“Why did she say she knew the owners weren’t home?”
Jonathan looked at me.
“I wondered about that too.”
The previous owners had moved to Asheville after selling me the house. Mrs. Caldwell knew that. She had apparently attended their going-away party.
There was no reasonable way she could still believe they lived there eight months later.
I walked to the window.
Her roof was visible through the trees.
“So she knew they sold.”
“It appears so.”
“And she still told the police I couldn’t own this house.”
Jonathan didn’t answer for her.
That evening, Mrs. Caldwell came back.
This time she rang the front doorbell.
I opened the door but didn’t invite her inside.
She wasn’t wearing the sunglasses anymore.
“I think we started off badly.”
“That’s one way to describe it.”
She looked toward the driveway.
“I shouldn’t have called the police.”
I waited.
“I was told the house had been purchased by an investment company.”
“Who told you that?”
She hesitated.
“The Whitmores.”
That didn’t sound right.
My purchase had been through my own name, not a company.
She continued quickly.
“The property-line thing is obviously a misunderstanding. Our pool was professionally installed. We have permits.”
“Jonathan has copies.”
Her face tightened.
“I don’t want this turning into some neighborhood war.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then maybe we can forget what happened today.”
I looked at her.
“The police call or the pool?”
She didn’t answer.
There it was.
I finally understood why she had come back so quickly.
She wasn’t there because of what she had done in my backyard.
She was worried about what Jonathan had found.
“I’m not making any decisions tonight,” I said.
She nodded once and left.
The next morning, Jonathan called.
The surveyor had returned to verify the measurements.
They were correct.
But he had also found something else in the county archive.
Four years earlier, Mrs. Caldwell had applied for a permit to replace the retaining wall beside her pool.
Attached to the application was a survey.
Not the inaccurate site plan from twelve years ago.
A correct survey.
It showed the property line running directly beneath the pool.
Mrs. Caldwell had signed the application herself.
I sat quietly at my kitchen table.
“So she knew.”
Jonathan was careful.
“She had a document showing it.”
That was enough for me.
Then he told me there was one final page I needed to see.
Along with the permit application was a letter from Robert Whitmore refusing Mrs. Caldwell’s request to purchase the strip of land beneath her pool.
The date was four years earlier.
At the bottom, someone had handwritten a note.
If house is ever sold, resolve before closing.
It hadn’t been resolved.
And Mrs. Caldwell had watched the house sell anyway.
What happened next…?
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Part 3:
My first reaction was anger.
My second was to call Jonathan and tell him I wanted the pool removed.
I didn’t.