Текст книги "Gray Mountain"

Автор книги: John Grisham

Соавторы: John Grisham
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

5

It took an hour to rent a red Toyota Prius, and as Samantha worked her way through D.C. traffic she gripped the wheel and constantly scanned the mirrors. She had not driven in months and was quite uncomfortable. The incoming lanes were packed with commuters hustling from the suburbs to the city, but the traffic headed west moved without too much congestion. Past Manassas, the interstate cleared considerably and she finally relaxed. Izabelle called and they gossiped for fifteen minutes. Scully & Pershing had furloughed more associates late the day before, including another friend from law school. Another batch of non-equity partners had hit the street. A dozen or so senior partners took early retirement, apparently at gunpoint. Support staff was cut by 15 percent. The place was paralyzed with fear, with lawyers locking their doors and hiding under their desks. Izabelle said she might go to Wilmington and live in her sister’s basement, intern for a child advocacy program, and look for part-time work. She doubted she would return to New York, but it was too early to make predictions. Things were too unsettled, and changing rapidly, and, well, no one could say where they might be in a year. Samantha admitted she was thrilled to be out of the law firm and on the open road.

She called her father and canceled lunch. He seemed disappointed, but was quick to advise her against rushing into a meaningless internship deep in “the third world.” He mentioned the job offer again and pressed a little too hard. So she said no. “No, Dad, I don’t want the job, but thanks anyway.”

“You’re making a mistake, Sam,” he said.

“I didn’t ask for your advice, Dad.”

“Perhaps you need my advice. Please listen to someone with some sense.”

“Good-bye, Dad. I’ll call later.”

Near the small town of Strasburg, she turned south on Interstate 81 and fell in with a stampede of eighteen-wheelers, all seemingly oblivious to the speed limit. Looking at the map, she had envisioned a lovely drive through the Shenandoah Valley. Instead, she found herself dodging the big rigs on a crowded four-lane. Thousands of them. She managed to steal an occasional glance to the east and the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and to the west and the Appalachian Mountains. It was the first day of October and the leaves were beginning to turn, but sightseeing was not prudent in such traffic. Her phone kept buzzing with texts but she managed to ignore them. She stopped at a fast-food place near Staunton and had a stale salad. As she ate, she breathed deeply, listened to the locals, and tried to calm herself.

There was an e-mail from Henry, the old boyfriend, back in the city and looking for a drink. He had heard the bad news and wanted to commiserate. His acting career had fallen flatter in L.A. than it had in New York, and he was tired of driving limousines for D-list actors with inferior talent. He said he missed her, thought of her often, and now that she was unemployed perhaps they could spend some time together, polishing their résumés and watching the want ads. She decided not to respond, not then anyway. Perhaps when she was back in New York, and bored and really lonely.

In spite of the trucks and the traffic, she was beginning to enjoy the solitude of the drive. She tried NPR a few times, but always found the same story—the economic meltdown, the great recession. Plenty of smart people were predicting a depression. Others were thinking the panic would pass, the world would survive. In Washington, the brains appeared to be frozen as conflicting strategies were offered, debated, and discarded. She eventually ignored the radio, and the cell phone, and drove on in silence, lost in her thoughts. The GPS directed her to leave the interstate at Abingdon, Virginia, and she happily did so. For two hours she wound her way westward, into the mountains. As the roads became narrower, she asked herself more than once what, exactly, was she doing? Where was she going? What could she possibly find in Brady, Virginia, that would entice her to spend the next year there? Nothing—that was the answer. But she was determined to get there and to complete this little adventure. Maybe it would make for a bit of amusing chitchat over cocktails back in the city; perhaps not. At the moment, she was still relieved to be away from New York.

When she crossed into Noland County, she turned onto Route 36 and the road became even narrower, the mountains became steeper, the foliage brighter with yellow and burnt orange. She was alone on the highway, and the deeper she sank into the mountains the more she wondered if, in fact, there was another way out. Wherever Brady was, it seemed to be at the dead end of the road. Her ears popped and she realized she and her little red Prius were slowly climbing. A battered sign announced the approach to Dunne Spring, population 201, and she topped a hill and passed a gas station on the left and a country store on the right.

Seconds later, there was a car on her bumper, one with flashing blue lights. Then she heard the wail of a siren. She panicked, hit her brakes and almost caused the cop to ram her, then hurriedly stopped on some gravel next to a bridge. By the time the officer approached her door, she was fighting back tears. She grabbed her phone to text someone, but there was no service.

He said something that vaguely resembled “Driver’s license please.” She grabbed her bag and eventually found her license. Her hands were shaking as she gave him the card. He took it and pulled it almost to his nose, as if visually impaired. She finally looked at him; other impairments were obvious. His uniform was a mismatched ensemble of frayed and stained khaki pants, a faded brown shirt covered with all manner of insignia, unpolished black combat boots, and a Smokey the Bear trooper’s hat at least two sizes too big and resting on his oversized ears. Unruly black hair crept from under the hat.

“New York?” he said. His diction was far from crisp but his belligerent tone was clear.

“Yes sir. I live in New York City.”

“Then why are you driving a car from Vermont?”

“It’s a rental car,” she said, grabbing the Avis agreement on the console. She offered it to him but he was still staring at her license, as if he had trouble reading.

“What’s a Prius?” he asked. Long i, like “Pryus.”

“It’s a hybrid, from Toyota.”

“A what?”

She knew nothing about cars, but at that moment it did not matter. An abundance of knowledge would not help her explain the concept of a hybrid. “A hybrid, you know, it runs on both gas and electricity.”

“You don’t say.”

She could not think of the proper response, and while he waited she just smiled at him. His left eye seemed to drift toward his nose.

He said, “Well, it must go pretty fast. I clocked you doing fifty-one back there in a twenty-mile-an-hour zone. That’s thirty over. That’s reckless driving down here in Virginia. Not sure about New York and Vermont, but it’s reckless down here. Yes ma’am, it sure is.”

“But I didn’t see a speed limit sign.”

“I can’t help what you don’t see, ma’am, now can I?”

An old pickup truck approached from ahead, slowed, and seemed ready to stop. The driver leaned out and yelled, “Come on, Romey, not again.”

The cop turned around and yelled back, “Get outta here!”

The truck stopped on the center line, and the driver yelled, “You gotta stop that, man.”

The cop unsnapped his holster, whipped out his black pistol, and said, “You heard me, get outta here.”

The truck lurched forward, spun its rear tires, and sped away. When it was twenty yards down the road, the cop aimed his pistol at the sky and fired a loud, thundering shot that cracked through the valley and echoed off the ridges. Samantha screamed and began crying. The cop watched the truck disappear, then said, “It’s okay, it’s okay. He’s always butting in. Now, where were we?” He stuck the pistol back into the holster and fiddled with the snap as he talked.

“I don’t know,” she said, trying to wipe her eyes with trembling hands.

Frustrated, the cop said, “It’s okay, ma’am. It’s okay. Now, you got a New York driver’s license and Vermont tags on this little weird car, and you were thirty miles over. What are you doing down here?”

Is it really any of your business? she almost blurted, but an attitude would only cause more trouble. She looked straight ahead, took deep breaths, and fought to compose herself. Finally she said, “I’m headed to Brady. I have a job interview.” Her ears were ringing.

He laughed awkwardly and said, “Ain’t no jobs in Brady, I can guarantee you that.”

“I have an interview with the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic,” she said, teeth clenched, her own words hollow and surreal.

This baffled him and he seemed uncertain as to his next move. “Well, I gotta take you in. Thirty over is extreme recklessness. Judge’ll probably throw the book at you. Gotta take you in.”

“In where?”

“To the county jail in Brady.”

Her chin dropped to her chest and she massaged her temples. “I don’t believe this,” she said.

“Sorry ma’am. Get out of the car. I’ll let you sit in my front seat.” He was standing with his hands on his hips, his right one dangerously close to his holster.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“As a heart attack.”

“Can I make a phone call?”

“No way. Maybe at the jail. Besides, ain’t no service out here.”

“You’re arresting me and taking me to jail?”

“Now you’re catching on. I’m sure we do things different down here in Virginia. Let’s go.”

“What about my car?”

“Tow truck’ll come get it. Cost you another forty bucks. Let’s go.”

She couldn’t think clearly, but all other options seemed to end with more gunfire. Slowly, she grabbed her bag and got out of the car. At five foot seven and in flat shoes, she had at least two inches on Romey. She walked back to his car, its blue grille lights still flashing. She looked at the driver’s door and saw nothing. He sensed what she was thinking and said, “It’s an unmarked car. That’s why you didn’t see me back there. Works every time. Get in the front seat. I’ll take you in with no handcuffs.”

She managed to mumble a weak “Thanks.”

It was a dark blue Ford of some variety, and it vaguely resembled an old patrol car, one retired a decade earlier. The front seat was of the bench style, vinyl with large cracks that revealed dirty foam padding. Two radios were stuck on the dashboard. Romey grabbed a mike and said, in rapid words barely decipherable, something like, “Unit ten, inbound to Brady with subject. ETA five minutes. Notify the judge. Need a wrecker at Thack’s Bridge, some kinda little weird Japanese car.”

There was no response, as if no one was listening. Samantha wondered if the radio really worked. On the bench between them was a police scanner, it too as quiet as the radio. Romey hit a switch and turned off his lights. “You wanna hear the siren?” he asked with a grin, a kid and his toys.

She shook her head. No.

And she thought yesterday had been the pits, with the ten rejections and all. And the day before she’d been laid off and escorted out of the building. But now this—arrested in Podunk and hauled away to jail. Her heart pounded and she had trouble swallowing.

There were no seat belts. Romey hit the gas and they were soon flying down the center of the highway, the old Ford rattling from bumper to bumper. After a mile or two he said, “I’m really sorry about this. Just doing my job.”

She asked, “Are you a policeman or a deputy sheriff or something like that?”

“I’m a constable. Do primarily traffic enforcement.”

She nodded as if this cleared up everything. He drove with his left wrist limped over the steering wheel, which was vibrating. On a flat stretch of road, he gunned the engine and the turbulence increased. She glanced at the speedometer, which was not working. He barked into his mike again like a bad actor, and again no one answered. They slid into a steep curve, much too fast, but when the car fishtailed, Romey calmly turned in to the spin and tapped the brakes.

I’m going to die, she thought. Either at the hands of a deranged killer or in a fiery crash. Her stomach flipped and she felt faint. She clutched her bag, closed her eyes, and began to pray.

On the outskirts of Brady, she finally managed to breathe normally. If he planned to rape and murder her, and toss her body off a mountain, he wouldn’t do it in town. They passed shops with gravel parking lots, and rows of neat little houses, all painted white. There were church steeples rising above the trees when she looked up. Before they got to Main Street, Romey turned abruptly and slid into the unpaved parking lot of the Noland County Jail. “Just follow me,” he said. For a split second, she was actually relieved to be at the jail.

As she followed him toward the front door, she glanced around to make sure no one was watching. And who, exactly, was she worried about? Inside, they stopped in a cramped and dusty waiting area. To the left was a door with the word “Jail” stenciled on it. Romey pointed to the right and said, “You take a seat over there while I get the paperwork. And no funny stuff, okay?” No one else was present.

“Where would I go?” she asked. “I’ve lost my car.”

“You just sit down and keep quiet.” She sat in a plastic chair and he disappeared through the door. Evidently, the walls were quite thin because she heard him say, “Got a girl from New York out there, picked her up at Dunne Spring, doing fifty-one. Can you believe that?”

A male voice responded sharply, “Oh come on, Romey, not again.”

“Yep. Nailed her.”

“You gotta stop that crap, Romey.”

“Don’t start with me again, Doug.”

There were heavy footsteps as the voices grew muted, then disappeared. Then, from deeper in the jail, loud angry voices erupted. Though she couldn’t understand what was being said, it was obvious that at least two men were arguing with Romey. The voices went silent as the minutes passed. A chubby man in a blue uniform walked through the jail door and said, “Howdy. Are you Miss Kofer?”

“I am, yes,” she answered, glancing around at the empty room.

He handed back her license and said, “Just wait a minute, okay?”

“Sure.” What else could she say?

From the back, voices rose and fell and then stopped completely. She sent a text to her mother, one to her father, and one to Blythe. If her body was never found, they would at least know a few of the details.

The door opened again and a young man entered the waiting room. He wore faded jeans, hiking boots, a fashionable sports coat, no tie. He offered her an easy smile and said, “Are you Samantha Kofer?”

“I am.”

He pulled over another plastic chair, sat with their knees almost touching, and said, “My name is Donovan Gray. I’m your attorney, and I’ve just gotten all charges dismissed. I suggest we get out of here as soon as possible.” As he spoke, he gave her a business card, which she glanced at. It appeared to be legitimate. His office was on Main Street in Brady.

“Okay, and where will we be going?” she asked carefully.

“Back to get your car.”

“What about that constable?”

“I’ll explain as we go.”

They hurried from the jail and got into a late-model Jeep Cherokee. When he started the engine, Springsteen roared from the stereo and he quickly turned it off. He was between thirty-five and forty, she guessed, with shaggy dark hair, at least three days’ worth of stubble, and dark sad eyes. As they backed away, she said, “Wait, I need to text some people.”

“Sure. You’ll have good service for a few miles.”

She texted her mother, father, and Blythe with the news that she was no longer at the jail and things seemed to be improving, under the circumstances. Don’t worry, yet. She felt safer, for the moment. She would call and explain later.

When the town was behind them, he began: “Romey’s not really a cop, or a constable, or anyone with any authority. The first thing you need to understand is that he’s not all there, got a couple of screws loose. Maybe more. He’s always wanted to be the sheriff, and so from time to time he feels compelled to go on patrol, always around Dunne Spring. If you’re passing through, and you’re from out of state, then Romey will take notice. If your license plates are from, say, Tennessee or North Carolina, then Romey won’t bother you. But if you’re from up north, then Romey gets excited and he might do what he did to you. He really thinks he’s doing a good thing by hauling in reckless drivers, especially folks from New York and Vermont.”

“Why doesn’t someone stop him?”

“Oh we try. Everybody yells at him, but you can’t watch him twenty-four hours a day. He’s very sneaky and he knows these roads better than anyone. Usually, he’ll just pull over the reckless driver, some poor guy from New Jersey, scare the hell out of him, and let him go. No one ever knows about it. But occasionally he’ll show up at the jail with someone in custody and insist that they be locked up.”

“I’m not believing this.”

“He’s never hurt anyone, but—”

“He fired a shot at another driver. My ears are still ringing.”

“Okay, look he’s crazy, like a lot of folks around here.”

“Then lock him up. Surely there are laws against false arrest and kidnapping.”

“His cousin is the sheriff.”

She took a deep breath and shook her head.

“It’s true. His cousin has been our sheriff for a long time. Romey is very envious of this; in fact, he once ran against the sheriff. Got about ten votes county-wide and that really upset him. He was stopping Yankees right and left until they sent him away for a few months.”

“Send him away again.”

“It’s not that simple. You’re actually lucky he didn’t take you to his jail.”

“His jail?”

Donovan was smiling and enjoying his narrative. “Oh yes. About five years ago, Romey’s brother found a late-model sedan with Ohio tags parked behind a barn on their family’s farm. He looked around, heard a noise, and found this guy from Ohio locked in a horse stall. It turns out Romey had fixed up the stall with chicken wire and barbed wire, and the poor guy had been there for three days. He had plenty of food and was quite comfortable. He said Romey checked on him several times a day and couldn’t have been nicer.”

“You’re making this up.”

“I am not. Romey was off his meds and going through a bad time. Things got ugly. The guy from Ohio raised hell and hired lawyers. They sued Romey for false imprisonment and a bunch of other stuff, but the case went nowhere. He has no assets, except for his patrol car, so a civil suit is worthless. They insisted he be prosecuted for kidnapping and so on, and Romey eventually pled guilty to a minor charge. He spent thirty days in jail, not his jail but the county jail, then got sent back to the state mental facility for a tune-up. He’s not a bad guy, really.”

“A charmer.”

“Frankly, some of the other cops around here are more dangerous. I like Romey. I once handled a case for his uncle. Meth.”

“Meth?”

“Crystal methamphetamine. After coal, it’s probably the biggest cash crop in these parts.”

“Can I ask you something that might seem a bit personal?”

“Sure. I’m your lawyer, you can ask me anything.”

“Why do you have that gun in the console?” She nodded at the console just below her left elbow. In plain view was a rather large black pistol.

“It’s legal. I make a lot of enemies.”

“What kind of enemies?”

“I sue coal companies.”

She assumed an explanation would take some time, so she took a deep breath and watched the road. After recounting Romey’s adventures, Donovan seemed content to enjoy the silence. She realized he had not asked what she was doing in Noland County, the obvious question. At Thack’s Bridge, he turned around in the middle of the road and parked behind the Prius.

She said, “So, do I owe you a fee?”

“Sure. A cup of coffee.”

“Coffee, around here?”

“No, there’s a nice café back in town. Mattie’s in court and will likely be tied up until five, so you have some time to kill.”

She wanted to say something but words failed her. He continued, “Mattie’s my aunt. She’s the reason I went to law school and she helped me through. I worked with her clinic while I was a student, then for three years after I passed the bar. Now I’m on my own.”

“And Mattie told you I would show up for an interview?” For the first time she noticed a wedding ring on his finger.

“A coincidence. I often stop by her office early in the morning for coffee and gossip. She mentioned all these e-mails from New York lawyers suddenly looking for do-gooder work, said one might show up today for an interview. It’s kind of amusing, really, for lawyers like us down here to see big-firm lawyers running for the hills, our hills. Then I happened to be at the jail seeing a client when your pal Romey showed up with a new trophy. And here we are.”

“I wasn’t planning to return to Brady. In fact, I was planning to turn that little red car around and get the hell out of here.”

“Well, slow down when you go through Dunne Spring.”

“Don’t worry.”

A pause as they stared at the Prius, then he said, “Okay, I’ll buy the coffee. I think you’ll enjoy meeting Mattie. I wouldn’t blame you for leaving, but first impressions are often wrong. Brady is a nice town, and Mattie has a lot of clients who could use your help.”

“I didn’t bring my gun.”

He smiled and said, “Mattie doesn’t carry one either.”

“Then what kind of lawyer is she?”

“She’s a great lawyer who’s totally committed to her clients, none of whom can pay her. Give it a shot. At least talk to her.”

“My specialty is financing skyscrapers in Manhattan. I’m not sure I’m cut out for whatever work Mattie does.”

“You’ll catch on quick, and you’ll love it because you’ll be helping people who need you, people with real problems.”

Samantha took a deep breath. Her instincts said, Run! To where, exactly? But her sense of adventure convinced her to at least see the town again. If her lawyer carried a gun, wasn’t that some measure of protection?

“I’m buying,” she said. “Consider it your fee.”

“Okay, follow me.”

“Should I worry about Romey?”

“No, I had a chat with him. As did his cousin. Just stay on my bumper.”

A quick tour of Main Street revealed six blocks of turn-of-the-century buildings, a fourth of them empty with fading “For Sale” signs taped to the windows. Donovan’s law office was a two-story with large windows and his name painted in small letters. Upstairs, a balcony hung over the sidewalk. Across the street and down three blocks was the old hardware store, now the home of the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic. At the far west end was a small, handsome courthouse, home to most of the folks who ran Noland County.

They stepped into the Brady Grill and took a booth near the back. As they walked by a table, three men glared at Donovan, who seemed not to notice. A waitress brought them coffee. Samantha leaned in low and said quietly, “Those three men up there, they seemed to dislike you. Do you know them?”

He glanced over his shoulder, then nodded and said, “I know everyone in Brady, and I’d guess that maybe half of them hate my guts. As I said, I sue coal companies, and coal is the biggest employer around here. It’s the biggest employer throughout Appalachia.”

“And why do you sue them?”

He smiled, took a sip of coffee, and glanced at his watch. “This might take some time.”

“I’m really not that busy.”

“Well, coal companies create a lot of problems, most of them anyway. There are a couple of decent ones, but most care nothing about the environment or their employees. Mining coal is dirty business, always has been. But it’s far worse now. Have you heard of mountaintop removal?”

“No.”

“Also known as strip-mining. They started mining coal in these parts back in the 1800s. Deep mining, where they bore tunnels into the mountains and extracted the coal. Mining has been a way of life here since then. My grandfather was a miner, so was his father. My dad was another story. Anyway, by 1920, there were 800,000 coal miners in the coalfields, from Pennsylvania down to Tennessee. Coal mining is dangerous work, and it has a rich history of labor troubles, union fights, violence, corruption, all manner of historical drama. All deep mining, which was the traditional way. Very labor-intensive. Around 1970, coal companies decided they could strip-mine and save millions on labor costs. Strip-mining is far cheaper than deep mining because it requires much fewer workers. Today there are only 80,000 coal miners left and half of them work above the ground, for the strip miners.”

The waitress walked by and Donovan stopped for a second. He took a sip of coffee, glanced casually around, waited until she was gone, and continued. “Mountaintop removal is nothing but strip-mining on steroids. Appalachian coal is found in seams, sort of like layers of a cake. At the top of the mountain there is the forest, then a layer of topsoil, then a layer of rock, and finally a seam of coal. Could be four feet thick, could be twenty. When a coal company gets a permit to strip-mine, it literally attacks the mountain with all manner of heavy equipment. First it clear-cuts the trees, total deforestation with no effort at saving the hardwoods. They are bulldozed away as the earth is scalped. Same for the topsoil, which is not very thick. Next comes the layer of rock, which is blasted out of the ground. The trees, topsoil, and rock are often shoved into the valleys between the mountains, creating what’s known as valley fills. These wipe out vegetation, wildlife, and natural streams. Just another environmental disaster. If you’re downstream, you’re just screwed. As you’ll learn around here, we’re all downstream.”

“And this is legal?”

“Yes and no. Strip-mining is legal because of federal law, but the actual process is loaded with illegal activities. We have a long, ugly history of the regulators and watchdogs being too cozy with the coal companies. Reality is always the same: the coal companies run roughshod over the land and the people because they have the money and the power.”

“Back to the cake. You were down to the seam of coal.”

“Yeah, well, once they find the coal, they bring in more machines, extract it, haul it out, and continue blasting down to the next seam. It’s not unusual to demolish the top five hundred feet of a mountain. This takes relatively few workers. In fact, a small crew can thoroughly destroy a mountain in a matter of months.” The waitress refilled their cups and Donovan watched in silence, totally ignoring her. When she disappeared, he leaned in a bit lower and said, “Once the coal is hauled out by truck, it’s washed, which is another disaster. Coal washing creates a black sludge that contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals. The sludge is also known as slurry, a term you’ll hear often. Since it can’t be disposed of, the coal companies store it behind earthen dams in sludge ponds, or slurry ponds. The engineering is slipshod and half-assed and these things break all the time with catastrophic results.”

“They store it for how long?”

Donovan shrugged and glanced around. He wasn’t nervous or frightened; he just didn’t want to be heard. He was calm and articulate with a slight mountain twang, and Samantha was captivated, both by his narrative and his dark eyes.

“They store it forever; no one cares. They store it until the dam breaks and there’s a tidal wave of toxic crud running down the mountain, into homes and schools and towns, destroying everything. You’ve heard of the famous Exxon Valdez tanker spill, where a tanker ran into the rocks in Alaska. Thirty million gallons of crude oil dumped into pristine waters. Front-page news for weeks and the entire country was pissed. Remember all those otters covered with black muck? But I’ll bet you haven’t heard of the Martin County spill, the largest environmental disaster east of the Mississippi. It happened eight years ago in Kentucky when a slurry impoundment broke and 300 million gallons of sludge rolled down the valley. Ten times more than the Valdez, and it was a nonevent around the country. You know why?”

“Okay, why?”

“Because it’s Appalachia. The coal companies are destroying our mountains, towns, culture, and lives, and it’s not a story.”

“So why do these guys hate your guts?”

“Because they believe strip-mining is a good thing. It provides jobs, and there are few jobs around here. They’re not bad people, they’re just misinformed and misguided. Mountaintop removal is killing our communities. It has single-handedly wiped out tens of thousands of jobs. People are forced to leave their homes because of blasting, dust, sludge, and flooding. The roads aren’t safe because of these massive trucks flying down the mountains. I filed five wrongful death cases in the past five years, folks crushed by trucks carrying ninety tons of coal. Many towns have simply vanished. The coal companies often buy up surrounding homes and tear them down. Every county in coal country has lost population in the past twenty years. Yet a lot of people, including those three gentlemen over there, think that a few jobs are better than none.”

“If they are gentlemen, then why do you carry a gun?”

“Because certain coal companies have been known to hire thugs. It’s intimidation, or worse, and it’s nothing new. Look, Samantha, I’m a son of the coal country, a hillbilly and a proud one, and I could tell you stories for hours about the bloody history of Big Coal.”

“Do you really fear for your life?”

He paused and looked away for a second. “There were a thousand murders in New York City last year. Did you fear for your life?”

“Not really.”

He smiled and nodded and said, “Same here. We had three murders last year, all related to meth. You just have to be careful.” A phone vibrated in his pocket and he yanked it out. He read the text, then said, “It’s Mattie. She’s out of court, back at the office and ready to see you.”

“Wait, how did she know I would be with you?”

“It’s a small town, Samantha.”