And what they found was both exactly what she had expected and worse than she had let herself believe. 14 repair orders across a three-year period. Every one of them specified hardened steel hub fittings. Everyone had Crane's company's stamp of authorization. And when Silas laid the purchasing ledger pages that Garrett had subpoenaed next to the repair orders, the dates of purchase showed iron fittings, cheap standard iron in the same windows as every single one of those orders.
Steel specified 14 times in 3 years. Martha looked at the papers laid out on Garrett's desk and felt something in her chest go very still. Henry documented 11 of these 14 jobs. She said his notebook had the installation notes. What was actually put in versus what was ordered.
She looked at Garrett. Without the notebook, we have 12 of these where the discrepancy is provable from the supply records alone. Crane can argue the other two were ordering errors without the installation notes to contradict him. 12 is sufficient. Garrett said the accident that killed Aldrich.
Silas said he was looking at the pages. Which job number? Garrett found it. Job number seven. The hub fitting specified was hardened steel.
The purchase record in the same period showed standard iron. Silas put his finger on the page and looked at Martha. She looked back at him. Henry's design didn't fail. Silas said.
No. Martha said it never did. She heard her own voice say it and it was steadier than she expected because the grief and the anger had been living together for long enough that they had worked out an arrangement. Garrett filed that afternoon. They rode back to the ranch the following morning and Martha sat beside SC on the wagon bench with the certified copies of the repair orders in her bag and felt the weight of them like something solid and real.
The way evidence felt when you'd spent long enough chasing it that having it in your hands still seemed slightly improbable. They were two miles from the ranch when Silas said, "I want to show you something." He turned the wagon off the main road onto a track she hadn't used before. And they came out after about a/4 mile onto a flat elevated piece of ground above the valley where you could see the ranch below and the mountains above and the whole expanse of the bitter root range laid out to the west like something that hadn't decided yet what it was going to become. He stopped the wagon. My brother and I found this spot the first summer we were here.
He said he was looking at the view. We used to come up here when we needed to think. He paused. I haven't brought anyone up here since he died. Martha looked at the valley and the mountains and the ranch with the small figures of Roberto and Miguel moving in the yard.