She did not complete the sentence, but Jennifer did it for her. “If I cross him, he is very likely to react badly. So I’ll do my best not to cross him.” She hoped the slight smile she wore now crept into her voice. “If I can manage it, I won’t be more than another reporter; I’ll try not to let him know what my job really is. If I have to talk to him, I’ll try to make him think I’m just a dumb Indian babe.” Now her tone turned ironic. “Sometimes a prejudice can work for you.”

“That’s my smart daughter,” Sarah chuckled. “I’ll give this to your father as soon as he comes in; if you call back tomorrow, he’ll probably have a little something for you, if there’s anything at all to know.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Jennifer said. “Now what’s all this about quill embroidery?”

They talked of ordinary things for a while longer, then Jennifer hung up when she heard the “call waiting” click on her mother’s side of the line. Besides, she still had some more work to do before she gave up for the night.

She had two lines, one for the phone and one for her computer. She wasn’t the only P.I. in Tulsa using a computer, but she thought she might be one of the few to use it to its full potential. There were a lot of databases available to people who knew how to get into them, all of them quite legal to access, so long as you knew how.

A little cross-checking proved that Sleighbow’s number was indeed one of the Romulus internal numbers. A little more cross-checking showed that Romulus, like many other companies, had voice mail. And since Sleighbow had said he was going home—

She reached for her phone and dialed his number again. After the fourth ring, there was a pickup. She listened as the voice-mail service told her she had, indeed, reached Sleighbow’s number and told her how to leave a voice-mail message. She hung up without leaving anything.

But she had learned that Sleighbow worked for who he said he worked for. Now to find out if he had the authority to hire her.

She looked through the database for the number of the live internal operator, and dialed that. After a moment, a real person answered.

“Do you have the number for the accounting department?” she asked.

The operator was perfectly happy to give it to her, and then, somewhat to her surprise, added, “Since it’s month-end, there are probably a lot of people still down there. Would you like me to put you through now?”

“Yes, please!” Jennifer replied, trying not to sound as surprised as she felt. If she could confirm Sleighbow’s authority to hire her, she could be on this case tonight.