Heart Vs. Humbug. M.J. Rodgers

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СКАЧАТЬ and a 35-mm camera slung over his shoulder.

      “Where did you come from?” Brett asked.

      “I’m with the Bremerton newspaper. We got a call that you guys dug up some ancient Indian stuff.”

      The reporter turned to the workman beside the stone. “What do those markings mean?”

      “We do not know,” George said.

      Brett tried to get the reporter’s attention. “Who called you and when?”

      “We got an anonymous tip about thirty minutes ago.” The reporter turned back toward the foreman. “You the one who found this?”

      “Yes. I’m the construction foreman, Keneth George.”

      The reporter slung his camera around and started to take pictures. “Can you get rid of the rest of the dirt to see if there is more carving farther down the stone?”

      “I don’t think that would be wise,” Octavia said. “If this is a previously unknown site of early native American habitation, professionals need to be called in to excavate properly. It would be best to stop all work here immediately.”

      “Yes,” the foreman said as he nodded toward Octavia. “As I told Mr. Scroogen when I phoned him, we must stop all work.”

      “The hell you will,” Scroogen protested. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. This land has to be excavated and graded by next week. Dig that damn thing up and send it to whoever has to decide what it is.”

      “That is not how the law works, Mr. Scroogen,” Octavia said. “Artifacts must be examined at the site of their unearthing by the proper authorities. There may be other precious native American objects buried here. I’m certain your attorney would not advise you to do anything against the law.”

      She turned to Brett, that elusive smile just lifting the sides of her ample lips. Out of the corner of his eye, Brett could see the reporter stepping back to take a shot of the crowd.

      “Isn’t that right, Mr. Merlin?” she asked.

      “Only if it is a bona fide artifact,” Brett said, doubting it more and more by the second. From that smile on Octavia’s face and the way he had watched her orchestrating this little scene, Brett was certain that somehow she had to be behind this far too “coincidental” find and the call to the newspaper. He didn’t like this. Not at all.

      “I will call in my tribe’s cultural expert,” George said.

      “No, you won’t,” Scroogen protested. “I’m not stopping these bulldozers just because you’ve dug up some stupid stone.”

      George’s face darkened perceptively. He scrambled up the sloping, five-foot-high muddy pit wall to stand before Scroogen.

      “The stone must be examined,” George said, anger in his eyes and voice.

      Brett stepped between the two men, hearing the click of the news reporter’s camera. If he didn’t take control of this situation now, it could quickly escalate beyond anyone’s control.

      “Mr. George, I’m Brett Merlin, Mr. Scroogen’s attorney. Mr. Scroogen is merely skeptical about the authenticity of this stone carving, as am I. We’d both appreciate your calling your tribe’s professional archaeologist to settle the matter.”

      “Mr. Merlin, I’m surprised you would suggest such a thing,” Octavia said. “Surely you know that is not the proper legal procedure in a case like this.”

      “Oh?” Brett said, turning to her. “And what would you know of the proper legal procedure?”

      “Mr. Scroogen must first report this find to the group issuing the building permit for this site—namely, Bremerton’s Community Development Department. They in turn will have to contact the state representative of the Archaeology and Historical Preservation Department in Olympia, who will then contact the professional archaeologists from the tribes so they can visit this site to do a thorough examination.”

      She knew the proper legal procedure, all right. Too well. It was just as Brett had suspected from the first. She had to be behind this business.

      He stepped closer and faced her squarely. “How do you know this?” he challenged.

      “Because I’m a lawyer.”

       She was a lawyer?

      Brett watched the satisfied smile on Octavia’s face as she delivered that piece of unexpected news. He couldn’t be more surprised—or more annoyed—to realize how completely off-guard she had caught him.

      But what irritated him most was that he knew she had expected the error. She knew he had not taken her threats seriously. She knew he had been misled and bamboozled by her beauty, just like probably every other poor sap who had met her. She knew it, and she had counted on it.

      It seemed he had made a couple of very serious errors when it came to this lady. He gave himself a moment to regroup his thoughts before going on the offensive to save what he could from the situation.

      “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he demanded. “Why have you hidden the fact that you are an attorney?”

      A single eyebrow arched up her forehead. “You, Brett Merlin, accuse me of hiding the fact that I’m an attorney? You, who marched into my grandmother’s radio station yesterday and handed her a fallacious complaint you sent to the FCC without mentioning the fact that you were only doing it because you are a high-powered attorney hired by Scroogen to make trouble for her?”

      She paused in her ultra-composed—and obviously rehearsed—indignation to turn to the reporter standing just beside her.

      “You did get all that, didn’t you?” she asked sweetly.

      “Every word,” he answered as he pointed at the tape recorder that had suddenly materialized in his hand. The young man then turned and shoved the mike into Brett’s face.

      “Is what Ms. Osborne said true? Is your FCC complaint against Mab Osborne merely an attempt to make trouble for her?”

      “Let’s not get off the subject here,” Brett said quickly. “We are at the future site of an exciting new condominium complex that will bring both jobs and prosperity to this community, a complex that could be delayed by the discovery of this stone carving. The question you should be asking is, who might be responsible for putting the carving on this stone?”

      “Are you saying you don’t believe this is an Indian relic, Mr. Merlin?” the reporter asked, the inflection in his voice obviously hoping Brett would say just that.

      “I’m saying that no one here is qualified to make such a determination,” Brett answered cautiously.

      “Is the legal procedure that Ms. Osborne delineated accurate, as you understand it?” the reporter pressed.

      “Only if this really is an ancient native American artifact,” Brett said.

      Brett turned back to the foreman. “Mr. George, would you ask your tribe’s cultural representative to come over now? СКАЧАТЬ