Then I faced Monica again.
“You knew what those trees meant.”
She scoffed.
“How would I know?”
“You heard Daniel talk about them.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“You came to his funeral.”
She looked away.
“You saw my son carrying his father’s cap.”
She remained silent.
“And you still came back at night.”
For the first time, she didn’t have an answer.
What Monica didn’t know was that I had spent the entire morning documenting everything.
I had taken photographs of the empty trees.
The broken branches.
The ladder.
The footprints in the damp soil.
The bags she had left behind.
I had even found several apples that had fallen beneath the fence.
More importantly, I had checked the security camera.
Daniel had installed it the previous year after someone repeatedly left garbage beside our shed.
I had never paid much attention to it.
But that morning, when I reviewed the footage, I discovered exactly what Monica had done.
At 11:43 p.m., she appeared beside the fence.
At 11:47, she climbed over.
At 12:19, she climbed back with the first load.
At 12:32, she returned.
At 1:07, she left again.
At 1:26, she came back.
Three trips.
Three separate loads.
She hadn’t accidentally taken a few pieces of fruit.
She had deliberately emptied the garden.
And she had done it after I explicitly told her to stay off my property.
I had copied the footage onto two separate drives.
One stayed with me.
The other went to my sister.
Then I called the police.
Not because I wanted Monica arrested.
Not yet.
I simply wanted the theft documented.
