Instead, I suggested the public library across town.
She could bring her daughter, an attorney, or anyone else she trusted.
Iris looked at the window again.
“Don’t let your workers touch that section until then.”
I agreed only to stop work temporarily, not to surrender control of my home.
She left without another argument.
I waited until her front door closed before calling Luis.
“Put the dining room on hold,” I told him.
“Something wrong with the framing?”
“I think somebody hid something under the window.”
His answer came after a long pause.
“Weston, I found a second patch on the inside yesterday.”
Chapter 3: What the Camera Could Not Hear
The footage came from a security system I had installed three days after closing.
My insurer had recommended exterior cameras because the house would be under renovation while I still traveled for work.
The cameras stored video locally and also backed up selected clips to a protected account.
I saved the original recording before touching anything around the sill.
Then I called Officer Elaine Porter, one of the two patrol officers who had responded to Iris’s complaint.
I did not demand that she arrest my neighbor.
I told her I had found video evidence of nighttime entry and an unidentified object being placed near a window.
Porter asked whether the object might be dangerous.
“I don’t know what it is,” I said.
She advised me not to disturb it and offered to take a report.
Within an hour, she arrived with her partner, Officer Caleb Ross.
They watched the footage on my kitchen tablet.
Ross asked whether I had any reason to suspect a domestic dispute, stalking, or a prior tenant conflict.
“No reason I can prove,” I said.
Porter took photographs of the window without touching the trim.
The narrow section of fresh caulking had two scratches shaped like parallel crescents.
Luis had noticed them during his measurements.
He had assumed they were marks from a painter’s tool.
Porter photographed the marks and advised me to have a qualified tradesperson remove the material under controlled conditions once any immediate hazard was ruled out.
She also made it clear that the police could not promise a criminal investigation based on a mysterious patch of sealant alone.
I appreciated that distinction.
I had no interest in turning an unsettling event into a dramatic accusation without facts.
But facts were beginning to accumulate.
After the officers left, I reviewed the clip again.
