"Were any permits issued under Ms. Fielding's name?" he asked.
"Not for my pool," I said.
"That's because we had an informal agreement," Sandra replied.
Chen turned toward her. "An informal agreement to do what, exactly?"
"To share it. She said the children could swim. We were there all the time. Everybody knew."
"Was the agreement written?"
"No. Neighbors don't usually write contracts every time they do something nice."
"Did Ms. Pemberton ever tell you that you owned any part of the pool?"
Sandra hesitated. It was not a long pause, but it was the first time since she arrived that her confidence required visible effort. "She let us use it as if we were family."
"That's different from ownership," Chen said.
"Not when you've contributed," Sandra responded.
He wrote something down. "What did you contribute?"
"Supplies. I brought floats. A brush. Towels. I supervised the children. I helped keep the area nice."
"Did you pay for construction, repairs, insurance, utilities, or professional maintenance?"
"Not directly," she said. "That wasn't how we arranged it."
I kept my eyes on the laptop. It would have been easy to interrupt and argue that the pool brush she mentioned was not even mine, or that bringing a float did not constitute an investment in concrete, plumbing, and surrounding land. But the officers were asking the right questions, and Sandra was answering them. For once, the distinction between her expectations and the documented facts did not need me to deliver a speech.
Martinez asked whether there was any title document, easement, shared-use agreement, or other legal instrument giving the adjacent owner rights in the pool. I said no. Sandra said she had never needed one because the understanding had been friendly. He explained that informal permission could be relevant to why somebody had used a space, but that it did not, by itself, transfer ownership. He was careful to avoid pretending he could make a final legal ruling on every possible civil question from my kitchen table.
"We're determining whether a crime or property damage complaint is supported by the available facts," he said. "If somebody believes there is a separate civil claim, that's something an attorney can evaluate. But we need evidence of what right was supposedly violated."
Sandra made a dismissive movement with one hand. "The right to keep using what we've been using."
"Let's look at the agreement's history," Martinez said.
I opened the communication section. At his request I explained the initial permission: occasional swimming, arranged ahead of time, with Sandra present to supervise her children and no additional guests without approval. I acknowledged that the first summer had been more flexible than I had intended and that I had sometimes let visits happen after initially refusing. I did not try to conceal those concessions. I showed the officers messages in which I agreed to particular dates and others in which I objected to uninvited guests.