Chapter 2: It Already Did
Marjorie paced beside the driveway while Daniel waited with his phone in his hand.
“You’re making a big mistake,” she said.
Daniel didn’t answer.
She pointed toward the security camera.
“That thing didn’t see what happened before I got here.”
“It saw what happened here.”
“That isn’t the whole story.”
“Then tell the officers.”
Marjorie glared at him.
She seemed to realize that shouting would not change what the camera had recorded.
Daniel opened the footage on his phone.
The image showed Marjorie walking toward the wall.
It showed her raising the mallet.
It showed the first strike.
Then the second.
Then the fake meter falling apart.
He held the screen where she could see it.
Marjorie stared.
“You think that proves everything?”
“It proves that part.”
She looked away.
The sound of approaching tires reached the driveway.
A patrol car stopped at the curb.
Marjorie’s shoulders stiffened.
Two officers stepped out and approached calmly.
Daniel put his phone away.
One officer looked at the broken pieces.
Then at the mallet.
Then at Marjorie.
“Ma’am, want to explain what we just saw?”
Marjorie opened her mouth.
She had an answer ready.
But the security camera had left her very little room to change what had happened.
She pointed toward the wall.
“It wasn’t even a real meter.”
The officer looked over.
Daniel immediately explained that the object was a non-functional theatrical prop and that the actual utility equipment was separate.
The officer checked the real equipment from a distance.
Nothing had been damaged.
Marjorie seized on the distinction.
“See? Nothing happened.”
The officer looked back at her.
“Something happened.”
The question was no longer whether the real utility system had been damaged.
It was what Marjorie had chosen to do to the property in front of the camera.
And the footage had made that question very simple.
