Several other entries referred to homes occupied by people involved in local planning, contracting, or association finances.
Simone said the pattern suggested targeted collection, but she would not claim that every listed home contained a camera.
We needed confirmation for each device and each alleged recording.
I stared at the spreadsheet until the numbers blurred.
The idea that someone might have selected homes based on the residents’ professional access made the operation feel deliberate in a way I could no longer dismiss.
One entry stood out because it contained no street name.
It used the code RW-26 and an old storage reference.
I asked Simone whether the letters might stand for Ridgeway.
She said it was possible, but she wanted to find out who had entered the code and when.
The document included a note directing someone to retrieve legacy drawings before a scheduled demolition.
I remembered the abandoned Ridgeway Community Center site on the east side of town.
The original foundation had been buried under weeds and a chain-link fence for decades.
A developer had recently announced plans to clear the property for a retail complex.
If my father’s missing records were connected to that site, someone might have been searching for them long before I found the camera.
Chapter 25: What Was Left Under Ridgeway
Simone contacted a former city engineer named Franklin Dale who had worked on public projects during the Ridgeway dispute.
Franklin agreed to speak after confirming that he was not being asked to disclose protected records.
We met in a small office filled with rolled drawings and faded survey maps.
He remembered my father as a careful man who argued with contractors over details other people considered trivial.
Franklin said Ridgeway had become controversial after a preliminary inspection identified discrepancies between approved plans and materials delivered to the site.
The contractor disputed the findings, and the financing collapsed before the center opened.
He said the public record never established that the completed structure was unsafe because construction stopped before the final inspection.
I appreciated the distinction.
It was the kind of careful statement my father would have made.
Franklin remembered that Harold Voss had tried to persuade several officials to treat the discrepancies as paperwork errors.
My father refused to sign a revised certification without additional testing.
Franklin also recalled a private meeting where Harold threatened to sue the engineering team for delaying the project.
He could not say whether Patricia attended.
Then he opened a drawer and removed a photocopy of an old correspondence log.
One entry recorded a package delivered to my father shortly before the project was abandoned.
