Marlene looked at her.
“He's clearly about to.”
I pointed toward the damaged frame.
“Did you touch that?”
“No.”
“Then why were you there?”
“I told you. I thought I heard an animal.”
“The imaginary cat?”
Her jaw tightened.
“I made a mistake.”
“You don't own a cat.”
“Exactly. That's why I said I made a mistake.”
Before I could respond, the first police cruiser turned onto our street.
Officer Naomi Perez stepped out with Officer Grant Lewis.
I showed them the collapsed tank.
Then the damaged frame.
Officer Lewis crouched without touching anything.
“You have cameras?”
“Three.”
Marlene, still standing beside the fence, suddenly said, “Of course he does.”
Officer Perez looked at her.
“You live next door?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see what happened?”
“No.”
“Were you on this property today?”
Marlene hesitated.
“I walked near the garden entrance.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
Marlene sighed.
“I may have stepped through the gate briefly.”
“Why?”
“I thought I heard an animal.”
“What kind?”
She paused.
“A cat.”
I almost laughed.
Officer Perez noticed.
“You find it?”
“No.”
“Did you touch the tank?”
“Absolutely not.”
Officer Perez nodded.
“We'll need to see the security footage.”
For the first time, Marlene's expression changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
She had expected cameras.
She just hadn't expected all of them.
The first camera showed her leaving her property that morning.
The second showed her opening the gate.
She entered my yard at 7:18.
Seven minutes later, she came back out.
Then we checked the patio camera.
Marlene walked directly toward the water tank.
She didn't search for a cat.
She didn't look under bushes.
She didn't call.
She went straight to the support.
She remained there for nearly five minutes.
Then she looked toward my chair.
She stared at it.
Tank.
Chair.
Tank again.
Officer Lewis leaned closer to the screen.
“Play that again.”
I did.
Marlene stared at the chair.
Then at the tank.
Then back at the chair.
Laura whispered,
“She knew.”
Officer Perez turned toward her.
“Knew what?”
Laura looked at me.
“That Daniel sits there.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
But there was still one camera Officer Perez hadn't seen.
And that camera was about to change everything.
The first two camera recordings already looked bad for Marlene.
But I knew there was another angle.
Two months earlier, I had installed a cheap battery-powered camera behind the detached garage.
I had originally bought it because small things had begun disappearing from the yard.
A hose.
A garden sprayer.
Two bags of fertilizer.
Nothing valuable enough to justify calling the police.
I had assumed neighborhood children were cutting through the property.
I never imagined that camera would eventually become the reason someone went to prison.
I opened the recording.
The footage showed the rear corner of the garden from a completely different angle.
Marlene appeared at 7:19.
This time, we could see both of her hands.
She was carrying something wrapped inside a folded cloth.
She approached the support.
Then she crouched.
For several minutes, her body blocked the most important part of the footage.
We couldn't see exactly what she was doing.
But we could see enough.
She wasn't simply standing there.
She was working on something.
When she finally stood, she looked toward my chair.
Then she walked over to it.
Officer Perez leaned forward.
Marlene grabbed the back of my green folding chair.
She moved it.
Not much.
Maybe eight inches.
Then she stepped back.
She looked at the tank.
Then the chair.
Then the tank again.
She moved the chair another few inches.
Nobody spoke.
Laura slowly covered her mouth.
“She put it there.”
Officer Lewis nodded.
“She positioned it.”
The footage continued.
Marlene stood beside the chair.
Then she took out her phone.
She called someone.
Wind made some of her words difficult to hear.
A delivery truck passed behind the neighboring houses.
But several sentences came through clearly.
“No, he sits here.”
A pause.
“Every afternoon.”
Another pause.
“Tomorrow won't matter if he can't show up.”
Officer Perez stopped the recording.
The silence that followed was almost unbearable.
Laura looked at me.
“Show up where?”
I knew the answer.
“The courthouse.”
The following morning, I was scheduled to testify against Marlene's son.
Ryan Bishop.
Twenty-seven years old.
Two months earlier, Ryan had struck a cyclist and driven away.
The cyclist's name was Thomas Avery.
The night of the accident had been rainy.
I remembered almost everything.
The wet pavement.
The streetlights.
The reflective strip on Thomas's backpack.
The black truck approaching too quickly.
The impact.
Thomas falling.
The truck stopping for perhaps two seconds.
Then disappearing into the darkness.
I had followed the vehicle just long enough to identify it.
It belonged to Ryan.
I called 911.
Then returned to Thomas.
He survived, but suffered a broken leg, shoulder injuries, and a concussion.
Ryan denied being there.
He claimed his truck had been parked at his mother's house.
Marlene supported his story.
She told investigators that Ryan had spent the evening with her.
But my doorbell camera showed Ryan arriving at her house at 11:03 p.m.
The accident had happened earlier.
The damage to his truck matched the collision.
The evidence was already strong.
But my testimony mattered.
I had seen the vehicle.
I had recognized Ryan.
And Marlene knew that.
For weeks, she had tried to make me change my statement.
At first, she was polite.
“You saw a black truck,” she told me.
“A lot of people drive black trucks.”
“I saw Ryan's.”
“It was raining.”
“Yes.”