Almost.
Then:
"You've made me sound like a criminal."
"No."
"You made decisions."
"Other people decided what those decisions meant."
"You think you're better than me."
I shook my head.
"No."
"What do you think you are, then?"
I looked at my house.
The driveway.
The garage.
A small wet line was already drying on the concrete in the afternoon heat.
"I'm just the man who lives here."
That was the last substantial conversation we ever had.
Patricia stood at the fence another moment.
Then turned.
Went inside.
Her door closed.
Quietly.
I finished watering the lawn.
Coiled the hose.
Across the street, Dale's ceramic geese had been turned toward the road again.
I still did not understand why they had ever faced the house.
Perhaps Dale did not either.
Years later, I still think about the nine garage remotes in my junk drawer.
Not because they are evidence.
The case is finished.
Not because I enjoy keeping trophies.
I do not.
They interest me because of what they represent.
Nine households possessed the means to open a stranger's garage.
Most had never asked how they got that right.
Patricia gave them a remote.
She sounded authorized.
The door opened when they pressed the button.
What stronger proof does an ordinary person usually ask for?
That is how informal power works.
Not through statutes.
Through functioning buttons.
People press.
Doors open.
Eventually access begins to feel like entitlement.
Then the owner arrives and changes the code.
Suddenly everyone feels something has been taken from them.
Nothing was taken.
The borrowed thing was returned.
I have thought a great deal about why Patricia succeeded for so long.
It was not because the neighborhood was full of bad people.
That explanation is comforting because it lets the rest of us believe we would have behaved differently.
The neighbors were ordinary.
Helpful in other circumstances.
They raised money when someone had cancer.
Watched each other's children.
Fed pets during vacations.
Shoveled sidewalks for elderly residents.
They were not villains.
They were beneficiaries.
And beneficiaries are extraordinarily good at not inspecting arrangements that benefit them.
The cart was convenient.
Storage was free.
The RV being on someone else's driveway cost nobody else anything.
The garage door opened.
The president said it was fine.
That was enough.
Until it wasn't.
The association changed some procedures afterward.
Not because I demanded it.
Their new board did.
Common-property maps were tied directly to recorded plats.
Any property-use agreement required written owner consent kept in association records.
No board officer could unilaterally designate private space for association storage.
Police complaints involving property disputes had to be handled as individual reports, not disguised as HOA enforcement.
Violation letters had to cite the exact covenant section and explain how it applied.
Those changes sounded obvious.
Most useful reforms do after the event that made them necessary.
The annual budget added money for a legitimate storage unit.
People complained for one meeting.
Then forgot.
The courtesy cart survived.
It lived in the clubhouse maintenance shed.
Bev continued using it for church occasionally.
She asked whoever held the key.
The world did not end.
I stayed at 14 Larks Lane.
That was perhaps the most important part.
Linda had lasted five months.
The Kowalskis seven.