Miracle Creek

Shannon cross-examines Matt, asking him about smoking near Miracle Submarine; Matt replies that “Pak didn’t allow smoking at HBOT” (84). When Shannon probes further, asking Matt if he had “seen anyone on Miracle Submarine’s premises with cigarettes, matches, anything like that?” Matt responds that he had not, thinking that he “wasn’t lying, not technically—the creek was outside ‘the premises’ […]” (84). Shannon also asks him about Elizabeth’s parenting style, and Matt clearly does not like Elizabeth, and didn’t like her even before the fire.

Finally, Shannon asks Matt about a call made from his cell phone to Potomac Mutual Insurance Company about the fire insurance on Miracle Submarine, a week before the fire. Matt is genuinely confused, particularly when Shannon reveals that the insurance company logged the call, recording it as a “[c]aller interested in whether all […] fire policies pay out in cases of arson” (90). However, Shannon does not believe Matt made the call. Instead, she suggests that Pak used Matt’s cell phone during the dive that morning to make the call. She further reveals that Pak was not in the barn during the explosion, that a witness placed him “a quarter mile outside the barn” (94).