PART 2
Let me be clear about something up front, because it matters.
My revenge was not going to involve a single illegal act.
I’m seventy-one years old. I spent three decades inside the machinery of the law, watching people destroy themselves by doing something rash when the calm, correct, devastating option was sitting right in front of them.
Blake and Tiffany had spent two years doing rash things.
Calling the police (I did nothing wrong).
Calling the city (I was up to code).
Suing me (dismissed, with fees).
Trying to start an HOA (the neighborhood laughed them out of the cul-de-sac).
And now, finally, they’d done the rashest thing of all: they’d hired a company to paint my house — my house, which I own outright, on which they have no claim whatsoever — while I was out of town.
They thought they’d finally won, because the paint job was “done” and the police couldn’t un-paint a house at the scene.
What they’d actually done was commit several very clear civil wrongs and hand me the paperwork to prove it.
The morning after I got home, I did three things, in order, like the paralegal I am.
First, I got the work order.
Walter’s photos showed the painting company’s van and logo clearly. I called them — pleasantly, as a “homeowner following up” — and it took about four minutes to establish that Blake and Tiffany Vance had contracted and paid for the painting of the property at my address.
The company, it turned out, had done nothing wrong from their side; they’d been shown what they believed was authorization. When I explained, gently, that the people who hired them did not own the house and had no right to authorize anything, the office went very quiet, and then very cooperative, and then very willing to provide me a complete copy of the signed work order, the payment record, and Blake’s signature authorizing work on a property he didn’t own.
Second, I photographed everything. The gray house. The paint on my window trim they’d gotten sloppy with. The paint on a rose bush my husband planted. Every detail, time-stamped.
Third, I called an attorney — a former colleague, actually, from my paralegal days, who was delighted to hear from me and even more delighted to hear why.
“Eleanor,” she said, when I finished. “They painted your house. Without permission. And signed a document taking responsibility for it. Do you understand what you’re holding?”
“I do,” I said. “I held documents like it for thirty years. I just never thought I’d get to be the plaintiff.”
“Oh, we are going to have fun,” she said.
