The fence runs along the full length of the property line, which means Gary's yard and my yard are separated by 6 ft of wood and approximately zero goodwill, at least on my side. Gary is 51 years old, heavy-set, loud in the particular way that some men are loud, not shouting exactly, just existing at a volume slightly above what the situation requires. He works in some kind of contracting business that involves his truck being loaded and unloaded at irregular hours. He has a riding lawn mower that he uses on a lawn approximately the size of a dining room table, which I find baffling. He grills constantly from April through October, always with the particular smoke direction that suggests his grill was engineered specifically to maximize airflow toward my yard.
I have never liked Gary. This is not a judgment I make lightly. I spent 31 years being professionally patient with teenagers, which means my threshold for adult irritation is extremely high. Gary clears it consistently. The first theft, and I am going to use that word because that is what it was, happened in my second summer at Willowbrook.
I had a bed of strawberries along the back fence, running parallel to the property line. One morning I went out to pick strawberries and there were very few left, and I could see from the fence that someone had leaned over from Gary's side. The fence is 6 ft, but Gary is tall and presumably owns a step stool and picked most of them from above. I told myself it was probably a coincidence. Maybe birds, maybe neighborhood children, maybe something I couldn't see.
I replanted the strawberry bed further from the fence and said nothing. The following summer, my tomatoes. A whole section of cherry tomatoes that I had grown from seed, heavy and perfect and ready to pick. I went out one morning and a large portion of them were gone, not all, but enough. Clean stems where fruit had been.
No mess, no fallen tomatoes, no sign of animal involvement. I moved the tomatoes further from the fence. Year four, my apple trees produced their first real crop. Not many apples, maybe 20 on one tree and 15 on the other, but actual beautiful edible apples. I watched them carefully.
I picked them the moment they were ready. I thought I had outpaced Gary. I thought the distance from the fence had solved the problem. Then came year five and the 47 peaches. My peach tree is in the corner of my yard furthest from the house, but closest to the fence line on Gary's side.
I had not moved it because the tree was established and moving an established fruit tree is complicated and stressful for the plant. I had told myself that by the time the tree was producing real fruit, I would figure out a solution. I had not figured out a solution and now I had four peaches instead of 47. I stood at my kitchen window that morning and I watched Gary come out his back door and fire up his grill and I felt something that I can only describe as the specific cold, clear anger of a woman who has been patient for five years and has reached the end of her patience with mathematical precision. I went inside and I made a list.
The list had two sections. Section one, evidence collection. Section two, solution. Evidence collection. I am a retired biology teacher.