The Judge Asked Which Paper Gave Wade The Right

The court hearing came three weeks after the special meeting.

Until then, I kept using the public launch. June made sure I had a second worker when the wind required one. We missed no sample rounds, but the detour cost time and fuel.

Wade's gate stayed locked. His newest sign said PRIVATE SHORE, OWNER ONLY.

I photographed it once. I did not make it my morning ritual.

The association filed in the Civil Division of the Superior Court in Chittenden County. It asked the court to protect the service access and settle the disputed ownership. The first hearing concerned access while the rest of the case went forward.

Aaron told me to bring my original field notebook and answer only what I knew. Elena would question me as the association's witness.

At the courthouse, Petra sat beside me with her field book closed on her lap.

“Nervous?” I asked.

“Always. It makes me check the numbers twice.”

I had checked my notebook so many times I knew the shape of a dried coffee stain on its cover.

Wade wore a dark suit. Without the blue vest and the table in front of him, he looked like a man waiting for a delayed bus.

His lawyer argued that we could launch elsewhere. She said the pier had been replaced and that the exact shore line remained in dispute.

The judge asked Elena what the written grant allowed.

She opened the easement to the marked page.

I listened to the same words I had carried under a calibration sheet for years. In that room, nobody talked over them.

When I testified, Elena asked why we needed that route.

“The skiff and spare battery are stored by the landing,” I said. “The route is short enough for one worker to carry the service kit safely. From the public launch, we need a trailer and often another person.”

“Were you using the private end of Mr. Trask's pier?”

“No. I tied at the shore section covered by the service plan.”

Wade's lawyer asked if I enjoyed swimming at the beach.

“Sometimes, under my cottage lease.”

“So you wanted personal beach access.”

“That morning I wanted a working oxygen sensor.”

I kept my voice flat. The judge wrote something down.

Petra explained her measurements. With association approval, she had completed the common-land portion of the survey. Her report tied the landing to the old pipes and stone wall. The fixed inland line of Parcel C was separate from the changing edge of the lake.

She did not claim the current water level could tell us who owned the upland beach.

“Could the orange stake establish a new boundary?” Elena asked.

“No. A stake can mark a measured line. Moving one doesn't move the deed.”

The judge asked Wade's lawyer which document allowed him to block the recorded service route.

She referred to his general right to secure his property.

The judge asked again about the grant.

There was no other document.

The order came two days later. Wade had to provide working access to the named monitoring agents and stop blocking the route while the case continued. The order did not give me the whole pier or settle the entire title case.

It gave me the route I needed.

Elena sent it to June, Ruth, and Wade's lawyer. By five that afternoon, June had a gate code that worked.

I stood at the landing the next morning with my service case in one hand. I entered the time in my notebook before I touched the skiff.

The oxygen reading held steady. The new wiper swept the sensor clean. A line of small waves clicked against the stones.

For the first time in weeks, the task took the time it was supposed to take.

At noon, Petra called from the bookkeeper's office.

“There's a gate invoice,” she said. “You should see the attachment.”

The invoice was for $1,860, paid from association funds two summers earlier. The work included moving the gate closer to the lake and adding its decorative side panels.

Attached was Wade's marked plan. Beside a sketched rod, he had written: OLD MARKER WRONG. MOVE TO NEW CORNER.

The contractor had added a note in his own hand: Declined marker work. Gate only.

“He asked someone to move a boundary rod?” I said.

“Yes. The contractor refused. That's why the old evidence survived.”

Petra sounded furious in the quietest possible way.

“I'm sending this to Elena with my report. Nobody gets to improve a boundary with a shovel.”

Under the invoice lay a printout of Wade's beach account. Six deposits had gone in. Far less remained.