She glanced at Norm, who’d come to the mine with us. The three of us sat in flimsy chairs inside the trailer, but Sandra ignored the chair we’d set aside for her and stayed standing. Outside, a constant rumble of machines made the trailer walls rattle, and we heard the shouts of men trying to be heard over the engines.

“What now?” she asked Norm with a weary sigh. “What do they think I did?”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” he told her. “I’ll let you know what to answer and not answer. Just be truthful.”

Sandra shrugged. “Let’s make this fast.”

Darrell nodded at me to lead the questioning. I found that I liked doing my old job again, even if it was just for a little while. “Sandra, you mentioned a couple of times that the mine tried to buy you off to get you to quit.”

“Yeah. So what? I told them to shove it, but if you want proof, I can’t give it to you. They didn’t put any of this in writing. Their offer was cash on the table, take it or leave it.”

“When was this?”

She hesitated. “A few years ago.”

“Five, six, seven?”

“I don’t remember. I know it was summer, because it was hot.”

“Before the lawsuit was filed?”

“Yeah.”

“How did this offer come about?” I asked.

I saw a glimmer of understanding cross her dirty face. She knew why we were here. She rolled the answer around on her tongue for a while before saying anything more.

“A guy called me at home,” she told us. “An out-of-towner. A lawyer. He wanted to talk to me on behalf of the mine. When we met, he said they were willing to pay me a nice chunk of change if I’d voluntarily leave my job and sign some kind of release. He was willing to give me two thousand bucks right then and there. He even showed me the roll of bills.”

“You said no?”

“Two thousand bucks but then I’ve got no job? Yeah, I said no. The recession was hell back then. I didn’t know if I’d ever get another job around here. I was going to hang on to what I had.”

“Who was it, Sandra?” I asked. “Who was the lawyer?”

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “If you’re asking me about it, I assume you already know. It was Gordon Brink.”

“You met Brink years before his murder. Here in Black Wolf County.”