"Why were you filming that pump house, Ms. Kallas?"
I told her. All of it. Nico on the pool deck. Alma Sotelo's eyes. The logs, the meeting, the bake-sale voice, the fine, the suspension, the sunscreen letter, the Sotelos moving away. I went to the hall closet and brought out the spiral notebook and the folder of HOA letters, and I set them on the table between us, and she went through them page by page without saying anything. When she got to the June entries from the summer before, she stopped.
"You wrote down that the pool had been shocked the night before," she said. "How'd you know that?"
"The sign on the gate the next morning. 'Pool closed for treatment until 10 a.m.' I took a picture."
"Who did the treatment?"
"Everett. According to the HOA."
She made a note. Then she closed the notebook and looked at me over her water glass.
"I'll be honest with you," she said. "When the call came in as an HOA thing, I figured I was driving out here to referee a fight about a phone. Neighbors grab each other's phones. It happens. Usually it's a misdemeanor and an apology." She tapped the notebook. "This isn't that."
"What is it?"
"I don't know yet," Detective Ibarra said. "But I listened to the dispatch audio on the drive over. All twenty-six minutes. You know what I heard?"
I shook my head.