“Have you had any threats recently?” I asked her.

Sandra shrugged. “What day is it?”

I walked around her truck but found no useful evidence to tell me who’d done this. I stood near Sandra’s modest rambler and put my hands on my hips to survey the long driveway and the highway between the trees. Snow had begun to turn the pines into white soldiers. There were tire tracks where a car had pulled up behind the pickup, but they weren’t clear enough to help me. Like Sandra, I could probably name twenty boys around here who might have pulled a stunt like this, but I’d never be able to prove it.

“If you didn’t see anybody, I can’t really do much except write it up,” I admitted.

“I know. I wouldn’t have bothered to call you, except Norm says I should report everything. He wants a record of it for the trial.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Norm Foltz was the local lawyer handling the litigation for Sandra and the other women working at the mine. They were trying to turn their harassment claims into a class action lawsuit, and although the mine had been trying to shut down the case for more than three years, Norm had finally beaten the skeptics by getting the class certified. The betting at that point was whether the mining company would offer a settlement or take its chances at trial. I had my money on a trial. The mine owners hated these women, Sandra in particular, and they were out to win.

I heard the static of the radio in my car. More Yuletide cheer was waiting for me somewhere in the county. “I’ll write up a report and send you a copy. You can pass it along to Norm.”

“Thanks.” Sandra lit another cigarette; she was in a mood to talk. “I heard you and Ricky got into it. Money problems, huh?”

“Good news travels fast.”

“Well, everybody was talking about it during the movie last night.”

“I don’t care about gossip,” I replied.

“Well, you can say that now, but I know what it feels like to be on the receiving end. Believe me, honey, the games can get pretty mean.”

“I know.”

I headed for my car, but Sandra called after me. “Hey, Rebecca? Aren’t you going to ask me where I was?”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard Gordon Brink’s little blond ice queen got the full Carrie treatment. Somebody nailed her with a gallon of pig’s blood. I sort of figured I’d be the prime suspect, what with Brink representing the mine. But you never came to see me.”

“Did you do it?”

“No. I was in the pit all day.”

“Yeah, I checked,” I told her. “That’s why I didn’t bother coming to see you. I don’t suppose you know who did do it?”