Neighbor Took an Axe to Her Maple Tree — Then a White Envelope Revealed She Was After Something Beneath It

The first strike sounded like somebody hitting a wooden door with a shovel.
Megan Cole looked up from the dish she was drying and saw her maple tree jerk beside the walkway.
She was thirty-two years old, and she had owned the small yellow house on Alder Street for exactly eleven months.
The tree was the first thing she had loved about the place.
An older woman stood beneath its branches with a short-handled axe lifted over her shoulder.
Helen Brooks had lived two doors down for almost thirty years, and Megan knew her mostly from curt nods and an argument about where delivery drivers parked.
Helen swung again.
A pale splinter flew across the walkway.
Megan dropped the towel and ran through the front door.
“Stop!” she shouted.
Helen hit the trunk a third time before turning.

“That tree is on my property,” Megan said, stepping between the woman and the wound in the bark.
“It should never have been planted there,” Helen replied.
The axe hung at her side, but her grip remained tight.
Megan could see that Helen was shaking.
It would have been easier to understand if the older woman had looked angry.
Instead she kept glancing at the patch of ground between the trunk and the walkway.
“You don’t get to decide that,” Megan said.
Helen opened her mouth, then closed it.
Megan suddenly remembered the white envelope that had been pushed through her own mail slot yesterday afternoon.
It was addressed to Helen Brooks, but the courier had apparently mistaken the house number.
Megan had meant to walk it over after work.

Now the return address on the envelope came back to her with peculiar force.
THE HOLLOW STAGE CONSERVATION WORKSHOP, MERIDIAN, OHIO.
She reached into the back pocket of her jeans.
“This came for you yesterday,” she said.
Helen’s eyes fell on the envelope.
The change in her face was startling.
She let the axe touch the grass, took the letter, and stared at the printed address.
“Where did you get this?” she asked.
“I just told you.”
Helen tore the flap carefully, as if the paper might burn her fingers.
She read the first page.
A gust of wind pushed a red leaf across the driveway.
“They found the display?” she whispered.
Megan waited.
Helen read the next line, then put a hand against the tree to steady herself.
“They think I can lead them to it.”
“Lead who to what?”
Helen looked up at the house.
For the first time, Megan noticed that the older woman’s canvas bag contained a small folding spade and a flashlight.
“There is something buried under your maple,” Helen said.
Megan looked at the fresh axe cuts.
“You could have knocked on my door.”
“I did not come here to ask for a favor.”
“Then why did you come?”
Helen folded the letter, avoiding Megan’s eyes.
“Because somebody is going to arrive for it before sunset, and I cannot let him have it.”
A white delivery van turned into Alder Street and slowed in front of the house.
Helen moved so quickly that Megan almost stepped backward.
“Please,” Helen said, “whatever you think of me, don’t tell that driver anything.”
The van continued past the driveway.
Neither woman spoke until it disappeared around the corner.
Then Megan took out her phone and photographed the damage to the trunk.
“Put the axe down,” she said.
Helen obeyed.
“Now tell me the truth.”
Helen looked at the cut tree, the envelope, and the narrow patch of soil she had been trying to reach.
“It starts with a theater that was small enough to carry in two suitcases,” she said.