Sandra brightened as soon as one of the permission messages appeared. "There. See? She invited us."
"Yes," I said. "I did. At the beginning."
Martinez looked at the dates. "And when did you withdraw permission?"
I explained the conversation at the end of the first summer and my final refusal the following April. Then I opened the message in which I had told Sandra not to enter my property without permission, followed by the formal written notice from August. I placed the certified-mail receipt beside the laptop so he could read her signature.
"You signed for this?" he asked Sandra.
She looked at the receipt and then at me. "I signed for an envelope. I didn't agree with what was inside it."
"You don't have to agree with a notice to receive it," Martinez replied. "Do you remember reading it?"
"I thought it was an overreaction."
"Did you read it?"
Sandra exhaled sharply. "Yes."
"Then you understood she was telling you not to enter."
"I understood she was angry."
There it was again: Sandra's conviction that a clear instruction could be converted into an emotional state and therefore discounted. I watched Chen write down her answer. He did not try to debate the distinction. He simply asked whether she had entered my backyard after receiving the notice. Sandra hesitated, then said only once or twice and that the children had been looking forward to the last warm weekends.
"Let's check the dates," I said.
I opened the camera-footage index. Martinez asked me to begin with an earlier entry so he could understand how the access occurred. I played a July clip showing the gap between the fence boards and Sandra stepping through with the children. He watched the full recording instead of skipping immediately to the swimming. The timestamp remained visible as Sandra placed her towel on a chair and used my storage rack to retrieve a float.
"Is that you?" Chen asked her.
"Yes."
"Is that how you normally entered?"
"Sometimes. The gate was inconvenient."
"Did Ms. Pemberton know you were using the fence opening?"
Sandra glanced toward me. "She knew we liked to swim."
"That's not what I asked," Chen said, still calm.
She gave a small shrug and said she had not thought it mattered. Martinez looked at the fence repair photographs next. I showed him the earliest damage, Peter's temporary repairs, the later forced opening, and the final reinforced section installed in August. The invoice established the work date. The photographs showed the new steel connectors and screws, followed by the reopened gap in the September footage.
"Who opened the fence after the repair?" Martinez asked Sandra.
"It was already loose."
"The photographs show it was secured. Did you loosen it?"
She looked down the hallway. "The children might have pushed it. I can't watch every movement."