Tomas said those issues required formal examination.
A prosecutor would decide whether any criminal charge was supported.
He reminded me that a recording office could flag a disputed document but could not itself undo every private claim based on it.
I appreciated the clarity.
I was exhausted by people promising immediate results from procedures they did not control.
At home I opened my father’s notebook to the page containing the wall design.
He had drawn a tiny arrow showing the direction water would run beneath the lowest stones.
I imagined someone using a forged digital signature to erase the care he had put into that work.
The contrast made me angry in a way I could not easily explain.
Rachel called that evening to say Lucy wanted to know whether the wall would still be there when she grew up.
I told her yes.
I said it before I knew whether I could pay for the repairs.
Sometimes a parent makes a promise because the alternative is letting fear speak in front of a child.
After the call, I sat at the bench and calculated what I would need to sell if the insurance claim failed.
I could sell the old lathe.
I could take extra weekend restoration jobs.
I could defer the truck repair another month.
I could not replace the wall’s history.
But I could refuse to let a false paper decide that it no longer belonged to us.
Anika Draws a Boundary
Anika Shah had represented property owners for fifteen years and had little patience for dramatic promises.
At our first meeting she asked me what outcome I actually wanted.
I listed repairs, compensation, accurate records, and an end to the harassment.
She asked whether I wanted Vivian arrested.
I told her I wanted investigators to make any charging decision on evidence.
She nodded and said that answer would help us keep our civil case focused.
Then she described the limits of her role.
She could challenge the asserted access right, request preservation of records, and pursue appropriate remedies for proven damage.
She could not order the police to arrest anyone or guarantee a jury would believe a witness.
She could not promise the association would be solvent enough to reimburse every dollar.
I appreciated her directness.
The first task was preserving the title record and preventing further unauthorized entry.
She wrote a formal letter identifying the disputed documents and demanding that no contractor enter under the supposed easement while its validity remained contested.
