Lawn decorations.
Paint colors.
Trash bins.
Anything that didn’t meet her standards became a problem.
I explained the entire door dispute.
Her anger after discovering the HOA had approved my paint color.
The scratches.
The overturned flowerpots.
The white paint.
Then Officer Delgado asked a more specific question.
“Did you ever notice anything unusual about her garage?”
I thought carefully.
“She always kept it closed.”
“That alone isn’t unusual.”
“No. But hers felt different.”
I remembered that Linda had installed an electronic keypad on the side entrance.
I also remembered something else.
Months earlier, she had hired a professional crew to clean the garage.
They spent nearly two full days working inside.
Afterward, Linda told me she had finally decided to clear out years of clutter.
Officer Delgado stopped writing for a moment.
“When was that?”
I thought back.
“Maybe eight or nine months ago.”
Then another memory surfaced.
“It was around the time everyone was still talking about Carol Vasquez.”
His eyes changed.
I continued.
“Linda said something strange then. She told me Carol’s disappearance made her think about putting her own affairs in order.”
At the time, I had considered it an odd but harmless comment.
Now it sounded completely different.
Officer Delgado wrote everything down.
For the next hour, I prepared a formal statement covering every incident.
The scratched door.
The flowerpots.
The spilled paint.
Linda’s denials.
The camera footage.
And the moment the officer noticed the garage.
Outside, the investigation continued growing.
Eventually, I heard what sounded like a tow truck.
The car beneath the tarp was being removed.
Linda wasn’t arrested immediately.
Police initially took her away for questioning.
But her house remained sealed off.
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