By three o'clock, most of the visitors had gone. The boxes of genuine association lights had been placed together for collection by a designated volunteer. A handful of neighbors had identified their own belongings and signed simple receipts before taking them. The disputed items stayed under a tarp beside the garage, where I could protect them until the owners were established. I carried the empty lemonade pitcher into the kitchen and came back out with a chair.
Salas was still there.
He had finished making his notes and was standing beside the cruiser with his hat in one hand. The shadows had lengthened enough that the pavement no longer looked white. He watched Patricia's house for a moment before turning to me. I wondered whether he was preparing to advise me, again, to keep the peace. Instead, he said something that changed the direction of the case.
"Twenty-seven," he said.
"Twenty-seven what?"
"Calls involving this address over about three years. I requested the history after the last visit. This one makes twenty-seven entries that are connected to complaints about the occupancy or use of this lot."
I sat very still. Twenty-seven reports. Different homeowners, different days, different excuses, but the same location beneath them all. Salas explained that the records did not prove every caller had made a false report. Some calls described genuine parking disagreements, and a few lacked enough detail to establish who had supplied the information. But nineteen recorded calls used Patricia's voice, and several others came through the association's telephone number.
"Some are public records people can request," he said. "Others will need to be reviewed through the department's process. I can't make legal conclusions for you, but I can tell you the pattern isn't something I want to ignore anymore."
"What happens now?"
"I'm going to take the history to the district attorney's office. They'll decide whether any reports were knowingly false and whether the lease needs investigation. I don't want you hearing it from a neighbor and thinking I did it because you asked me for a favor."
"I didn't ask you to do that."
"I know."
He put his hat on. "That's why I'm telling you."
He left without ceremony. I watched the cruiser disappear around the bend, remembering our first conversation when he apologized for questioning me while I was unloading boxes. He had seemed then like a man who had been sent somewhere he did not want to be. Now he was choosing to take a record to the people whose job it was to decide whether the calls added up to something more than inconvenience.
It would not be my investigation. It would not touch my courtroom. For the first time in weeks, I could see a route forward that did not depend on Patricia deciding to become reasonable.
I went inside and looked at the folder on the counter.
The deed had not changed. The survey had not changed. The garage had been mine from the moment the sale closed, and the driveway had been private property long before I owned it. None of those things had become truer because people watched a deputy read them aloud. What changed that afternoon was that the neighborhood finally agreed to consider what the papers said.