Dileia read the initial summary in her attorney's office.
Her hands began trembling.
For months, she had blamed herself for failing to maintain the tractor properly.
She'd spent hours wondering whether she'd missed a weak hydraulic line.
Whether exhaustion had made her careless.
Whether the machine had failed because she was too inexperienced to manage the farm.
Now there was evidence that somebody had intentionally damaged it.
Her attorney looked toward her.
“Are you all right?”
Dileia stared at the papers.
“No.”
The older woman waited.
Dileia swallowed.
“I knew something wasn't right.”
She wiped her eyes.
“But everybody kept telling me I was desperate and looking for somebody to blame.”
Her attorney nodded slowly.
“That's why documentation matters.”
Dileia looked toward the photographs.
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she whispered, “He wanted me to fail.”
The attorney answered carefully.
“The evidence suggests people associated with his business took actions intended to interfere with your operations. The investigators will determine responsibility.”
Dileia nodded.
She understood the distinction.
But emotionally, it barely mattered.
Harlon had stood in front of dozens of farmers calling her father a fool.
He had laughed at her debt.
And he'd spent years trying to persuade her that the farm was worthless.
Now a trail of evidence was beginning to show how much effort had gone into making that prediction come true.
The sheriff's investigation expanded.
The disputed commercial agreement was examined.
The alleged signature was compared with verified examples from Walter's lifetime.
The document's creation history was reviewed.
And the commercial filings were challenged through the appropriate legal process.
One particularly damaging detail emerged from the contractor's correspondence.
A message from a senior Whitmore employee instructed staff to avoid describing the Ashford crop as having any known industrial value during local land negotiations.
Another discussed acquiring the farm before additional research results became public.
Neither message alone proved every allegation.
But together with the unauthorized sampling, misleading commercial representations, and tractor damage, they showed that the developer's public mockery was difficult to reconcile with his private business activities.
The man who called Walter Ashford a fool had been studying the commercial potential of his research for years.
And he'd apparently hoped the daughter would surrender the land before discovering what he knew.
The investigation and subsequent legal disputes took time.
Months passed.
Witnesses were interviewed.
Records were examined.
Commercial filings were corrected or challenged.
And the parties exchanged documents through formal procedures.
Dileia found the process exhausting.
Some mornings, she wanted to forget the entire fight.
She wanted to grow crops.