HOA presidents immediately started denying knowledge.
By Monday, everybody was blaming everybody else.
And the empty cornfield became famous.
People drove past just to photograph it.
One guy from Springfield tried selling T-shirts online that said:
SHOULD’VE CHECKED THE DEED.
I almost bought one.
But the part that bothered me wasn’t online.
It was my mailbox.
Monday morning, I found the door hanging open.
Inside was a plain white envelope.
No stamp.
No address.
Someone had placed it there by hand.
I called Ben before touching it.
He came out wearing gloves.
Inside was a photograph.
Old.
Maybe eight or nine years old.
My father stood beside the machine barn.
Beside him was a man I recognized from local newspapers.
Charles Varden.
Founder of Cedar Ridge Development.
The man who had originally tried buying access from us.
My father had died six years earlier.
Cancer.
Charles Varden had died two
