“Immediately available?”
“I was asleep.”
She tightened her grip on her handbag.
“The retention ponds were experiencing environmental stress.”
“We had no choice.”
“You always have the choice not to trespass.”
Her face hardened.
“That language is unnecessary.”
“So is sending me a $4,800 bill for dumping fish in my pond.”
She lowered her voice.
“Don’t make this difficult.”
That sentence mattered.
Karen did not say:
I’m sorry.
She did not say:
We panicked.
She did not even say:
Let’s figure this out.
She said:
Don’t make this difficult.
Whenever someone creates a problem on your land and then warns you against making things difficult, start taking photographs.
I did.
I photographed Karen.
Her SUV.
The invoice.
The pond.
The fish.
The access road.
The fresh truck tracks cutting through mud beside the gate.
Then something caught my attention.
A bass rolled near the bank.
There was a bright yellow tag attached near its dorsal fin.
Not natural coloration.
A plastic anchor tag.
I stepped closer.
Another fish surfaced.
Blue tag.
Another.
White.
Several of the larger fish had numbered markers.
Karen saw me looking.
Something changed in her face.
Very small.
Enough.
“What are these?”
I asked.
“Fish.”
“That is not an answer.”
“Stock fish.”
“Whose?”
“Robert, I don’t have time to inventory individual fish.”
“Then why do some have serial numbers?”
She glanced toward the pond.
“I assume the contractor used identification tags.”
“You hired them.”
“You should know.”
Karen turned toward the SUV.
“You have seven days to pay the invoice.”
I almost laughed.
“And if I don’t?”
“The association will pursue collection and any other remedies available.”
“You mean the association I do not belong to?”
She stopped.
Looked back.
“You are adjacent to Silver Ridge.”
“That is geography.”
“Not membership.”
“You have benefited from our infrastructure for years.”
“No.”
“I have tolerated your infrastructure for years.”
Her jaw tightened again.
I pointed toward the water.
“Nobody touches those fish until I know what you put in there.”
Karen stared.
Then said something I did not understand until much later.
“You have no idea what happens if they establish.”
Then she got into her SUV and drove away.
I watched until the road disappeared into trees.
Then I looked at the pond.
Thousands of fish moved beneath the surface.
I remember thinking Karen’s final sentence had sounded like a threat.
It was not.
It was fear.
My first phone call went to Daniel Reed.
Daniel was my attorney.
He had represented me in three previous property disputes involving Silver Ridge.
The first was over an ornamental stone wall contractors accidentally extended six feet across my line.
The second involved residents cutting through my timber to create an unofficial hiking path.
The third concerned an attempt by the HOA to claim I needed architectural approval to replace the roof on a barn built before Silver Ridge existed.
Daniel enjoyed dealing with Karen only because, in his words, “She puts arrogant things in writing.”
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Robert.”
“You busy?”
“Always.”