I thanked her and made a note. There was another gap between what Patricia promised and what anyone had authorized. It would have been tempting to use that fact in a confrontation over the fence. Instead, I put the note in the folder and went back to repairing the gutter.
On Tuesday I found a letter in the kitchen junk drawer while looking for a screwdriver bit.
The drawer was a small archaeological record of previous occupants. It contained rubber bands, two keys without labels, menus for restaurants that had closed, old batteries, a ballpoint pen that had leaked blue ink into its own cap, and a half-used packet of drywall anchors. Beneath those things lay a cream envelope addressed to Linda Marsh at 14 Larks Lane. It bore forwarding marks and a handwritten telephone number on the back. In pencil, someone had written, "Call if it sells."
I sat at the table with the envelope open in front of me. There was no money, no legal demand, no mysterious confession inside, only a note from a local service company discussing a billing adjustment. The important thing was not its contents. Someone named Linda Marsh had lived in the house recently enough to leave a forwarding number, and somebody had expected her to care whether the place sold.
I called during my lunch hour the following day.
She answered on the fourth ring. I introduced myself, explained that I had bought the house, and asked whether she had once lived at the address. A silence followed, long enough that I checked the screen to see whether the call had dropped. Then she asked, "You're actually living in that house?"
"Trying to," I said. "I am standing on my driveway, anyway. The interior is mine. The driveway currently has a thirty-two-foot motor home on it."
She made a sound halfway between a laugh and an exhale. "Oh, God. The camper."
I asked whether it was Patricia Voss's camper. Linda said it was, and then began telling me a story whose details grew increasingly familiar. She had bought the house, lived in it for five months, and sold it at a substantial loss because she could no longer tolerate daily interference. Patricia had called the police when Linda carried groceries through the garage, when her nephew parked in the driveway for an hour, and when a contractor arrived to assess a broken fence board.
"Eleven police calls," Linda said. "I kept count. Eleven in five months. The first time I thought a neighbor was being cautious. The fourth time I understood what she was doing. By the eleventh I couldn't sleep when a car turned onto the street."
"Did she say she owned the garage?"
"She said the association owned it. She said the association had an agreement with the bank. Every time I asked to see something in writing, she changed the subject or sent me a fine."