In the spring of last year, flooding shifted the gravel bed of Kellerman Creek in eastern Ohio and surfaced the remains of Amber Kowalczyk - a twenty-seven-year-old EPA field inspector who had been missing for eleven years, officially ruled an accidental drowning.
The Ohio EPA hires Claire to audit the environmental compliance financials of Reliant Chemical Processing, the plant Amber had been inspecting when she died. The audit is expected to be routine. Within one afternoon, Claire finds a recurring line item - $180,000 per year for ten years - for drainage infrastructure that doesn't exist in any engineering drawing or permit.
Amber's younger sister has been waiting eleven years for someone to look at the money. Someone finally has.
The Silence of Kellerman Creek is a case about what a town will protect when its survival depends on a single employer - and what it costs when the protection runs out.