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CHAPTER FOUR

  Sarah didn’t have to wait long outside her department chairman’s office. She was prepared to plead for a verbal reprimand or a single, easily-overlooked line in the nebulous permanent record educational administrators value so highly. She might be able to produce a tear or two if it came to that. She sorted through all the bad things that had ever happened to her, looking for the proper motivation. The list was endless.

  She began formulating an apology as soon as the secretary closed the door behind her, but Professor Lindsay cut her off.

  “Finally, I have a student who takes an active interest in the struggles of indigenous Americans.”

  Who could have guessed that Archie Chatto was the descendant of one of the Indian scouts who had helped the U.S. Army bring an end to the Apache wars?

  “Betrayed, every last one of them,” Professor Lindsay said. “Cashiered out of the cavalry and shipped off to Florida on a cattle train. And now the U.S. government is persecuting the great-great-grand-children of those brave warriors.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure about the number of greats in Professor Lindsay’s calculation, and she was even less certain of Archie Chatto’s lineage, but she didn’t argue. The department chairman wasn’t upset in the least over his exchanges with the FBI; in fact, he was delighted. He enumerated constitutional amendments too fast for Sarah to keep track as he rose to his feet and shook her hand. He escorted her to an ugly institutional vinyl couch on the wall of his windowless office and took a seat beside her.

  “Archie will overcome the outrageous charges the government has brought against him,” Dr. Lindsay told her. “With my help, and yours, and the assistance of your wonderful mother.”

  Sarah expelled the breath she had been holding long enough to make her dizzy. “You know my mother?” Now she could see the signs—the

  way Professor Lindsay’s voice trembled with barely controlled emotion, the way his eyes danced around the room when his mind settled on Marie.

  “She’s told me everything. I was dubious at first, but your mother is very persuasive.”

  Was no man immune to Marie Ferraro’s charms?

  Professor Lindsay invested several long seconds looking Sarah over. His manner was intrusive, but at least it wasn’t lecherous. He examined Sarah the way a coin collector would evaluate a potential purchase.

  “The resemblance is only slight,” he said. “Between you and your mother, I mean.”

  Sarah knew exactly what he meant. Marie had a mysterious quality that a physical anthropologist couldn’t measure with a Boley gauge or weigh with a scale, and that quality had transformed Professor Lindsay’s brain into scented KY Jelly.

  There were many things Sarah could have said to her department chairman at that moment, but she knew from past experience that her warnings would go unheeded.

  Marie had turned her bipolar condition into an asset. When she was manic, she made men feel good, and when she was depressed, she made them feel responsible. Eventually she always did something crazy enough to turn her lovers’ infatuation into panic. Dr. Lindsay had obviously not reached that stage.

  “Your mother needs you in Oklahoma. We can arrange for a leave of absence while you go to her.”

  “Mom’s in Oklahoma?”

  “My daughter, Victoria, has a guest house you can stay in,” Professor Lindsay said. “She is solidly behind the struggle for Native American sovereignty.”

  The fact that Archie Chatto was on trial for murder didn’t figure into the department chairman’s equation. Archie was an Apache, after all, a member of an endangered species. Like the American timber wolf, Archie would be forgiven the social peccadilloes that attend living off the land.

  Marie called from Oklahoma a few days later with a plea for help. Grady county sheriff’s deputies were holding her on a charge of grand theft auto.

  “I never intended to keep the car,” she told her daughter. “I just needed transportation.” Marie didn’t expect much understanding from the legal system. There were all those outstanding warrants and her well-established status as a mental patient.

  “They’ll put me in a mental hospital—probably Flanders. I can’t go there again, Sarah. They might never let me out.”

  Sarah knew that wasn’t true. Her mother had been involuntarily committed to mental hospitals many times. They always let her out. But it wasn’t only men that Marie Ferraro could manipulate. She could work spells on her daughter too. All she had to do was use the magic words, and Sarah couldn’t refuse.

  “Please, Sarah. Please come and help me. I need you.”