June Came Home With A Key And Her Own Lawyer

June gave me a diner address outside Rome. She'd been sleeping in a church guest room and paying for meals with cash earned cleaning.

"Don't come yourself," she said.

"I won't."

I called Rosalie from my cell while June stayed on the shop line. Rosalie asked permission before each new question.

When June said she couldn't bear another official telling her to calm down, Rosalie answered, "Then I won't tell you that. Can you tell me what would make the next five minutes safer?"

June asked for a woman to meet her and a lawyer before a full statement.

She got both.

I didn't hear the interview that night. Two days later, June agreed to meet me at Ruth's office, with her own lawyer there, Rosalie taking notes, and a second investigator recording the meeting.

Her red coat was folded on her lap. Someone had stitched the torn cuff with blue thread.

"I wanted to call my daughter," she said. "Every day. I thought if I called, they'd find us both."

Rosalie had arranged a safety plan through the investigators handling the threats. June's daughter was staying with family. Mother and daughter had spoken by phone for nearly an hour.

"She was mad," June said. "That was the best sound I ever heard."

She didn't ask me to forgive her for being afraid. I was glad of that. It wasn't something she owed me.

Her account came slowly.

She'd noticed that the salvage permit covered pine, while the buyers paid for cypress. Silas told her the cover sheet fixed it.

Then she found an invoice for new cutting gear delivered near Morrow Brake. She asked to see the landowner's approval.

"He said I was a clerk," she told us. "He asked if I wanted to stay one."

On April 28, she'd taken a loose trial plank from the latest bundle and driven to my shed. After leaving me, she'd returned the yard truck and gone into the office for her bag.

Wade had been waiting.

He took her phone and locked her in the small dispatch room. Silas came later. He named her daughter's street and told her to sign the resignation and settlement form.

"I signed the resignation," she said. "I didn't sign for money. There wasn't any money."

Near midnight, Wade opened the room to get a load folder. When another driver called him outside, June slipped through the back door and walked to the highway.

A woman driving home from a hospital shift gave her a ride as far as a bus station. June still had cash in her coat lining.

"They kept my phone," she said. "So I kept running."

She set a key on the table.

It belonged to the dispatch room. Wade had left it in the outer lock when he opened the door. She'd pulled it free as she slipped out. Rosalie sealed it after photographing the number.

"We can compare it with the lock," she said. "Your account won't have to depend on that alone."

June had also sent work files to her personal email before she fled. Her lawyer arranged access to the account. Investigators obtained the records from the provider through the proper court process.

There were invoices, draft permits, and a message from Silas approving the added cover sheet.

The files bore dates from before her disappearance.

I brought the copy of the report I'd mailed her. It said T4 was green cypress and that I could not verify the salvage claim.

"He opened that," June said. "I never saw it."

Rosalie asked her not to guess. June nodded and corrected herself: she hadn't received it; she didn't know who had.

I watched her shoulders loosen when the correction didn't make anyone angry.

Later, searches turned up my unopened report in Wade's desk. It sat beneath the false settlement sheet.

The two-thousand-dollar check had cleared into an account Wade controlled. Bank records showed that. June's signed resignation had been attached to a payment acknowledgment she denied signing.

Meanwhile, the R17 driver gave a sworn statement. He'd taken every board back to Creek Gate Yard. Horne had threatened to call in his truck loan if he told anyone.

His truck's dispatch records backed his route.

The stolen-lumber receipt came from a file on the yard computer. Its signature image matched the one on my old vendor card. Investigators found an instruction to put my name on the release.

The order had come from Silas's business account.

Ruth showed me only the records we were entitled to see. There was plenty.

I wasn't there when officers searched the yard. I was measuring maple at the church job, earning money I could count without shame.

At noon, Rosalie called.

"We found fresh stumps in the restricted tract," she said. "The survey markers are still there."

Then she paused.

"Horne and Crim have been arrested. The prosecutor wants to meet you about testifying."