Indian Pipes Read Online Free PDF

another half-million-dollar property.”
    “What’s she got now, three parcels?” Joe asked.
    Sarah nodded.
    “All up-Island?”
    Sarah nodded again.
    “When did Dojan get here?” Lincoln asked.
    “Yesterday. He hitchhiked from the MV airport.”
    Joe grinned. “They didn’t send a limo for him?”
    “He land on-Island before that engineer got himself killed?” Donald asked.
    Sarah nodded.
    “Wasn’t no accident. Someone gave him a shove.” Joe looked from Lincoln to Donald to Sarah. “So Dojan the killer flies in from D.C. and—bingo—the tribe gets rid of a little bitty nuisance. Pretty convenient timing, I’d say.”
     
    “How long will you be here, Dojan?” Victoria asked the tall, shaggy man. Dojan and she were still standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the cookroom.
    He shrugged, and the broken feather bobbed up and down.
    “I understand you’re doing a good job,” said Victoria.
    “Come on in, Dojan,” Elizabeth said. “My grandmother’s tired of standing up.”
    “Ah!” said Dojan.
    Elizabeth led them back to the cookroom, and Victoria sat in her usual chair.
    “I wear shoes,” said Dojan, when he’d seated himself. “And a suit.”
    Victoria looked thoughtfully at the Wampanoag. “You won’t have to stay there much longer. Another two years?”
    “I should be setting lobster traps now.” He grinned suddenly. “With your help, my friend.”
    Victoria smiled. “I’ll be ready. Two years will go quickly. I hear you’re living on a boat on the Potomac River?”
    “A plastic houseboat,” Dojan said with disgust. “At a yacht club. On the Washington Channel, a backwater.”
    Elizabeth laughed. “You mean, it’s not saltwater.”
    “That’s better than living in a high-rise apartment building with an elevator,” said Victoria.
    “Are you here because of all the casino talk?” Elizabeth asked.
    “Chief Hawkbill told me to come.”
    “Did you get back before that man was killed?”
    “Killed?” said Dojan.
    “They say he fell from the top of the cliffs,” said Elizabeth.
    “Who was it?”
    “Jube Burkhardt,” said Victoria. “Did you know him?”
    Dojan opened his eyes wide, and his dark irises seemed to float in bloodshot white.
    Victoria changed the subject. “Are you staying on your own boat while you’re here?”
    Dojan nodded, and without another word, got up from the table, walked silently to the door, and slipped out.
    “He’s weird,” said Elizabeth, after he’d left.
    “Don’t underestimate Dojan. He’s different, but he’s not stupid.” Victoria looked at her watch. “We’d better get going, if we hope to do our errands.”
    “I feel sorry for him,” Victoria said, after they’d put the top down on the convertible and were on their way to Vineyard Haven.
    “I suppose the tribe is paying his yacht club fees and dockage?” Elizabeth said. “Not bad.”
    Victoria frowned. “Washington is Chief Hawkbill’s idea of punishment.”
    “Did Dojan really kill that man?”
    Victoria nodded.
    “That’s why he was so prickly when I mentioned Jube Burkhardt getting himself killed. I guess if it weren’t for the chief, Dojan would be in prison?”
    “If it weren’t for Chief Hawkbill, Dojan wouldn’t have been punished at all,” said Victoria.
    “Because of the tribe’s sovereign nation immunity?”
    “Exactly.”
    Elizabeth steered around the sharp turn by the cemetery, and the yellow ribbons on Victoria’s straw hat fluttered around her face.
    “Dojan looks awfully pale,” said Elizabeth. They were on the straight road that went past the new Ag Hall.
    Victoria smiled. “Now we can read the inscriptions on his tattoos.”
    They stopped in North Tisbury and bought sandwiches and clam chowder. Victoria held the paper bag in her lap while Elizabeth drove through the late summer traffic, down the hill into Vineyard Haven, where they came to a standstill at the end of a line of cars.
    “Hey, Mrs. Trumbull!” A teenager crossed