"What would happen if he didn't sign?"
Corinne looked toward Marjorie, then lowered her eyes. "They were going to build the road anyway."
Her testimony was followed by the private meeting recording. The room heard Marjorie's voice discussing the need to control the farm before Everett's lawyer could intervene, then her promise to bury any later challenge in legal expenses. A juror in the front row stopped writing and simply listened. There was nothing theatrical in the recording; the voices sounded like ordinary professionals discussing a schedule. That ordinariness made the words more disturbing.
Marjorie's counsel argued the recording was taken out of context and represented hard bargaining over a proposed development. He asked Corinne whether Marjorie had ever literally instructed her to commit a crime. Corinne said no, not in those words. Then the prosecutor read the email instructing Nolan how to place the false addendum without deleting the original and asked whether deliberate concealment was a bargaining tactic she taught clients to use.
Corinne did not answer until the judge required her to address the question. "No," she said. "It wasn't."
On the fourth day the jury heard from the equipment contractors. The tow driver described refusing to pull Everett's antique tractor after his truck sank into the wet ground. The excavator operator explained that he had been told an order made the work lawful and had asked whether utilities had been marked. He admitted he continued after Marjorie pointed to a development drawing that did not show the actual pond. He looked shaken when the prosecution played Everett's warnings from the barn speaker and the yard cameras.
"Did he threaten you?" the prosecutor asked.
"No," the operator said. "He told us there were lines. I thought the people paying me had checked."
"What did you understand after the line broke?"
The man swallowed. "That they hadn't checked. And I should have stopped."
An engineering expert then explained the rupture using photographs, repair invoices, and the actual buried network map. The channel was an ordinary agricultural installation maintained by the owner. Its position could be established independently of Everett's warning. The excavator had struck a section of ground that should not have been disturbed without checking the utilities, and the sudden water release followed directly from the damage.
The defense suggested Everett had caused the flooding by activating irrigation along the access lane. The expert distinguished the separate water flow Everett had used on his own fields from the pressure channel the excavator broke. The preliminary dampness might have affected traction for the tow vehicle, but it did not cause the main line to rupture. The record showed the excavator impact, and cameras captured the water emerging immediately afterward.
"Could a person have been injured?" the prosecutor asked.
"Yes," the expert replied. "Pressurized agricultural systems and unstable wet ground require care. Fortunately no one was standing in the direct path. The fact that nobody was hurt doesn't make the excavation safe."
Roderick Slean testified next. He described the fee his company received, the extra armed guards Marjorie requested, and his failure to obtain direct confirmation of any official enforcement authority. His testimony was uncomfortable because he could not present himself as merely deceived. He had given orders, restrained Everett, and helped create the impression that a private security operation carried the authority of a sheriff.