She found no evidence that I was operating a public pool.
“I can document the debris and recommend that you keep it closed until it is clean,” she said.
“I cannot order you to erect a solid fence simply because somebody dislikes the view.”
She paused beside my existing barrier.
“Who told you the county wanted that?”
I named Vivian.
Marisol wrote something in her notebook.
“For the record, that is not what I said.”
As we approached the side gate, a faint sound traveled from the neighboring house.
It was a bell, struck three times in quick succession.
Marisol looked up at the upstairs window.
A thin hand appeared behind the curtain and disappeared.
I expected her to say something, but she only asked whether Vivian lived alone.
“As far as I know,” I replied.
Marisol took her pen from her pocket again.
“You may want to remember that you do not know.”
After she left, I sat at my dining table with the old neighborhood directory.
Vivian had purchased her house eighteen months earlier after an abrupt move from Raleigh.
The directory listed her as a retired social services coordinator.
At the annual block picnic, she had described helping elderly people find safe housing.
I remembered complimenting her work.
She had accepted the compliment and immediately asked whether my backyard camera could see over the fence.
At the time, I thought she disliked being recorded while gardening.
Now I examined the recorded angle more carefully.
My camera covered the pool and a narrow portion of her second-floor windows.
It did not record inside her rooms, and I had never used it to watch them.
The upper-left corner nevertheless showed silhouettes moving behind the curtains on nights when I was reviewing security clips for the garbage incidents.
I enlarged one frame.
The image was too grainy to identify anyone.
One figure seemed to be raising a white card against the glass.
I heard Lucy’s words again.
The people at the upstairs window.
I called my sister, Erin, who worked as a discharge planner at a hospital in Hendersonville.
I did not ask her to look up anyone or share private records.
I asked whether a person could operate an assisted living home inside an ordinary single-family house.
Erin told me that some small residential care arrangements were lawful and some required licenses, depending on the services provided and the number of residents.
