I had been appointed to the county civil bench eight days earlier after nearly three decades practicing law.
My professional life had not appeared in the purchase documents Patricia could easily see.
I had intentionally kept a low public profile during the transition.
If I said it, she would likely move the RV.
Maybe immediately.
Maybe after one phone call.
The neighbors would hear.
Someone would tell someone else.
And the story would become simple.
The judge wanted his driveway.
Patricia yielded.
Problem solved.
Except it would not have been solved.
I would have used respect borrowed from an office to obtain what Thomas Hale the homeowner already had a right to demand.
Thirty years earlier, when I was a young law clerk, Judge Arthur Bell had told me something I did not understand.
"The robe is the only piece of clothing that gets heavier every time you wear it outside the courtroom."
I thought he meant dignity.
He meant temptation.
So I said nothing.
Got back into my truck.
Reversed.
Parked on the public street in front of my own house.
Patricia watched me walk inside.
I saw satisfaction in her face.
At the time I thought my silence had been restraint.
Part of it was.
Another part was arrogance of a different kind.
I believed truth would eventually embarrass her into stopping.
I had not yet understood that Patricia Voss had spent years constructing a version of truth for the whole street.
Two days later, she discovered I was a judge.
Not from me.
She discovered it at the courthouse.
Patricia, as I later learned, was one of the county's most frequent small-claims litigants.
Property disputes.
Contract claims.
HOA collection matters.
She had an accordion folder under one arm that Wednesday when the courthouse doors opened at lunch.
I stepped outside wearing my black robe because the clerk had caught me before I changed.
"Judge Hale, the two o'clock is asking whether we can move to two-thirty."
Patricia stood three steps below us.
I saw her see me.
Some people react to bad news by becoming visibly frightened.
Those people are often easier to understand.
Patricia went completely still.
Then smiled.
That was worse.
She had not simply discovered something about me.
She had discovered something she could use.
When I returned home at five, the RV remained on my driveway.
Patricia was three houses down talking with Mrs. Okafor.
The green lanyard hung around her neck.
Accordion folder under one arm.
She gestured toward my house.
Over the next two days, she visited almost every home on Larks Lane.
Dale later told me what she said at his.
"He's a judge."
"A brand-new one."
"First thing he does after moving in is throw association property into the street."
"He threatened to tow things."
"Now he wants the garage closed."
"The cart gone."
"The community storage gone."
"Who do you think pays for a commercial storage unit?"
"Not him."
"You."
"He'll use that robe to run the neighborhood if people let him."
It worked.
Not because Patricia was uniquely persuasive.
Although she was.
It worked because almost everyone had benefited.
That was the part I failed to understand.
The garage was not merely Patricia's private trespass.
It had been socialized.
Dale used the golf cart.
Bev used it to drive to church because walking long distances aggravated her hip.
The HOA stored holiday decorations without paying monthly storage fees.
Someone borrowed the pressure washer.
Someone stored folding chairs.
People parked overflow vehicles in my driveway when the house appeared empty.
Patricia had taken something that was not hers and distributed pieces of its usefulness throughout the neighborhood.
Everyone got a taste.
Then I arrived and took the plate away.
By Friday, nobody waved.
A man two houses down turned his back when I walked toward the mailbox.
Mrs. Okafor, who had smiled at me once from across the street, suddenly found something inside her garage whenever I passed.
The ceramic geese on Dale's porch were turned toward his front door.
I still do not understand what that meant.
Maybe nothing.
On my truck windshield sat another cream envelope.