And he'd done it all while living directly above it in a house with a wife who planted tomatoes in the yard above the tunnel. He'd padlocked the door and he'd carried it alone. The weight of that was something I couldn't fully calculate. At 5:20, Torres found me standing by my truck and handed me a card. We'll need you to come in and give a formal recorded statement in the next few days.
Your observation of the vent panel and the soil depression, that's documented evidence of access activity. It matters. Whatever you need. She looked at me for a moment. The kind of look that means there's something else.
Mr. Mercer, when you were at the storage unit last night, you and Mrs. Bennett, how much of the material did you go through? Enough to understand the general picture. I photographed the corkboard.
Claire went through the boxes. Did you find anything in there that referenced other individuals by name? People connected to the disposal operation? I thought about the corporate filing documents, the LLC names, the property developer referenced in the EPA correspondence letter. Yes, I'm going to need those photographs.
I already emailed them to myself. I'll send them to whatever address you give me. She nodded. Gave me a secondary card with a direct email. Then she said, "The name on the top level LLC, the one that owns the contaminated parcel.
Does that name mean anything to you personally?" "No." "Should it? Not necessarily. I'm asking everyone who's seen those documents the same question." She paused. "It will mean something to some people in this county. I'll leave it at that for now." She walked back toward the garage.
I stood there for a moment, turning that over. It will mean something to some people in this county. Clare came over at 6:00 and told me the investigators wanted to keep the property secure overnight. She couldn't go home. She was going back to Janet's.
What did they tell you about the garage? I asked. They found 14 sealed containers in the shaft and the first section of the tunnel, plus what they're calling documentary materials, papers. A hard drive sealed in a waterproof case. She looked at her hands.
Someone was using my garage to store evidence about the same crime my husband was documenting. From the other side, I stared at her. What do you mean? The other side? Torres wouldn't give me details.
But she said the hard drive appears to contain records of transactions. Financial records, the kind that would tell you not just what was dumped, but who paid for it, who coordinated it, and where the money went. Someone was keeping records of the operation inside the operation's own access point. That's what it sounds like. That's not the disposal company protecting itself.