“Oh yeah, he went after everybody else, too. Birth control, affairs, porn, you name it. All except Ruby, of course. She’s their star witness, so they treat her like Snow White. Ruby thinks all of us girls are blowing everything out of proportion, you know. Boys will be boys.”

Sandra shook her head in disgust.

I knew that the bitterness between Sandra and Ruby Jackson ran deep. Ruby had been a vocal opponent of the lawsuit from the beginning, and having her on the other side undercut the entire case. Unlike Sandra and the others, Ruby had the advantage of being married to Ajax. All the men at the mine knew Ajax and didn’t want to get on his bad side. That protected Ruby from the worst of their behavior.

“There’s what, two dozen other women who are part of the litigation now?” Darrell continued. “That’s a lot of husbands, brothers, and fathers who must have been mad as hell about Brink asking questions like that.”

“Yeah. People were pissed. So?”

“Did anyone seem more upset than the others? Did anyone have plans to get even?”

“People blow off steam all the time. They get liquored up and say stupid shit. You know it doesn’t mean anything. Sure, we all hated Brink, and there may have been some pranks that went over the line, but that’s it. The fact is, we wanted our day in court. Nobody from our side was going to mess that up.”

“What about the people on Brink’s team? Did you see any friction between them? Arguments, disagreements?”

Sandra shook her head. “No, Brink was the big bad partner. Nobody challenged him. The others barely even opened their mouths. There was one secretary who looked upset by the questions he was asking, though. She gave me this look a few times, like she felt sorry for me.”

“What was her name?”

“Hell if I know.”

“What did she look like?”

“Kind of an Amy Irving type. Cute.”

Darrell rubbed the scar on his face as he tried to decide what to ask next. I knew he didn’t really believe that Sandra had killed Gordon Brink. Pig’s blood all over Gordon’s wife? Sure. Cutting him into ribbons? No. It takes some serious, blind, soul-deep rage to do that. Like a dormant volcano that wakes up with an explosion. That wasn’t Sandra. With her, what you saw was what you got.

“You’re tuned in to the gossip around town, right?” Darrell said.

“When it’s not about me,” Sandra replied with a wink. “Which isn’t very often.”

“Was there any gossip about Brink? Any stories going around town?”