At sixty-four, Eleanor valued the quiet routine of the suburban home where she had lived for thirty-two years. That routine changed when her electricity bill arrived at 227 dollars, nearly twice its normal amount. She checked the meter, considered appliances, and called her daughter Diane, but nothing inside the house explained the sudden increase. The answer came only after midnight, through the faint hum outside her bedroom window.
Her neighbor Monica had parked a white electric car close to the property line. A thick charging cable ran from the vehicle to the outdoor outlet on Eleanor’s garage. Monica was not confused about whose power she was using. When Eleanor confronted her, Monica said a retired woman living alone could not need much electricity and offered ten dollars as if she were doing a favor. Even after being told to unplug, she asked for ten more minutes.
The theft fit a longer pattern. Eleanor’s garden gnome, a keepsake bought by her late husband, had disappeared and later appeared in Monica’s yard under a sloppy coat of blue paint. A lawn mower had been borrowed without permission and returned with an empty tank and a dull blade. Another neighbor, Frank, had waited months to recover a ladder. Everyone had treated these incidents as Monica’s irritating habit because challenging her seemed harder than keeping quiet.
