She’d told Dad everything she knew—which wasn’t much—concentrating on the desecration and looting of the burial ground, and trying to keep speculation to a minimum. She showed him the Polaroids, and left the 35-mm film to give to the Principal Chief. He in his turn had told her he’d asked around, and no one, no one, had heard anything about threats being made or even hinted at against Rod Calligan, either by hotheads or activists, before the explosion.

That had been the reason for staring off into space, while Mom’s favorite mockingbird sang wildly from the tree in the backyard; thinking over what he had told her. It did not jive with the information Calligan had given the media, or the situation the insurance company had suspected. If no one had been threatening him, why had he told the media and the insurance company that they had been?

Unless he was deliberately constructing a scapegoat. But in that case, who had planted the bomb? And above all, why? Suddenly she had come to a dead end she hadn’t expected, and a whole pile of loose ends that didn’t match up with anything else.

She chewed thoughtfully; Dad made a darned good sandwich—the bacon was from a half-hog they bought every year, and the tomatoes were fresh from the garden. She had given her father half the Polaroids as well as the film; he had promised to give both to the Principal Chief, who would tell a little white lie and claim to have taken them himself. So at least Officialdom would be notified and if this was simply a coincidence—

—not likely—

—the looting would be registered and the legitimate market tightened up.

She noticed that her father was watching her with a little frown line between his eyebrows, although he was usually as hard to read as his arc-welder. When he continued to stare at her that way, she finally put the sandwich down and returned the stare. He was not easy in his mind, and although she suspected she knew the reason, she decided to get it over with.

“All right, Dad,” she said. “You’re worried about something. Cough it up.”

He cleared his throat self-consciously. “I always worry about you, Jen,” he temporized. She noticed that more of his hair had gone gray at the temples, and that there were a few new wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “You know that. You picked a tough profession, tough even for a guy and a white—you being a woman and not, well—it’s tougher.”

That wasn’t it, and she knew it, but it was a place to start. “I’m paying the bills,” she pointed out. “And you know darn well I can take care of myself. Between marksmanship and martial arts, I’m not too bad—and overtrained for chasing philandering hubbies and deadbeat daddies!”