The Roof Surveyor Recognized His Pole In Her Evidence Packet

I called Tobias before I opened the next picture.

“Did you work for Lorraine Fiske last week?”

“No.”

“Did anybody borrow your measuring pole?”

“People borrow money. They don't borrow a twelve-foot pole with my name burned into it.”

I sent him the attachment.

“Don't print that yet,” he said. “I'm coming.”

Tobias Yazzie was thirty-eight, Navajo, and a roof surveyor whose reports had more arrows than spare words. He arrived wearing a faded green work shirt, with his hair tied back and dust on the toes of his boots.

He set his laptop beside my clay-stained ledger.

“Show me what she says happened.”

I read the caption.

“September tenth. Active smoke discharge from Lot Fourteen.”

Tobias opened a folder on his computer.

“Funny. I took that picture on August twenty-third.”

There was his pole, leaning against my chimney. There was the rental roof with its three steps. There was a red towel caught on Lorraine's clothesline, one corner lifted like a bent finger.

In his original image, the sky above the chimney was clean.

In hers, a dark smear curled toward the courtyard.

I stared at the two screens.

“Could she have taken another picture from the same place?”

He enlarged the towel. A small tear showed near its hem.

“Same fold. Same tear. Same shadow from my pole. I'd admire the weather if it held still for eighteen days.”

He did not laugh.

“That's my work. Someone changed it.”

We checked all three complaint photographs. Each matched an image from his survey. The pictures had been cropped, darkened, and given new dates. The complaint arrows pointed at my chimney, but one caption had placed my lot number over her roof.

Tobias saved a comparison with the matching edges marked. He kept the untouched files apart from that new page. “The marks are our explanation,” he said. “Nobody should mistake them for what the camera saw.”

“She had the contact sheet,” I said. “I emailed it on August twenty-fifth. The secretary asked for roof drainage records.”

“The little pictures weren't the whole report.”

“She must have thought they were all I had.”

Tobias slid a thumb drive across the table.

“You commissioned the originals. Here they are again, with my field log. Keep your first copy, too.”

He opened the folder from August twelfth, his first visit.

My chimney rose alone above the north wall. A narrow gap separated my workshop from Lorraine's west casita. No pipe crossed it.

Then he opened August twenty-third.

A metal pipe ran over her parapet, crossed the gap, and vanished behind my chimney.

“What's that?” I asked.

“That's what your inspector needs to identify.”

His roof report had noted the added line and marked its route. The cover email had said to have its use checked before roof repairs. I had sent Lorraine that page because the line began on her building.

Her reply was still in my inbox.

Old Rain Overflow. No Work Needed On Your Side.

I had believed her. I knew kilns. I had let her claim the rest of the roof.

Tobias read the reply and rubbed his forehead.

“A drain crossing open space into a chimney. That's quite a rainstorm.”

The pipe had been wrapped and painted the same gray as the roof flashing. From the lane, it hid behind the low wall. His high camera angle made it plain.

I pulled out my chimney inspection from August sixth. The licensed sweep had checked the flue before that pipe appeared. His photographs showed an intact rear wall.

“Don't touch anything,” Tobias said. “Let somebody document both ends.”

We made copies of the two survey dates, the field log, and Lorraine's overflow email. Tobias wrote a short statement naming the files he had taken and the equipment he had used.

“Can you say she forged them?” I asked.

“I can say what changed. I can't say whose hand moved the mouse.”

I liked him for that.

I emailed the secretary again. I asked her to preserve the actual picture files, any working documents, and the messages that came with them. I sent copies to the other board members listed on my dues bill.

Then I taped a paper sign over the kiln latch.

DO NOT FIRE. INSPECTION PENDING.

The workshop looked smaller with that sign on it.

Tobias picked up a finished brick from my bench.

“The listening trick,” he said. “Does it work on presidents?”

“Only if they sit still.”

He tapped the brick with a pencil. It gave a thin, bright note.

We were packing the copies when someone knocked at the back door.

A woman stood outside holding the complaint photograph in both hands.

“I'm the tenant who signed her statement,” she said. “Before you hate me, you need to know what she told me to say.”