Chapter 5 - The Camera Across the Street
Mrs. Hartley let us in wearing a housecoat and orthopedic slippers, thrilled to have company before six in the morning. Her grandson pulled up the footage on her tablet.
It was clear. It even had sound.
3:41 a.m. Dale crosses the street with a five-gallon bucket in one hand. He stops at the end of our driveway and looks up at our windows — my mother's window, then the girls' — for a long few seconds.
Then he crouches and writes. Long, slow strokes. GO HOME, in white construction chalk.
Before he leaves, he walks to the edge of the driveway and sets something down in the leaves near our storm drain.
The officer paused the video. "What did he just put there?"
We all went back across the street and looked.
Tucked under the wet leaves beside the drain was a small plastic bottle, the label peeled off. Blue liquid inside.
My mother smelled it from three feet away and stepped back fast. "Don't open that."
The fire department came and tested it.
Concrete sealant cut with heavy industrial dye.
Poured down the drain, it would have stained the inside of the pipe and the soil around the outfall bright blue for anyone who came to inspect it.
Dale's plan was to call the city and report that we were dumping chemicals into the stormwater system. The fine by itself could have hit several thousand dollars. And it would have wrecked our credibility in any fight over who caused the drainage damage later.
The officer walked back to Dale's front door.
This time Dale wasn't smiling.
He was in handcuffs before I'd made the girls breakfast.
May you like
Not for the chalk.
For tampering with evidence, harassment, and possession of materials for illegal dumping.
