“You don’t get to tear into that fence whenever you feel like it, Cal. Half of it belongs to me.”
Caleb Mercer lowered one boot from the aluminum stepladder and planted it in the brittle August grass. The ladder gave a thin metallic complaint behind him, rocking once before settling against the white vinyl fence that divided his backyard from Linda Carroway’s. Sweat ran through the gray dust streaking his shoulders, and the insulated pliers in his right hand felt hot despite the rubber grip.
He didn’t put them down.
“The post is on my parcel,” Caleb said. “Three and a quarter inches inside the survey marker.”
Linda stood ten feet away in white linen pants and a sleeveless blouse printed with blue hydrangeas. One hand rested against her hip while the other remained pointed at the open electrical enclosure bolted to the fence post. Black wire, faded red wire, and older cloth-wrapped conductors protruded from the box like veins pulled from a wound.
“The easement crosses the property line,” she snapped. “We already went over this.”
“We went over what you think it says.”
“I have a copy.”
“So do I.”
“And yours apparently doesn’t include the part about notifying me before you start messing with utility infrastructure.”
Caleb looked at her.
“It isn’t utility infrastructure.”
Linda laughed without humor.
“That box fed the landscape lights before you moved in.”
“It hasn’t fed anything in years.”
“That doesn’t make it yours.”
Behind her, a black-and-white patrol SUV idled against the curb with its front tires angled toward the gutter. Heat rolled above the hood. Two officers had just stepped out, and the sound of their doors closing carried sharply between identical houses whose owners had slowly begun appearing behind curtains and screened porches.
Caleb looked toward them.
Then back at Linda.
“You called the police over a junction box.”
“I called because you’re stealing power.”
Caleb stared at her.
Linda lifted her chin.
“I saw the meter.”
“You saw a meter enclosure.”
“I saw you cut a seal.”
“I cut a brass lock that hasn’t been connected to a power company since Nixon was president.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Caleb wiped his forearm across his forehead.
“I expect the markings stamped into it to believe it for me.”
The first officer crossed the lawn.
He was a white man in his early forties with close-cropped sandy hair, sun-reddened skin above the collar, and the patient expression of somebody who had spent most of his career discovering that people rarely told the same story twice.
“Afternoon.”
Caleb nodded.
“Officer.”
“I’m Officer Mason Hale. This is Officer Carter.”
His younger partner moved around the curled orange extension cord lying across the yard. Carter’s hand rested near his duty belt, not gripping anything, just present.
Hale looked at Caleb’s pliers.
“Set those down for me.”
Caleb placed them carefully on the top platform of the stepladder.
“Thank you.”
Linda stepped forward.
“He’s bypassing the meter.”
Hale held up one hand.
“I’ll get to you, ma’am.”
“He’s been out here since six.”
“Ma’am.”
She stopped.
Hale turned toward Caleb.
“What are you working on?”
“Tracking a fault.”
“In the fence?”
“Started in the fence.”
Hale looked at the open box.
“Started?”
Caleb nodded toward his house.
“Breaker in my garage started tripping around two this morning.”
“Which circuit?”
“Backyard receptacles and landscape feed.”
“You an electrician?”
“Industrial maintenance.”
“How long?”
“Twenty-two years.”
Hale looked at the panel again.
“Licensed?”
“Not as a residential contractor.”
“So why are you doing this yourself?”
“Because everything I’m touching is downstream of my disconnect.”
Linda scoffed.
“That’s a lie.”
Caleb didn’t look at her.
Hale did.
“Ms. Carroway, I need you to let me talk to him.”
Linda crossed her arms.
The officer returned his attention to Caleb.
“What made you open this particular enclosure?”
Caleb pointed with two fingers.
“Voltage where there shouldn’t be voltage.”
Hale frowned.
“Meaning?”
“I killed power at my garage.”
“And?”
“Still had forty-seven volts between ground and the dead conductor.”
Carter finally spoke.
“Ghost voltage?”
“That was my first thought.”
Caleb shook his head.
“Wasn’t.”
“How’d you know?”
“Loaded it.”
Carter glanced toward the extension cord.
“Light stayed on?”
“Test lamp glowed.”
Hale’s eyes moved toward the open panel.
“So something else is feeding it.”
“Something old.”
Linda laughed again.
“There. He just admitted it.”
Caleb looked at her.
“No, Linda. I admitted something is wrong.”
The officer stepped toward the box.
Caleb moved slightly.
“Careful.”
Hale stopped.
“What?”
“Don’t touch the lower conductor.”
“Live?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s encouraging.”