"Did the HOA have any legal authority over your property?"
"None. I'm not a member. My property is agriculturally zoned and predates their subdivision by 60 years."
"Then what we have is theft of property valued over $30,000, state jail felony under Texas Penal Code Section 31.03. I'm sending a deputy out tonight to photograph the tractor and confirm the chain. I'll have the report filed by morning. And Jake, the cameras?"
"Four angles, 31 minutes of footage. His face is clear in every frame."
"Good, because people who laminate their crime scenes tend to believe they're untouchable. Let's find out if they're right."
What Tom understood, and what the Vosses did not, was exactly who they'd been harassing. I wasn't a farmer who happened to be annoyed. I was a federal law enforcement officer who had spent 14 years recovering stolen assets, building financial crime cases, and apprehending people who believed they were untouchable. My supervisor had described my method best: "Merritt doesn't chase, he builds a box."
Gary Voss had stolen a tractor from a man who built boxes for a living.
I didn't sleep well that night. Not because I was angry, but because my mind was already working the case the way it worked every case: building the timeline, identifying the evidence, mapping the connections, and asking the question that separates investigation from reaction.
The question wasn't who stole the tractor. The question was, what else are they stealing?
I started the way I'd started 200 investigations: with the money.