She asked David to write everything down and fax it to Sleighbow—with the preface that this was all very speculative, and they had no way of proving any of it. But she wanted Sleighbow to have all the information she did. Minus the Little People, of course.

She was positive that, at the least, Mr. Sleighbow would find it all very interesting. She was rather certain that using insured property for the “storage” of dubiously acquired artifacts was not covered by Calligan’s policy.

Jennie thought it all the way through on her way to the offices of the Women’s Shelter, following behind Maria, Toni’s caseworker. The little Chevette was easy enough to follow, even though the streets were crowded as people got out for lunch. Traffic in Tulsa still was never as bad at its worst as it was in Dallas at its best.

The mall site was a bad one, although on the surface it might seem to be a good place to put a shopping area. Granted, there was no mall or even a decent shopping center that close to the river. This was a high-income area, heavily residential. A high-end shopping mall should have good potential.

But when you looked close, at least according to Jennie’s mother, the picture changed. Existing malls still had plenty of vacancies, what with the recession and all. A smaller, high-end shopping complex associated with a hotel was not doing well, and it was very near Calligan’s site. Worse yet, there wasn’t nearly enough access; the streets were predominantly residential, and a plan to increase Riverside Drive to six lanes was controversial and being fought by the local residents. This site was, after all, on a floodplain, and her mother’s tips from the local real estate grapevine said that reason alone had kept people away. He didn’t even have a quarter of the shops booked. But he owned the land, free and clear, and David said just before he left that he thought Oklahoma property rights included “treasure-hunter” rights to whatever was found there.

Maria was a cautious driver; that made her easier to follow. She never ran yellow lights, much to the annoyance of those behind her. And although Jennie already knew the way, she was glad to have the excuse to go slowly; it gave her the opportunity to think this through.