After my third cup of coffee and seventh Advil, my headache eases, finally, and so does my hangover—chased back to hell, or wherever bad hangovers come from.

Work has always centered me, especially the early stages, the research, the reading, the note-taking. Like unwinding a braid made out of a thousand strings, and tacking each one down into place.

When Optimal was called Associated Polymer and headquartered in Tennessee, the company settled a complaint against them by a group of two hundred plaintiffs claiming runoff from their plant was causing bad smells, skin irritations, headaches. Unfortunately, because the case didn’t ever make it to court, public information is limited. But it stands to reason that they settled because they knew the claims were valid. Why else?

Even if Kaycee, Misha, Cora, and Annie did pretend to be poisoned, pretend to have the same symptoms as the complainants in Tennessee because they were hoping for a payout, it also stands to reason that they may have unconsciously hit on the truth. If you throw a dart enough times, eventually you’ll hit the bull’s-eye.

But five years of safety audits and public records yield nothing: Optimal has never even gotten a ticket. From the very beginning, the mayor and eight-person city council all but showed up for Optimal greased up and naked with a bow.

Before Optimal Plastics, the town was on the verge of collapse. The vast majority of the residents were over the age of seventy-five, not working, on disability, or just not in a position to move. Optimal has brought jobs, and young people, back to Barrens. They helped reconstruct the high school after it was damaged in a bad storm. They’ve poured money into roads and infrastructure. They’ve inspired new businesses, new house construction, new life.

But it’s possible they’ve done it at the expense of the poorest people, the ones who always suffer the most: the people who live closest to the reservoir, or farmers like Gallagher who depend on public water supply for their livelihoods.

Even if we do find something on Optimal, litigation will be a nightmare—like going after the most popular boy in school for stealing money from the church donation box. Optimal has been busy courting locals and state politicians up the chain. The contributions, if not the amounts, are listed proudly on the company’s Corporate Sponsorship page, beneath Barrens Little League and the Veterans Health Fund.

I dig up an old interview with a guy named Aaron Pulaski, the old Monroe County prosecuting attorney. The interview, published by a regional newspaper with a circulation of maybe a few thousand, if they’re lucky, focuses on Pulaski’s determination to clean up corrupt business interests in the county, and to make sure that Indiana tax dollars were flowing back to homegrown businesses.

He mentions Optimal by name—not for environmental violations, but for skirting labor union laws and hiring mostly foreign workers in its distribution centers throughout the Northeast.

Still, it’s something.

But if his office conducted an investigation, it has disappeared down an online sinkhole. That bothers me. It’s standard practice for the county prosecutor’s office to announce criminal investigations against major public figures—or against corporations. And announce it big.