly, we thought his presentation was a good one, and when the developer made a point of hiring as many Native Americans as he could, far beyond the point of government-ah- recommendations, our specialists assured us that there would be no further problems from that angle. That was why we agreed to insure him. Romulus does not specialize in high-risk insurance." The last was said with a certain emphasis, and agreed with everything she had heard about his company.
She noticed two things; he said "Native Americans" with no sign of self-consciousness or irony, and he had avoided the taboo word "quotas." Interesting. She thought she detected a little more relaxation in his voice as well. She relaxed a little further, and let her instincts talk to her for a moment. Her feeling after a few seconds was that since he had decided to come straight with her, he was being quite open and honest.
"I take it there seems to be a problem at the site, then?" she asked. It seemed an obvious question, and she wondered how big the problem was. And why the insurance company was now involved. Had there been some property damaged?
He sighed. "I take it that you haven't seen the news tonight."
She felt her eyebrows rising. "No, actually, I haven't."
"Ah." He paused a moment. "Then let me lead you up to this carefully, so that you get everything in order. According to Rod Calligan-and mind you, he only came to us with these allegations after the incident today-he's been threatened and harassed by Native Americans. Phone calls, threatening letters, nuisance sabotage at the site, that sort of thing. No real property damage, or threats that came to anything. He did not report any of this to the police. He says he didn't want to alarm his family or trigger anything worse by starting a police investigation. He had a number of Native Americans quit; he hinted that the threats might have been coming from them."
"Oh?" she replied noncommittally. "Interesting." He was taking his own sweet time to get to the "incident," but she had the feeling that everything he was telling her now was important. She had learned enough from Grandfather's teaching-stories not to rush him past information she might need.
"We thought the same." His tone was full of irony, and she sensed that he found these stories just a little too pat. "Still, that doesn't change what happened today. If there really were threats, it went beyond them to action."
"And this is what was on the news?" she asked.
"And will probably make CNN," he confirmed. "It's ugly, Miss Talldeer, and I've got some small experience in sabotage. There's no way to soften this-someone blew up a bulldozer, and killed four people, including the foreman. There are a half dozen more workers in the hospital or who were treated and released." He paused for a moment to let that sink in.
It came as a shock, still. That was the kind of thing you expected to hear about in Greece, or the Mideast, or even New York. Not in your own backyard. "My god-" she said, finally. "What happened?"
"Preliminary investigation indicates that there was an explosive device planted somewhere on the bulldozer, one that was triggered by an electronic detonator." He took a deep breath, but it did not cover the anger in his voice. He was outraged by this, personally. As well he should be. "It was probably something like a garage-door opener."
The analytical part of her mind was the first to recover. "Not easy to trace." She made notes rapidly as things occurred to her. First and foremost, this was a job for the police, not a private investigator.
"True, given that there are several hundred thousand of them in the Tulsa area alone. But that is not what we want you to look into. The police can handle the criminal investigation." Sleighbow was firm on that, and she appreciated it. She was not a Magnum, P.I. She'd never handled anything worse than a spouse-beater before this, and she really didn't want to start butting in on police territory now. "That's their job, and we are willing to let them do it," he continued. "It'll be murder charges before this is over, and an insurance company does not need to handle a potato as hot as that. What Romulus wants you to do is to look into who or what is behind this. Is it a conspiracy, and if it is, did the developer try to defraud us by concealing it? Or was this simply an isolated act of a single disgruntled employee? That's what we want to know. Was there fraud going on; was the developer deliberately misleading us?"