“Enough.”
That word chilled me more than the morning air.
Enough for what?
I did not know yet.
Gary pushed past me.
I did not touch him.
He picked up the ladder and carried it toward his yard.
I watched him go.
Then I ran inside and called the sheriff’s department.
The dispatcher asked whether he was still on the property.
“No.”
“Is anyone injured?”
“No.”
“Are there weapons involved?”
“Not that I saw.”
“What exactly did he damage?”
“My chimney.”
“With what?”
“Concrete.”
There was a pause.
“Concrete?”
“He poured a five-gallon bucket of wet concrete down the flue.”
Another pause.
I could hear typing.
“Do not use the fireplace.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“We’ll send a deputy.”
Then she said something I did not fully appreciate at the time.
“Do you have carbon monoxide detectors?”
“Yes.”
“Make sure they’re functioning.”
That was the first moment the seriousness of what Gary had done moved beyond property damage.
I walked into the living room.
Our fireplace was old-fashioned masonry, built in 1987 when the house was constructed.
Ellen loved it.
Every winter, starting around Thanksgiving, she lit a fire almost every evening.
After she died, I kept the habit.
Not every night.
But often.
The forecast said temperatures would fall into the twenties that weekend.
I had already stacked split pine beside the hearth.
I stared at it.
If I had not heard Gary on the roof...
If I had woken later...
If he had done it at three in the morning instead of six...
I might have lit a fire that evening.
Smoke would have risen into a blocked flue.
Then come back into the house.
Carbon monoxide would follow.
Maybe quickly.
Maybe slowly.
I called my son.
David lived forty minutes away in Fort Collins.
He answered on the fourth ring.
“Dad?”
“Morning.”
“You okay?”
“I need you not to panic.”
“That is never a good way to start a phone call.”
I explained.
He was silent for several seconds.
Then he said, “He did what?”
“I’ve already called the sheriff.”
“Get out of the house.”
“David.”
“Dad, get out.”
“The fireplace isn’t burning.”
“You don’t know what else he did.”
That stopped me.
David had always been more suspicious than I was.
Maybe that is what happens when your father spends your childhood telling you to give people the benefit of the doubt.
At fifty-eight, Gary Whitcomb had lived in Briar Ridge for eleven years.
He owned a small excavation company.
He knew construction.
He knew houses.
He knew what blocked ventilation could do.
And suddenly I found myself wondering whether the concrete had been the only thing he touched.
I walked outside.
I sat in my truck.
David stayed on the phone until a sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the driveway twenty-three minutes later.
Deputy Megan Cole stepped out.
She was probably in her early thirties, with a brown ponytail and the tired expression of someone finishing a night shift.
She took one look at the gray streak running down my chimney and said, “Wow.”
“That was about my reaction.”
She walked around the house.
“Do you have cameras?”
“Yes.”
That changed everything.
The camera above my garage had captured Gary carrying the ladder.
The side-yard camera captured him climbing.
The backyard camera showed part of the roofline and the bucket.
The audio was even clearer.
His voice.
My voice.
And the sentence.
Should’ve taken the offer.
Deputy Cole watched it twice on my phone.
Then she exhaled.
“Do not delete any of this.”
“I won’t.”
“I’m going to need copies.”
She called a supervisor.
Then she asked about the property dispute.
I showed her the survey.
The attorney letter.
Photographs of moved stakes.
Messages Gary had sent me.
One text from August read:
You’re making this harder than it has to be.
Another said:
You’ll wish you’d taken ten grand.
Deputy Cole looked at both.
“Has he ever threatened you directly?”
“Not exactly.”
She looked toward his house.
“That might have changed.”
A second cruiser arrived.
Two deputies walked to Gary’s property.
He met them outside.
I could not hear the conversation, but I could see his arms moving.
Pointing toward me.
Pointing toward the property line.
Pointing toward the roof.
At one point he laughed.
Then one deputy pulled out a notebook.
Gary stopped laughing.
While they spoke with him, I called a chimney contractor.
His name was Aaron Pike.
I had used him twice before.
When I explained the situation, he thought I was joking.
When he realized I was not, he said, “Walter, don’t put anything hot in that fireplace. Not a candle. Not paper. Nothing.”
“I know.”
“Concrete can settle around the smoke chamber. Depending on how far it went, you could have a complete blockage.”
“Can you fix it?”
“Probably.”
“How?”
“Depends.”
I hate that word from contractors.
“Depends on what?”
“Whether your neighbor bought you a chimney repair or a chimney replacement.”
Aaron said he could come that afternoon.
He never got the chance.
At 9:42, every phone in Briar Ridge screamed.
Not rang.
Screamed.