"Everything. Text messages. Emails. Photos. Video. Your deed. The survey. The original fence invoices if you still have them. Any communications you've ever received regarding that fence."
"I have most of it."
"Find the rest."
"I will."
Another pause.
"There's one more thing."
"What?"
"Don't rebuild anything yet."
Marcus glanced outside.
"I wasn't planning to."
"Good."
"Why?"
"Because right now the broken fence is evidence."
Marcus looked again at the cedar boards lying in the grass.
"I understand."
"Good. I'll talk to you later."
The call ended.
Marcus put the phone down.
Then someone knocked on his front door.
He frowned.
Nobody had told him they were coming.
He walked to the door and looked through the glass.
It was Thomas Avery.
The surveyor stood on the porch holding a cardboard tube under one arm and a coffee cup in the other.
Marcus opened the door.
"You're early."
Thomas smiled.
"Surveyors are early. It's how we annoy people."
Marcus stepped aside.
Thomas entered.
"Coffee?"
"I brought my own."
"Of course you did."
Thomas held up the cup.
"I don't trust homeowner coffee."
Marcus laughed for the first time that morning.
They walked into the kitchen.
Thomas placed the cardboard tube on the island and removed his jacket.
"Your attorney called me."
"Mine too."
"He wants a complete copy of everything."
"I figured."
Thomas opened the tube.
Inside were several large printed sheets.
"The original survey."
Marcus looked down.
"All of it?"
"All of it."
Thomas spread the documents across the island.
There were property lines, measurements, reference points, recorded monuments, easements, setbacks, and notes.
Marcus had looked at the digital version before.
Seeing it printed was different.
Thomas tapped a line.
"This is the boundary."
Then he pointed to another.
"This is where your fence was."
He measured the distance between them.
"Three feet, four inches."
Marcus nodded.
"More than enough."
"More than enough."
Thomas rolled the document back toward himself.
"And there's something I want you to understand."
"What?"
"Yesterday, when Patricia told me she had authority to remove the fence because the HOA owned the setback..."
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
"She was wrong."
"Very wrong."
Thomas pointed to another notation.
"That strip isn't HOA property."
"What is it?"
"Your property."
Marcus stared at him.
"So the entire argument was based on a property line that doesn't exist."
"That's what it looks like."
Marcus rubbed his jaw.
Thomas leaned back.
"That's why I kept telling her to stop."
Marcus nodded.
"You knew she'd keep going."
"I suspected."
"Why didn't you physically stop her?"
Thomas looked at him.
"Because I am a surveyor, not law enforcement."
Marcus smiled.
"Fair."
"And because sometimes the smartest thing you can do when someone is making a mistake is make sure they can't later claim they didn't."
Marcus looked toward the backyard.
"That's exactly what you did."
Thomas nodded.
"The camera did the rest."
For several minutes they sat quietly.
Then Thomas said, "You know what bothers me most?"
Marcus looked at him.
"What?"
"She wasn't confused."
Marcus said nothing.
Thomas tapped the survey.
"People make mistakes. They misunderstand plats. They read old documents. They get bad information."