Whitfield Hollow was 40 minutes away. "I can do eight," he said.
I'll need to see it before I give you a number. Obviously, she said, and then a half-second pause, almost too brief to catch.
Thank you. She hung up.
Daniel finished loading the truck, drove Noah to school, watched his son walk through the front doors without looking back because Noah had decided this year that looking back was something younger kids did. Daniel looked back for both of them.
Then he drove toward Whitfield Hollow. The gate was open.
The assistant Catherine had mentioned wasn't there. What was there was the fence, and it was worse than a truck clipping a corner.
The east property line had partially collapsed along a 30-foot section. Three posts were leaning badly.
The concrete footings cracked underneath. The wire mesh had torn and folded back on itself.
And somewhere in the mess, someone had already tried to zip tie part of it back up, a temporary fix that had made everything slightly worse. Post rot had set into the base of two of them.
This wasn't just truck damage. This fence had been struggling before the truck ever touched it.
He walked the line slowly. He crouched.
He pressed. He made notes.
He was reading the second post's base when he heard heels on gravel. You're not the man I called.
He didn't stand up. He finished what he was doing, made the note, and then straightened and turned.
Catherine Hail was not what he expected, and he couldn't have said exactly what he'd expected. She was in her mid-40s. charcoal blazer, phone in hand, and she had the specific kind of exhaustion that money cannot fix because money was never the problem to begin with.
She was looking at him the way you look at a flight that has landed in the wrong city. Marcus subcontracts overflow to me when he's booked.
Daniel said he's booked. I called Marcus specifically.
I understand that. I can do the job Marcus would have done, and I'll be honest with you, in a way that Marcus sometimes isn't.
Her eyes sharpened. What does that mean?
It means this fence had problems before that truck hit it. Two of these posts were already rotting at the base.
Whoever inspected them last either didn't look carefully or didn't want to tell you what they found. I'll tell you what I find, even if it costs more than what you want to hear.
A pause, long enough to have weight. Come to the house at 8:30, she said.
I'll hear the number then. She turned and walked back.
He went back to the posts. The number he brought to the door was fair.
And the moment he showed it to her, he could tell she knew it was fair because her expression did not do what expressions do when people are looking for a place to negotiate. She studied it.
She looked up. This is lower than the estimates I already got.
The other estimates probably included contingency padding, he said. I price what I see.
If I find something I didn't expect, I call you before I touch it. You decide how to proceed.
I don't run the meter while you're deciding. Why not?
She said, and it was a genuine question, not suspicious. Genuinely wanting to know.