Sarah was younger than I expected, in her mid-thirties, with an old canvas camera bag and a habit of asking questions twice in slightly different ways. She didn't seem interested in a cartoon villain and a perfect hero. She asked why I had stayed on the land, whether I had ever ignored legitimate complaints from neighbors, what Sandra thought about the legal expense, and what I could prove Vivian had done rather than what I believed she intended. It was a more useful interview than the outrage-filled one I'd rehearsed in my head.
I showed her the dock and the lake from the safe viewing path. She took photographs of the warning signs and the empty shoreline. We sat on the porch afterward while Sandra brought out glasses of water from our verified safe supply. Sarah asked me about Big Bertha. I told her about the scar on the fish's jaw, the mornings she appeared, and how foolish I felt grieving a bass when people were worrying about their children.
"It isn't foolish," Sarah said. "People understand a disaster when they can see what it cost someone. Big Bertha doesn't replace the science. She helps people understand what the numbers mean." I looked across the yard at the trees and realized I could speak about the lake without pretending to be either invulnerable or helpless. That was new for me.
The article Sarah eventually wrote would receive far more attention than anything I had ever wanted. But first, Vivian made the mistake that turned a serious dispute into a case investigators could begin to unravel from the inside.
She tried to make the evidence disappear.
Derek Thompson called Vivian on a Wednesday night to discuss the investigation. By then Clearwater Solutions had placed its field crew on leave pending review, and its insurer had hired independent counsel. Derek had already received a preservation notice and knew he was not free to discard records simply because they looked bad. He also knew that the work order bearing Vivian's approval would be central to determining who had authorized treatment of my lake.
According to the recording he later supplied through counsel, Vivian told him the entire problem would disappear if the paperwork could no longer be located. She described the treatment as a routine maintenance job that had become politically inconvenient. Then she offered him $10,000 to make the relevant files vanish. Derek declined, asked her to stop discussing record destruction, and ended the conversation.
He was not a hero for refusing. He was a business owner facing serious scrutiny who had finally recognized the danger of another bad decision. But he made the right choice at that moment, and the recording gave investigators a rare look at Vivian's intentions after the fish kill. His attorney turned it over through the appropriate channels. Whether her words supported criminal obstruction charges would be for prosecutors to decide, not me.