Chapter 6: Frank Garcia Calls
I put the phone on speaker without thinking.
Rob leaned in.
"Mr.
Garcia," I said.
"How did you get this number?"
"Patty Ohlsen," he said.
"She called my wife this evening.
Said she'd finally given someone the notebook.
Said she thought we'd want to know."
I looked at Rob.
He gave a small nod.
"She was right," I said.
"Can I ask — what happened with your family?
With your son?"
A long pause.
Long enough that I thought the call had dropped.
"Mateo was seven," Frank said.
"It was August.
He'd been collecting those apples all morning, just playing, you know how kids do.
Dale came out and told him they were his property and Mateo had to bring them all back.
My son didn't understand.
He thought he'd done something wrong." His voice was steady but careful, like a man who had practiced being calm about something that still wasn't calm.
"He didn't want to go outside for the rest of the summer.
Wouldn't go near the back fence."
Maya had cried.
Leo had gone silent.
Mateo had stopped going outside.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"I'm so sorry that happened to him."
"We moved the following spring," Frank said.
"I told myself it was for the schools.
But it wasn't." He stopped.
"Is your family okay?"
"We're still here," I said.
"We're not leaving."
"Good." Something shifted in his voice.
"What are you doing about it?"
Rob leaned closer to the phone.
"We've started a formal county mediation filing," he said.
"We have the notebook, a recorded threat he made to my wife yesterday, and photos from Sunday.
We're building a documented record."
"A recorded threat?"
"He told her he could make things very difficult for our family.
That he knows the right people."
Frank was quiet for a moment.
"He said the same thing to me," he said.
"In my driveway.
2019.
I didn't record it."
"Would you be willing to provide a written statement?" Rob asked.
"For the mediation file?"
Another pause.
"I'll do more than that," Frank said.
"I'll come in person if you need me to.
Mateo is eleven now.
He still talks about that summer." His voice dropped slightly.
"I want this on record.
I want there to be a record."
After we hung up, Rob and I sat without speaking for a moment.
"Two families," I said.
"That we know of," Rob said.
"Patty's been here since 2012.
There may be others before the Garcias."
I thought about that.
About all the summers.
All the children who'd carried things back across yards that were theirs, to a man who stood at a fence with a bag.
"Rob," I said.
"I want to go to the mediation office myself.
Not just file the paperwork.
I want to sit across from someone and tell them what happened."
"Then we will," he said.
He reached over and picked up Patty's notebook from my lap.
"I'm going to call Frank back tomorrow and get his statement in writing.
And I want to ask Patty if there's anyone else she knows about."
He set the notebook on the coffee table between us.
"Dale thinks this is about a branch and some apples," he said.
"He has no idea what's sitting on this table right now."
I looked at the notebook.
Thirty-one pages.
Fourteen incidents.
One boy named Mateo who stopped going outside.
My phone buzzed.
A text from a number I didn't know, different from Frank's.
*Hi.
You don't know me.
My name is Carol Stitt.
May you like
I lived at 14 Crestwood before the Garcias.
Patty just called me too.*
