Do not go to the storage unit. Do not go to your property on Alderton Road. Is there somewhere you can stay that isn't your home address? I'm at my sisters. Stay there.
I'll be back to you shortly. She hung up. The three of us sat in Janet's kitchen in silence for about 10 seconds. Then Janet said, "Well, that sounded like a woman who recognized that parcel number." Sandra Wu called back in 31 minutes. She did not say she recognized the parcel number.
What she said was that the EPA was initiating an emergency field response and that Clare should expect law enforcement contact within the next 2 hours. She asked Clare to have all physical evidence ready for transfer to federal custody. Gave her a case intake number and told her that an agent would be in contact to take a formal statement. Then she said one more thing before she hung up. Mrs.
Bennett, the materials your husband collected, the soil samples, the documentation, the photographs. If they're as complete as you've described, he built something that would have taken a professional investigator years to assemble. A pause. Please tell his family he did good work. Clare didn't say anything for a moment.
He was my family, she finally said. I know. I'm sorry for your loss. Someone will be in touch very soon. The line went quiet.
Clareire set the phone on the table. Janet reached across and put her hand over her sisters. I looked out the kitchen window and thought about a 39-year-old firefighter who spent the last year of his life building a case that professional investigators would have taken years to put together alone in a locked workshop in the evenings after his wife had gone to sleep. I thought about what that costs a person to carry something that heavy for that long without being able to set it down. Two federal agents and a county sheriff's deputy arrived at Janet's house at 1:15 in the afternoon.
One of the agents was a woman named Torres, mid-40s, the kind of person who comes into a room and immediately knows where everything is. The other was a man named Beckford, younger, who took notes on a tablet and didn't say much. The deputy I recognized he'd been one of the two who responded to the property the day before. He looked a little different now, more focused, like someone had explained the situation to him since yesterday, and he was recalibrating what he'd been looking at. Torres shook Clare's hand first, then Janet's, then mine.
Mr. Mercer, you were on the property when the sinkhole was discovered. I was doing the repair work when I found the box. Yes. And you were present at the storage unit.
I went with Mrs. Bennett. Yes, we'll need a statement from you as well. Happy to give one. She nodded and turned to Clare.
They sat at Janet's kitchen table, the same table where Clare and I had been making calls all morning. And Torres started from the beginning. Patient, thorough, asking for specifics I wouldn't have thought to ask. Exact times, exact positions, exact words used. She asked about the chair over the sinkhole three separate times.