“Lowell Finch.”
Detective Sonia Tran met us that afternoon in a small interview room with a plastic table and a window overlooking the courthouse parking lot.
She was in her forties, with short dark hair and a patient manner that made silence feel useful rather than awkward.
I gave her the laboratory report, the easement copies, the inspection notice and the name Mara had found.
Tran laid the items out in chronological order.
“I need you to understand something,” she said.
“These documents may support different cases.”
“I know.”
“A suspicious easement proposal isn’t proof of trespass.”
“Yes.”
“A material linked to Sterling isn’t proof that Meredith placed it.”
“Yes.”
“And a threat from an unknown number needs attribution before we can call it hers.”
“I understand.”
She looked at me for a moment.
“You sound like someone who has been trying very hard not to make our job harder.”
“I used to collect samples for a living.”
“That explains the notebook.”
She asked detailed questions about the afternoon of Meredith’s intrusion, the location of the silver container and the kitchen footprint.
When I mentioned the lost shed key, Tran stopped writing.
“Why wasn’t that in the first report?”
“I didn’t know it was missing until later.”
“When was the last time you definitely had it?”
I thought of Elise’s birthday in March, when I went into the shed to take out the folding chairs for Hannah’s visit.
The key had been on the hook that day.
“March twenty-second,” I said.
“A long interval,” Tran noted.
“Yes.”
She asked whether the Sloanes knew I had worked in water testing.
“Not unless they researched my old employment.”
“Could that be why your pool was selected for this material?”
The question was so unexpected that I had to think carefully.
I had assumed Meredith wanted to frighten me because I would not sign.
But if she knew my background, she might have expected me to recognize something in the stain.
“Why would she want that?” I asked.
Tran did not answer.
“Sometimes the object you want someone to find isn’t the same object you want them to overlook.”
She suggested that I stop discussing the laboratory results at neighborhood meetings and let investigators contact the relevant parties.
I agreed.
She also recommended a certified security company inspect my locks and access points without changing the evidence already documented.
“I won’t promise you a simple explanation,” she said as we stood.
