Chapter 7: What Gerald Found in the Morning
Three days after Audrey's second visit to my porch, Gerald called me at seven-fifteen in the morning.
"You need to come outside," he said.
"Bring your phone."
I found him standing at the edge of his driveway, looking toward my front garden.
His dog sat beside him, very still.
My rose bed had been torn up.
Not trampled — torn.
The plants had been pulled from the ground and left in a pile near the fence.
Six of them.
The ones my husband had planted in our second year in the house.
I stood there and didn't speak for a moment.
"My camera got it," Gerald said quietly.
"Two-seventeen this morning.
Same car."
I crouched down beside the nearest plant.
The roots were exposed, the soil scattered.
It had been done by hand, deliberately, one plant at a time.
"She's trying to break you," Gerald said.
I stood up.
"I know."
I photographed everything before I touched a single plant.
Then I called Patricia.
"This is no longer a civil matter," Patricia said, when I described it.
"Criminal mischief, potentially vandalism depending on the value of the damage.
You need to call the police first, before you do anything else.
Don't replant.
Don't clean up.
Leave it exactly as it is until they've documented it."
The officer who came was different from the one who'd taken the car scratch report.
She was thorough.
She photographed the damage herself, took a statement, and when I mentioned the prior police report and the camera footage, she asked for copies of both on the spot.
"You have footage of the same vehicle on two separate nights?" she said.
"My neighbor does.
He's kept both clips."
She looked at Gerald.
"I'll need those."
Gerald nodded.
"I'll get them now."
While he went inside, the officer walked the length of the rose bed slowly.
"How long have these been here?" she asked.
"Twenty-six years," I said.
"My husband planted them."
She didn't say anything for a moment.
Then: "We'll run the plate through the system formally.
If there's a prior connection to a complaint already on file, that matters."
Patricia called while the officer was still there.
I stepped to the side of the porch to take it.
"I just heard from the city planning office," Patricia said.
"They reviewed Audrey's fence complaint and closed it.
Insufficient basis.
Her complaint is now on record as unfounded."
"That's something."
"It's more than something.
It shows a pattern of filing false or retaliatory complaints.
That goes into our civil filing and it's now relevant to the criminal investigation too."
I looked at the torn-up garden.
At the pile of uprooted plants lying on their sides in the morning light.
"Patricia," I said.
"Is there any scenario where she wins this?"
A pause.
"Not anymore," she said.
"She's given us too much."
I went back to the officer and gave her Patricia's contact information directly.
That afternoon, I carefully replanted each rose.
The soil was still loose and workable.
Most of the root systems were intact — whoever had done it had been careless, not skilled.
By evening, all six plants were back in the ground.
They looked fragile.
A little tilted.
But they were standing.
Gerald came by as I was finishing and stood at the fence watching.
"Think they'll make it?" he said.
I pressed the soil firm around the last one.
"They've been through worse."
He nodded slowly.
"So have you."
May you like
I didn't answer that.
But I didn't disagree.
