Chapter 4: The Man on the Other Side
Ray's name was Ray Kowalski.
He'd lived at 16 Clearfield for eleven years.
He was maybe seventy, with a careful way of speaking, like a man who had learned to choose his words after a lifetime of choosing them wrong.
We stood at the edge of Greg's front lawn while the party behind us slowly dissolved into smaller, quieter conversations.
Carol had steered Greg inside.
Melissa was sitting on the front steps with two of her friends, speaking in a low voice.
"How long have you been having problems with him?" Ray asked.
"Six weeks with the cans.
But there were other things before that."
"What kind of things?"
"His sprinkler runs onto my driveway at five in the morning.
His dog got into my yard twice and dug up the beds near the back fence.
He parks his truck halfway across my apron when the street is full." I paused.
"Small things.
Constant things."
Ray nodded like none of this surprised him.
"He does the same to me.
Has for years."
"Did you ever say anything to him?"
"Once." He looked down at his shoes.
"He told me I was lucky he hadn't reported my fence for the property-line violation."
"What violation?"
"There isn't one.
He made it up.
But I'm seventy-two and I live alone and I didn't want the trouble." He looked up.
"So I stopped saying anything."
I felt something tighten in my chest.
Not anger.
Closer to recognition.
"You filed the report," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"I did."
"Good." He said it simply, without drama.
"I should have done it years ago."
"You can still add your name.
The county complaint is still open.
Corroborating reports from a second neighbor carry more weight."
He was quiet for a moment.
A car pulled away from the curb across the street.
The music from the backyard had stopped.
"If I do that," Ray said, "he'll know it was me."
"He probably already suspects."
"That's not the same as knowing."
"No," I agreed.
"It's not."
He looked at the fence.
At the cans still lined up with their little paper tags.
Someone had taken a photo of them earlier — I'd seen two phones go up.
"My wife planted roses too," Ray said.
"Along the back fence.
Before she passed." He stopped.
"He let his dog in twice that I know of.
Probably more."
I didn't say anything.
Sometimes the right response is just to let a thing sit.
"I'll add my name," he said.
We shook hands at the edge of Greg's lawn, which felt appropriate.
I was halfway back to my own front door when I heard Greg's voice behind me.
He'd come back outside.
He was standing on his porch, and his voice had recovered some of its old shape.
"You think this is over?" he called.
I turned around.
"You want a neighbor war, Linda?
Because I've been doing this a lot longer than you have."
Ray was still standing near the fence.
He heard it.
He didn't move.
"I don't want a war," I said.
"I just want you to stop throwing your trash into my yard."
"File all the reports you want.
I know people at the county office.
I've known them for fifteen years."
I looked at him for a moment.
"Then I guess we'll find out," I said, and went inside.
My husband Tom was in the kitchen.
He'd watched the whole thing from the front window and had the expression of a man who had severely underestimated his wife's patience.
"He just threatened you," Tom said.
"He did."
"What are we going to do?"
I sat down at the kitchen table and pulled my notebook toward me.
I'd been keeping it since the second week — dates, times, descriptions, photographs printed and paper-clipped to the relevant pages.
"He said he knows people at the county office," I said.
"So we're going to need someone who knows more people than he does."
Tom sat down across from me.
"Who?"
I opened the notebook to the last page.
There was a name written there, underlined twice, with a phone number beside it.
"Her name is Donna Fitch," I said.
"She's a housing and property attorney.
She gave a talk at the library last spring.
I kept her card."
Tom looked at the name.
Then at me.
"You've been planning this for a while."
"I've been hoping I wouldn't need to," I said.
"But I kept the card just in case."
His phone buzzed on the counter.
He glanced at it.
"It's a text from an unknown number," he said slowly.
"It says: *He did the same thing to the family at the end of the street.
They moved because of him.
I have records.
May you like
Call me.*"
We looked at each other across the kitchen table.
