CHAPTER TWO – A COMPLAINT WITH NO NAME
By Monday, June refused to sit near the fence.
I hated that Bernice had managed to change the feeling of a place my niece loved.
I moved June’s chair beneath the maple tree and purchased a sturdy outdoor storage bin for the objects.
I also reported the incidents to our neighborhood liaison officer, Carla Singh.
Carla listened without interrupting while I described each item and the dates I found them.
“Have you actually seen her throw anything?” she asked.
“Not directly,” I admitted.
“Then we can document the property damage and speak with her, but we need to be careful about what we conclude.”
She photographed the broken chair arm and the painted square.
She suggested keeping the objects rather than throwing them away.
Bernice’s response to Carla’s visit was dramatic enough to attract three neighbors to their windows.
She told the officer that I had invented the problem because I disliked older people.
She claimed teenagers regularly climbed the fence and tossed their own trash into my yard.
When Carla asked whether Bernice had noticed anyone climbing the fence, Bernice said she had not.
“Then that’s a possibility, not an observation,” Carla replied.
Bernice folded her arms and refused further questions.
That afternoon, a handwritten complaint appeared under my windshield wiper.
It accused me of operating a commercial dumping ground behind my home.
There was no signature.
The paper smelled faintly of cigarette smoke, which meant little because half the delivery drivers I knew smoked outside their vehicles.
But the description of the objects was exact.
Whoever had written it knew about the purple string, the numbered tags, and the broken clay bird.
I carried the note to Bernice’s house.
She opened the door before I knocked.
“What now?” she demanded.
“Someone says I’m dumping objects that somebody else keeps throwing onto my property.”
“Perhaps the city ought to look at your yard.”
“Did you write this?”
“You ought to worry less about who wrote it.”
She started to close the door.
I wedged my hand against the frame without stepping inside.
“My niece could have been hurt by that wooden square.”
For one moment, Bernice’s expression softened.
Then something moved behind her in the dark hall.
A woman in a charcoal coat crossed toward the rear of the house, carrying a tall white carton.
Bernice noticed me looking.
“Take your hand away,” she said.
I withdrew it.
The door shut.
That evening, I told June I had decided to install a small camera overlooking our own patio and gate.
The camera would not look into Bernice’s windows or across her garden.
I wanted to know when objects entered our yard and whether anyone came through the gate.
June helped me mount the camera beneath the kitchen eave.
She was better than I was at adjusting its angle.
“I don’t want to be famous for fighting with an old lady,” I told her.
“Then don’t post anything,” she replied.
Her answer embarrassed me because I had briefly imagined how satisfying a public video might feel.
We agreed that any recording would go to Officer Singh if it showed an offense.
At nine that night, the camera detected movement near our compost bins.
The recording showed only a cat climbing the fence.
At eleven, it showed a raccoon stealing a peach pit.
At two fifteen in the morning, a slender object flew over the fence and landed out of view.
No person appeared on camera.
I went outside with a flashlight and found a rolled length of canvas beneath the maple.
Someone had painted a blue lake across it.
The canvas was torn into three strips, and a corner retained a stitched label bearing the name Pearl.
June stood in the doorway wearing her winter slippers.
“That’s not trash,” she said.
“What makes you think so?”
“Someone spent a long time painting that water.”
She was right.
The blue had been layered patiently, one wave over another, with pale lines that followed the shape of each brushstroke.
Whoever destroyed it had done so with considerable effort.
I carried the canvas indoors and spread it across the table.
The pieces fitted together almost perfectly.
At the center of the lake, a tiny rowboat held two figures.
One figure wore a yellow hat.
The other was only an outline.
June touched the blank space.
“Maybe it wasn’t finished,” she whispered.
“Maybe somebody never got the chance.”
