They requested records from contractors known to have worked on the access project.
One company produced a maintenance schedule showing the van assigned to a supervisor named Grant Ellis.
Grant said he had been told to assess the route before a landowner signed final documents.
He denied breaking the gate.
He confirmed he was present when Peter showed the crew where a road might be graded.
His interview narrowed the timeline but did not resolve every question.
Meanwhile, the online rumors took on lives of their own.
A neighbor accused Renaldo because his refrigerated truck had similar side panels.
Renaldo called me, upset that his employer was receiving complaints.
I made a public statement that I had no evidence he had participated in vandalism.
I did not reveal his witness statement or the details of the investigation.
The speculation slowed after that, though it did not disappear.
Jeanette said rumors were attractive because they made people feel they had solved a mystery without doing any work.
I thought about how easily I could have made the same mistake.
I had watched Peter holding my drill and imagined he had personally broken every part of the gate.
The evidence eventually supported some of my suspicions and left others uncertain.
Living with uncertainty was uncomfortable.
It was still better than naming an innocent person simply because I was tired of waiting.
By the end of the month, the investigators had a clearer list of people who could have entered my property.
The list came from records, schedules, and interviews rather than message-board guesses.
That was how the case needed to proceed.
The Temporary Fence
The rental fence looked ugly from the street, and I hated it.
Metal panels stood inside the old driveway line with concrete feet that crowded the entrance.
They were safer than the broken gate, but they made the house feel like a construction zone.
Lucy called them the robot fence because each panel had the same square pattern.
She decorated one of the interior supports with a paper sunflower.
The rental company asked me to remove the decoration because it could catch in the wind.
I did, and Lucy was disappointed.
We compromised by hanging the sunflower inside the kitchen window where the breeze could not reach it.
Neighbors walking dogs began stopping to ask when the repairs would be complete.
Some were sympathetic.
Others were plainly curious about the financial settlement they assumed I would receive.
