Blood Memory

by Margaret Coel

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ramona leaning sideways toward the computer while the man sat down and stared at the blank screen. The woman rested her hand on his shoulder and leaned in close, as if she expected something miraculous to appear as Ramona pressed the keys. She was giving them the same instructions she probably gave a hundred times every day. All of the records were online. They had only to type in the names of the companies they were looking for. Yes, they could print anything they wished. The printer was over there, she said, nodding past Catherine.

  Then she was walking over, eyes wide with incredulity. Her face was round, her cheeks flushed, as if she’d been climbing stairs. Catherine lay a finger against her own mouth and threw a glance at Newcomb. “It’s me.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “What have you done to yourself?” Ramona kept her own voice low. There was the lilt of Spanish in her accent. She pulled back the chair next to Catherine and plopped down. The hem of her black skirt dragged onto the floor; her hips overran the edges of the chair. Strands of gray shone in her black hair, and a silver chain and tiny silver cross sparkled against her red blouse.

  “I’m looking for information on private companies.”

  “You did this because of that guy that broke into your house and shot Maury Beekner?”

  “I just need to lie low for a while.”

  “He’s still after you? I mean, he didn’t just break into a house at random?”

  “Look, Ramona . . .”

  “Is Maury going to be okay? I mean, he’s such a nice guy. Comes in here from time to time.”

  “The doctors don’t know.”

  Ramona lifted her eyes, as if she were uttering an internal prayer. Then she said, “What are you working on to make somebody come after you?”

  Catherine stared at the woman, the words she’d been about to say jammed behind her teeth. Ramona had cut through the other possible scenarios to what they both knew was the truth: because of something she might write, a man intended to kill her. She tried for a little shrug, but couldn’t manage it. “I need to know who’s involved in Arcott Enterprises and Denver Land Company.”

  “You and everybody else.” Ramona tilted her head in Newcomb’s direction. “You know how it is with private companies. The law doesn’t require a lot of information, especially if they were formed after 2000. Address, name of registered agent, and name of person who files the incorporation, that’s it. Holler if I can help with anything.”

  Ramona lifted herself off the chair and Catherine felt the woman’s hand drop onto her shoulder for a moment. “Take care of yourself.”

  Catherine nodded and typed Denver Land Company in the search box. In a half second another document appeared. The company had been formed in 1983. She could feel her heart speeding up, and she leaned closer. Jordan Rummage was the registered agent, which meant that tax bills and other official documents went to him. Catherine knew the name. Nelson and Rummage was one of the oldest law firms in Denver. It had handled numerous real estate deals she had covered—renovation of several historic Denver buildings transposed into high-priced condominiums.

  The law firm had also filed the incorporation documents. She scrolled to the next page and no surprise there: Officers were James Nelson and Jordan Rummage. The company’s address was the same as the law firm’s—an historic house converted into an office building on the other side of downtown.

  She sat back and stared at the screen. What she had was nothing, and yet it was something. She had the name of the law firm that was the public face of Denver Land Company.

  “Well, well, if we aren’t following the same tracks.”

  Catherine spun around. She wondered how long Dennis Newcomb had been standing behind her. He wore a startled look, like that of a runner who’d glanced around and seen another runner closing his lead. “Wasn’t sure it was you for a few minutes. So tell me, who’s pulling Senator Russell’s strings? Arcott?” He put up the palm of one hand before Catherine could say anything. “I’ve been following your articles. The governor thinks he can block the whole proposal with a briefing. You ask me, he’s taking the chance that Congress will go along with the genocide theory and give Arcott what he wants.”

  “It was genocide,” Catherine said.

  “A hundred and fifty years ago! Not relevant, I say. What else did Arcott tell you? Where’s he getting his financial backing?” Newcomb leaned down. His face was pitted, as if it had been sandblasted. The stale odor of cigarettes floated between them.

  “Find out for yourself,” Catherine said. But she was looking for answers to the same questions. She turned back, pushed the print key, and closed the screen.

  “We can help each other, save a lot of time and energy.” Newcomb moved in closer. “This is a big story. Tribes willing to trade twenty-seven million acres for five hundred acres and a three-hundred-million-dollar casino? Who came up with that idea? The tribal elders? I don’t buy that, and neither do you. There’s big money in a casino like that and, you ask me, there’s big money behind it. You with me?”

  “What do you want from me?” Catherine got to her feet and Newcomb took a step back. They were on the same track. Arcott could have local investors eager to bypass state voters who didn’t want any more casinos. The silent partners in an Indian casino could reap millions every year. She hadn’t asked Arcott the right questions, and answers were always in direct relation to questions. Wasn’t that the first rule of journalism? Ask different questions and get different answers?

  “We should cooperate, Catherine. We’re both trying to run down the truth about what’s really going on here.”

  “I’m running down my own story,” she said.

  “Okay, okay.” Newcomb waved his hand in a gesture of truce. “Have it your way, but the day will come when it’ll be the press against whoever’s trying to force a casino on the state. There’s millions of dollars riding on the deal. Governor might be against it, but Senator Russell’s on the side of Arcott and the tribes.”

  He waited a moment, as if he expected her to respond, and when she didn’t say anything, he gave her a mirthless smile. “Stay cool.” He spun around and walked into the entry. There was a sense of expectation in the way he stopped at the door, as if he hadn’t given up the possibility that she might come to her senses and call him back. Then he flung the door open and let it slam behind him.

  Catherine gathered up the pages that the printer had spit out and walked back to the counter. She waited until Ramona looked up from the desk. “The only names for Denver Land Company are lawyers,” she said.

  Ramona gave one of those sympathetic nods that meant she understood and wasn’t it a shame. “Not unusual for lawyers to be listed on the articles of incorporation for private companies. Maintains privacy for the investors.” She ran her tongue over her lips, considering something before she went on: “I couldn’t help overhearing Newcomb. I mean, nobody wants a big casino near Denver. If the deal goes through, there’ll be a major uproar.”

  “That’s just it, Ramona. If Congress approves the deal, the people of Colorado can protest all they want. There won’t be anything anybody can do about it.”

  She left her with that, Ramona nodding and sighing as if it were all out of their hands and what could they do?

  Outside Catherine walked in the rectangle of shade next to the buildings and checked the messages on her cell. Traffic sputtered and whined along Colfax Avenue. No text messages. No voice mail. She glanced at the pedestrians moving along the sidewalk, the cars flowing past. She felt the tension start to melt away, and realized she had been holding her breath.

  She scrolled to the number for Senator Russell’s office and pressed the call key. A man’s voice came on after the first ring. “Office of Senator Russell.”

  Catherine held the cell tight against the wheezing noise of a bus that had just disgorged a group of kids in red tee shirts. She gave her name and asked to speak to Harry Colbert.

  “Sorry, Mr. Colb
ert is unavailable.” No hesitation in the voice, no hint that the man was lying. “Leave your number and someone will return your call.”

  “I’ve left my number, and no one has returned my call.”

  “Sorry, Ms. McLeod.” The tone of his voice said that the people in Senator Russell’s office knew who she was. What was it that Denver Magazine had written last January in the annual “Best of the West” issue? The Journal publishes the stories behind the stories. Reporter Catherine McLeod is relentless. Must reading for anyone who wants to know what’s really going on in our region.

  Someone had given instructions to the effect that Senator Russell and his assistant were permanently unavailable to Catherine McLeod. She said that she wanted to leave another message for Mr. Colbert.

  “Hold, please, while I transfer you to his voice mail.”

  Catherine counted the seconds . . . nineteen, twenty. The traffic noise ground in her ear. Then the recorded voice of Harry Colbert cutting through the noise: “Senator Russell is eager to hear your comments. Please leave your name and number.”

  “Catherine McLeod, the Journal,” she said. “My sources . . .” Sources? Speculation was all she had, along with a gut feeling that something was wrong. She kept her voice firm and deliberate and started again. “My sources tell me that Senator Russell plans to take action to settle the tribal claims and make the casino possible. I’d like to confirm that,” she said, still the determined tone meant to let Colbert know that she intended to run the story whether or not she heard from him, which in itself would be a confirmation.

  She pressed the end key, then called information and got the number for Nelson and Rummage. A group of businessmen passed by, talking all at once, waving their arms. The sounds of their voices mingled with the noise of a string of buses heaving themselves through the intersection.

  A blond man was on the other side of the street, waiting to cross. She felt her heart jump. Then he was crossing the street, coming closer, and she was in a half spin toward the direction in which she’d come. There was a security guard in the skyscraper lobby, she was certain she’d spotted one.

  But it wasn’t him. The man walking toward her was probably in his sixties, with fading blond hair and the beginnings of a blond beard. She had to take a moment before she called the law firm. A woman answered on the first ring, as if her hand had been on the phone. She delivered the name of the firm so quickly that the names ran together like a verbal stew laced with impatience. Every second counted at a law firm like Nelson and Rummage. Seconds were money.

  She gave her name and said she was with the Journal. Preparing a story on the Indian casino. Wanting to confirm information with Jordan Rummage.

  “Mr. Rummage is with a client at the moment,” the woman said, speaking more slowly now, deliberately. She had the woman’s attention, Catherine thought. “Let me check his schedule.” The line went dead. A woman who looked like a runner herded three small children down the sidewalk.

  “Ms. McLeod?” The woman was back on the line: “Mr. Rummage will be available in thirty minutes. I suggest you call back then.”

  “I’ll be in your office in twenty minutes,” Catherine said.

  20

  Erik waited until the gangly man with thick glasses and the name plate on his shirt that said “Andy” finished directing a pink-haired woman to the genealogical department of the library. “Oh, I’m sure my family would be in Western History.” She held up a mottled hand in protest. “We’ve been in Colorado so long, you see. Dear me, a century at least.” She should start in genealogy, Andy was saying, tossing a glance past her shoulder toward Erik, as if to say that he would answer his questions next.

  Finally the woman began moving away, and Andy walked down the counter. “How may I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Catherine McLeod.” Erik pulled the business card that he’d had printed this morning from his shirt pocket. “I’m a colleague. I was supposed to meet her here.”

  “I’m afraid she hasn’t come in yet.” The man pulled a sour face that made it seem he was genuinely sorry he couldn’t be of help. “She was here yesterday.”

  It was a long shot, Erik was thinking. After the article she had written for this morning’s paper, he’d taken the chance she would want to do even more research on Sand Creek and the genocide looming behind the settlement proposal. He should have gotten here yesterday. A perfect place for their meeting, this reading room with rows of stacked books and papers, and tables set here and there, and all the heads dropped into leather-bound volumes or a thick wad of documents, oblivious to anything going on around them. He could have ushered her into the stacks and left her there. He could feel the weight of the Sig in his pocket.

  “Did she happen to mention any other research she intended to do? Wouldn’t surprise me if she were elsewhere in the library.”

  Andy nodded, as if the possibility had also crossed his mind. Then he said, “I’m afraid she didn’t say. She’s a very thorough researcher. You might want to look around.”

  “Appreciate your time,” Erik said.

  He’d started for the door when the man behind the counter said, “I hardly recognized her myself.”

  “Excuse me?” Erik turned back.

  “Well, the color of her hair now. Almost blond, I’d say, and a lot shorter. Doesn’t look like herself. But you know how women are . . .” He let the half thought hang between them, a little man-to-man joke.

  “Yeah, always wanting to look different.” Erik tried for a laugh and thanked the man again because, after all, he had just told him something useful.

  “I assume you’re the reporter from the Journal.” A black-haired woman, all angles and sharp edges, turned away from the computer on the polished walnut desk. Reluctance was stamped on her narrow face. Everything about her seemed defined by black and white and slashes of red: the shiny black hair smoothed back like a tight-fitting cap and the tiny ruby earrings; the powdered white face and bright red lipstick; the large white collar flattened over the lapels of the black jacket and the ruby pin dancing near the shoulder. She made a pyramid under her chin out of long white fingers tipped with red.

  “Catherine McLeod.” Catherine pushed a business card across the desk. The reflection of her hand shone in the smooth surface. The sound of traffic burrowed through the brick walls of the two-story Victorian house a few blocks from the capitol. She had spotted the house when she’d reached the corner. Halfway down a block lined with metal and steel buildings, ten or twelve stories high, sunbursts reflecting in the bluish windows. Behind the buildings, downtown skyscrapers rose like silvery steps into the blue sky. She’d crossed on the diagonal with the suits and briefcases and high heels, the army of lawyers, brokers, secretaries, and business people, still glancing around for the blond-headed man and, at the same time, watching the brick house, so out of place, wedged between two modern buildings. A remnant of the past, rectangular windows marching across the front with flower boxes stuffed with petunias. Nelson and Rummage had won an award from the Denver Historical Society last year for preserving a piece of Denver’s history, and the Journal had devoted two pages of text and color photographs to the house.

  The receptionist rose out of her chair. She was taller than Catherine by several inches, and she swayed forward, as if the wind were at her back. “Mr. Rummage is a very busy man. Out of necessity, his policy is not to see anyone without an appointment, which can take weeks to secure, I might add. However, he has agreed to make a one-time exception in your case. He can give you five minutes.”

  And those were the ground rules, punctuated by the woman’s hard-eyed stare.

  Catherine spread her hands. Of course. Then she was following the woman across the light blue carpet and down a narrow hallway past two closed doors that had probably led to bedrooms a hundred years ago. The air had a fruity chemical odor, like that of an air freshener blowing through the air vents. The woman stopped at the third door, gave a sharp rap, and pushed the door open. “
Mr. Rummage is waiting for you,” she said, stepping to the side.

  Catherine moved past the woman into a spacious room that spread across the rear of the house. A wide-shouldered man in a gray pin-striped suit with a white shirt and a red tie knotted against his thick neck rose from behind the walnut desk. With the exception of a neat stack of folders, the surface was clear. Filtered daylight glowed in the bank of windows behind the desk. Outside was a small courtyard with a flagstone floor and pots of flowers and metal chairs scattered about, walled in by the smooth glass and metal surfaces of the adjoining buildings.

  Catherine walked over and shook the fleshy hand that Rummage held out. He looked like an aging athlete, tanned face and hands, gray hair trimmed close, a little too much weight around the midsection.

  “What can I confirm for the Journal, Ms. McLeod?” he said.

  “I’m doing a story on the proposed Arapaho and Cheyenne casino,” Catherine began.

  Rummage waved away the preliminaries. He was still on his feet, and he hadn’t invited her to take one of the brown leather chairs arranged around the room. “As soon as Congress settles the land claims with the tribes, the casino will be constructed on five hundred acres currently owned by Denver Land Company. I assume that is the confirmation you require,” he said, and Catherine understood then that Peter Arcott had tipped him off that she would be coming around.

  “A few things I’m not clear about,” Catherine said.

  Rummage drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk a moment, weighing various scenarios in his head. Finally he nodded her toward a leather chair. “Five minutes,” he said, “and you’ve already used two.” He dropped into the leather chair behind him.

  “Who are the principals in the company?”