three, when the plants and factories let out. She made pretty good time getting back home-while the sides of the streets heading out into the suburbs were still congested, the sides going into town were pretty empty. She pulled up into the driveway, dashed into the house, and poked her head into the living room, feeling a bit more cheerful than when she had left.
'Anybody call?' she asked Mooncrow, who was up to some obscene level on Tetris.
. 'One call,' he said, never taking his eyes off the screen. 'I left the number on the pad in the kitchen. The man would only say that he was calling about Native Americans.'
Would that be Sleighbow, calling to see if she'd gotten started on the case? Surely not. Surely he would not be that impatient. In her experience, insurance people didn't understand the meaning of the word 'fast.'
She tucked herself into the tiny kitchen, barely big enough for one. Older houses usually had enormous kitchens, but this house must have been built for a woman who hated to cook, because you couldn't open the oven and refrigerator doors at the same time.
The number on the pad had an area code that seemed familiar, but the number wasn't Sleighbow's. It occurred to her that it might be FedEx about the package she'd just sent, or even one of the Lakotah calling to see if she'd made any progress.
No, wait, it's not an 800 number, so it must be the Lakotah. I did tell them I was going to know by today whether or not the relics were where I thought they were. Maybe my contact wasn't home, and whoever got the box doesn't know what it is.
She dialed the number, then dug into the fridge for an apple and string cheese while it rang. She was short on time, short on energy, and short on fuel.
'This is Jennifer Talldeer. I sent the box already,' she said, checking her watch, as soon as someone picked up on the other end. Make this fast and get on the road, she thought absently; she needed to bolt this and get out of here. She felt a growing irritability, maybe even a little lightheadedness; the apple was wearing thin. 'You should have gotten it before ten this morning.'
Silence for a moment, then the person on the other end said, 'What box?'
'The relics you-I mean, the Lakotah elders-wanted me to track down,' she replied, rattling on quickly, and thinking she must be talking to a younger relative who was not privy to what the elders had been doing. 'Just tell Charlie Wapiti I got them and I sent them this afternoon.'
'I-uh, Miss Talldeer, I did call you, but it wasn't about Lakotah relics,' the man on the other end of the line said. 'I'm Franklin Morse, I'm with Morse Construction in Kansas, and I was told by a Mr. Sleighbow you might want to talk to me about Rod Calligan.'
'Oh, good grief!' she exclaimed, exasperated with herself and blushing. 'Mr. Morse, I am sorry-I have more than one case going at a time, and I just assumed you were calling about one I just wrapped up. Yes, I would like to ask you about Rod Calligan, if there's anything at all you can tell me. But I don't have a lot of time.'
'Shoot, that's all right, it is your nickel,' Morse replied. 'Just what are you looking for?'
'Information about the way he operates,' she said with caution. 'I'm a private investigator, and I'm looking into an accident on one of his sites.' That was ambiguous enough; nothing that Calligan could take exception to if he got word she was asking around about him.
'Huh.' Morse was silent for a moment. 'I go head-to-head with Calligan on a lot of bids, and I do have to tell you, miss, that he's a sharp one. Never makes a bad move, businesswise. Even when it looks like he's making a mistake, it always turns out he made the right move.'
Interesting. Especially in light of all the real-estate failures lately. 'What about his crews. Do you have any idea how he gets along with his employees?'
Silence for a moment. 'Rides his boys pretty hard, makes sure every minute on the clock is a minute of work. I can meet and match his bids, though, and I can guarantee I don't have the kind of labor problems he does.'
'Labor problems?' she asked, trying to prompt him without sounding like she was doing so.
'Who've you been talking to?' Morse countered. 'I could tell you better if I knew.'
A shrewd man; she had the notion that he wanted to know if anything he said could get him into trouble.
'Some of his employees,' she said absently, trying to get down the apple without sounding like she was eating. 'I may talk to some other people who aren't working for him right now.'
'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.'
