"Do you think Monday will fix it?" she asked.
"Monday will tell us more. Fixing it may take longer."
"I don't like waiting."
"Neither do I. But waiting for a good answer is better than taking the wrong one because we're tired."
She placed the lavender on a flat stone near the edge of our yard. "Then this can wait here with us," she said. We went inside before dark, and for the first time in weeks I slept almost through the night. The inspection was on the calendar. The machines had been recorded. Whatever story Brenda told on Monday, the ground would tell one of its own.
Janet Wheeler arrived at eight forty-five Monday morning in a white county pickup with stormwater management lettering on the doors. She was compact, gray-haired, and wore steel-toed boots with the toes worn smooth from years of fieldwork. She carried a clipboard, a measuring wheel, and the calm expression of somebody who would rather walk a site than listen to a long introduction about it.
I met her near the driveway. Before we went anywhere, I handed her copies of my report and Pat's survey and told her I owned one of the affected homes. I wanted my interest in the matter on the record, just as I wanted the technical findings to stand on their own. She thanked me, asked a few questions about where the first water had entered, and told me to show her the lowest outlet point first.
We walked the site in silence for nearly twenty minutes. Janet measured visible dimensions and took her own photographs, including reference shots of the boundary markers and the newly disturbed soil. She compared the existing pipe location with the county's recorded easement documents. When she reached the place where the installation appeared to connect to the stormwater system, she stopped and studied the ground for so long that I began to wonder whether she thought I had missed something.
"Was this area open before Saturday?" she asked.
"The trench was open. A smaller pipe end was visible under the sod. The covered section and gravel bed were installed this weekend. I have dated photographs and video."
"And no one has excavated this since the contractor left?"
"Not from my side. I haven't touched it."
She nodded and made another note. I had worked with inspectors who talked constantly, explaining each thought as though they expected applause for understanding their own job. Janet was not one of them. She asked for what she needed, measured it, and moved on.
Near the pond she checked the breached berm against the older drawings. She looked toward Brenda's rear fence, then followed the modified line of drainage downhill with her eyes. The sharpness of her gaze reminded me of Sarah when she spotted a child about to climb something unsafe across a crowded playground.
Janet stepped away from the group and made a call. "Dan, I need you to pull the permit history for Brierstone Ridge and send a supervisor," she said. "We have recent grading inside the drainage corridor and a new pipe installation I can't match to an authorization in the file. Yes, the contractor's name is documented."