Cole was younger than I expected, maybe thirty-three, with sunburned forearms and the careful manner of someone who knew the difference between a furious property owner and a completed criminal investigation. He listened while I described the previous day's events, then asked me to tell the story again without guessing who had cut the lock.
"You believe Mrs. Calder was involved," he said.
"I believe she wanted water in the lake and was angry when we closed the valve. I don't know who held the cutter."
He nodded. "That's where we'll start."
He bagged the broken lock, collected a copy of the district notice, and photographed the location from several angles. He asked who had access to the maintenance road, whether security cameras covered it, and whether the contractor had returned after the first shutoff. Mara gave him Shane Whitaker's number. I gave him the times from my pressure alarm and all the photographs I had taken before the lock was cut.
"Do you have any reason to believe the district meter itself was manipulated?" he asked.
"No. The water entered my lateral normally. It disappeared after that."
"So we're dealing with a connection downstream of the district delivery."
"Exactly."
Cole wrote that down. He did not suggest arresting anybody before sunrise, and I did not ask him to. What I wanted was the pipe disconnected and an accurate record of how much water had been taken.
At seven-thirty, Sam and I were walking the young block again. The drip lines had recovered, but the soil was not as forgiving as the pressure gauge. We had several rows where leaves had begun curling at the edges, and a scattering of undersized peaches lay under the trees. Sam picked one up, turned it over, and said nothing.
"We'll count it," I told him. "Every tree, every row. No guessing."
He looked at me. "You think the insurance people will believe us?"
"They can believe the records. That's why we keep them."
At eight, Shane Whitaker came up the access road in a white work truck. He had a hard hat on the passenger seat and a file folder under his arm. His company, Whitaker Excavation and Landscape, was small enough that he still supervised difficult jobs personally. I had seen his trucks around the valley and knew his crews did competent drainage work, but I had never hired him.
He got out and looked at the branch connection. "I was told you approved this," he said.
I pointed toward the evidence markers beside the cut lock. "Did I approve that too?"
He stared at the empty place where the lock had been. "No. And my people weren't here last night. We haven't touched this since Monday."
"Can you prove that?" Cole asked.
Shane opened his folder. He had crew timesheets, a work order, the machinery delivery receipt, and a copy of the letter I supposedly signed. His crew had installed the takeoff during the previous week. Canyon Lake Estates had paid his company ninety-six hundred dollars for a temporary buried bypass from my lateral to the lake, including excavation, pipe, fittings, and restoration of the HOA berm.