Page 120 of South of Nowhere

“And so is she. She’s not saying anything…unless you agree that whatever she says won’t be used against her. Because there’s obviously a lot of questions here that need to be answered and I have a feeling she can help you get to the truth. Which, whatever you think, this is not.”

Tolifson handed off to Starr, who was debating. “Okay, Annie.I’ll tell you what we’ve got. You help us fill in the blanks and that’ll go a long way with the prosecutor.”

Coyne just lifted a go-ahead palm.

Tolifson was taking over again. “Officer Starr found a video of you with him.”

“Withwho?” Coyne snapped.

“The bomber. The man with the beard. Who shot Ms. Shaw’s associate.”

Coyne with Bear? Shaw said nothing. He waited.

“Oh, bullshit,” she muttered.

Tolifson said, “Two days ago you were downtown. The post office.”

“I go every day. So?”

Tolifson looked to Starr, who said, “At three-ten the suspect walks to your Jeep. He stops, looks around and then opens the driver’s door, reaches under the front seat and takes out an envelope and pockets it. A thick one, like it had cash in it. He closes the door and walks away.”

“I…I don’t understand. I didn’t leave anything under the seat. Somebody’s setting me up!”

Shaw was trying to puzzle it out. “You said there was a video of them together.”

Tolifson said, “Likethey were together.”

Starr said, “It’s called constructive contact. It can be inferred. Under the law. And Mr. Shaw found that his car was parked on your property when he assembled or armed the bomb.”

“It’s fake—the money. He had it in his jacket. Or planted it under the seat earlier.”

Shaw could see where this was going. “That was enough for a warrant?”

Starr said, “Yes. And an hour ago, I searched your outbuildings. I found samples of lithium from a chemical supply company. They were shipped to you here.”

“No, no, no…”

“Annie, they matched the others around town, the ones in the assay reports that Gerard Redding supposedly ordered, making it look like he’d come up with this plot to open a mine.”

Shaw was thinking: Nowadays, with deliveries made down to the minute, all the perp would have to do was wait for a text message that the samples were about to be delivered and get to Annie’s mailbox just before the truck. But he tucked that thought away and continued to listen.

Tolifson said, “The same time Bear planted the bomb in Redding’s workshop, he hid the assay reports in the file cabinet to implicate him—on your orders.”

“And what,” Coyne spat out, “was the fucking motive—other than we didn’t see eye to eye.”

Starr said, “The north four hundred, the land your father thought Redding stole.”

Annie Coyne stiffened.

“Redding dies, the levee comes down and ruins the mine. His estate inherits property it’ll take millions to get in shape again while having to pay taxes on the land. You sue to get the four hundred back and they settle. And you can negotiate more water from the Never Summer, to boot.”

“And ruin my farm too?”

“You’ve got those trenches.” Starr nodded toward the front of the property. “Looks to me like you’d have some flooding but most of the water’d go south into the marsh.”

Shaw said, “And how does Annie supposedly know Bear?”

“Your military days. You were overseas. Combat deployed.”

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