carry out the Ute Casino robbery, in a local militia group. He once worked in the casino, the "inside man" assumed essential for this heist. He is murdered by Gershwin while in hiding. Everett Jory: Man with strong political views, once had his own radio program. Jory is a lawyer and a man fond of legal suits, with one pending against Gershwin. Leaphorn finds him dead. Thought at first to be a suicide, he was murdered by Gershwin who also typed a suicide note on Jory's computer leading the police to know the names of the two in hiding. Damon Cabot: FBI agent-in-charge of the Ute Casino case, newly arrived from Philadelphia. P. J. (Pattie) Collins: EPA staffer who leads the project to identify exposed uranium, which is often tied with old coal mines; she allows Chee to ride along the day they scan Gothic Creek canyon. (based on a real person per Author's Note.) Tom McKissick: Pilot of helicopter owned by the US Department of Energy, which is equipped specially to detect and image the radiation, who conducts the survey of lands with uranium on the Navajo Reservation for the EPA. He, the co-pilot and the tech are based on real people per the Author's Note. Rosemary: Engaged to Teddy Bye. Janet Pete: Lawyer in federal Department of Justice. She is half Navajo and grew up in the cities of the East Coast. She returns to work in the Four Corners area after being home in Washington DC. She had been engaged to Chee, but that connection is over. She is assigned to defend Teddy Bye. She was introduced in Skinwalkers. Allusions to real persons and events In the interviews that Professor Louisa Bourebonette holds with an old Ute woman, old enmities began to upset Joe Leaphorn. Besides the murdering thief of the current story, he reflects on the history in the 19th century, when Utes joined with the U.S. Army under Kit Carson to put the Navajos down and ultimately to drive them out of their homeland. From the time of the Spanish, the Utes and Paiutes had been enemies to the Navajos, though all living in the same large area of the Colorado Plateau. In the Author's Note, Hillerman explains that the EPA team and the helicopter pilot and co-pilot were based on real people conducting the project to map exposed uranium on the Navajo Reservation, as