A Winter Delivery Slip Brought A Frightened Worker To Me

I did not take the slip from her.

"Come inside," I said. "You can put it on a clean table."

She watched the street while I unlocked the door.

Her name was Marta Ruiz. She had driven supplies for Venn's excavation crew until the previous week. He owed her $640.

"I asked for it," she said. "His office said they'd charge me for the truck tire first."

"Did you see Dr. Duarte sign this?"

"No. I collected the return sheets from a box. But I saw her in October. Through a window."

I called Adrienne and put the phone on speaker with Marta's consent.

"I took money from them," Marta said.

"For driving?" Adrienne asked.

"For not asking."

"You can tell me about that. First, are you safe where you are?"

Marta looked at my glass front door.

"I don't think so."

Adrienne came with another officer. She let Marta choose a chair facing the entrance. Then she asked permission before moving her bag away from the wet floor.

It was such a small thing. Marta's shoulders lowered.

I heated water in my battered kettle. Before I gave Marta the cup, I rested its side against my wrist.

"I do that with everything," I said.

She managed a short smile.

Adrienne asked about roads, gates, and people. Marta drew a route on blank paper. She knew the supply yard near Winona and a gravel turn north. After that, a crew truck met her.

"They changed trucks there. I never went all the way to the cut."

"Was it near the research camp?" Adrienne asked.

"No. Ben said it was miles beyond it, at an old cinder cut. Different spur. He said the search people checked the main camp in September, but the private crew had already moved."

Adrienne marked that distinction on Marta's sketch. She asked which details Marta had seen and which had come from Ben.

Her brother Ben worked on the digging crew. Venn had advanced him $3,800 for dental bills, then kept adding costs to his debt.

"Ben says he can't leave until it balances."

"Has anyone told him he'll be hurt if he leaves?" Adrienne asked.

Marta nodded.

"Venn said a man could get lost before the snow even came."

The officer wrote her words exactly. Adrienne read them back.

"I should have come sooner," Marta said.

Adrienne set her pen down.

"Tell me what made coming hard."

"He knew where my daughter went to school. He put the address on a fuel receipt. Said his office liked complete records."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Then Adrienne asked the officer to arrange protection for Marta's daughter as well. She explained each step before making the next call. Marta stopped twisting the string on her coat.

Marta had photographed a stack of delivery sheets before quitting. She gave permission for the officers to preserve those images from her phone.

There were propane charges, food orders, and diesel bills. One sheet billed $2,460 for heater fuel. Another listed six camp beds.

The dig had not stopped when Lena vanished.

"There should have been no private crew there," I said.

"That's what the permit records say," Adrienne replied.

By midnight, Marta had left with the officer for a safe place. Her signed statement went into an envelope. So did the slip.

Adrienne stayed while I washed the cups.

"You didn't promise her we'd have Ben home tonight," I said.

"I couldn't keep that promise."

"Most people would make it anyway."

She took a towel and dried one cup.

"I know."

Our hands met over the handle. Neither of us moved for a moment.

Then she set it on the rack.

"You're a witness in my case," she said.

"I'm aware."

"So am I."

I slept on the shop's narrow couch. Each passing truck sounded too slow.

The next morning, Ruth filed a response to the damage demand and asked a judge to stop the threatened lockout. My saved email contained Venn's words: destroy production molds and support jackets today.

Ruth attached it as Exhibit B.

"Why not A?" I asked.

"A is the contract. Courts enjoy knowing what words mean before people start breaking them."

At the lab, I helped Omar explain my casting process on video. I handled a new sample, not the sealed evidence. We recorded how a soft positive picked up raised marks and the deep shape of a break.

Adrienne watched through the window. Once, she lifted her own paper cup and checked it against her wrist.

I almost smiled.

That afternoon, she told me a judge had approved a search of Venn's display room. The location of the winter crew was still uncertain. Deputies were checking Marta's route without sending her back.

"He'll know it was me," I said.

"He may already think that. We have people watching your building."

She handed me a copy of the property receipt for my casts.

Clipped behind it was a newly obtained fuel account sheet. The delivery address had no road name, just a site code: K9.

Marta had written two words beside that code in her statement.

Night crew.