One afternoon, Walter asked a neighbor if she remembered anything unusual about the property’s yard. She paused, puzzled, then shook her head. “Never heard anything odd,” she said. “Looks like every other backyard to me.” Her answer left him more unsettled than reassured.
He tried again with another neighbor who had lived there longer. That man shrugged, too. “These houses are old. Lots of quirks in the soil. Probably just roots shifting.” But Walter had already ruled that out years ago. The dismissal didn’t sit right with him.