Thirty residents.
Three board members.
Two police officers.
Diane.
Me.
The only sounds were the bypass motor and Brennan’s camera shutter.
She walked to the pump house.
Saw the cut padlock hanging from the hasp.
Photographed it.
Then she went back to her truck.
She opened the hard case on the tailgate.
Removed a file.
“PWS identification 4-1102,” she said.
“Cedar Hollow system. State permit.”
She turned the file so the officers could see it.
“Owner of record and certified operator of record, Kenneth Wilson.”
Nobody moved.
“Parcel A. Two point four acres. Deeded and surveyed. Tower, well, pump house. All inside the parcel.”
Diane raised her chin half an inch.
Exactly the way she had the first night.
“Chief, with respect, we recorded an amendment. We voted Tuesday. The association has been paying for this system for six years.”
Brennan put the file on the tailgate.
“Three things.”
She raised one finger.
“First. An association can record anything it wants.”
Diane opened her mouth.
Brennan continued.
“A recorded amendment does not transfer a permitted public water system. Transfer requires state approval.”
She opened the permit history.
“There is no transfer application.”
She looked directly at Diane.
“None was ever filed.”
A murmur moved through the people behind the fence.
“Second.”
Brennan raised another finger.
“To take over a permitted system, the new operator must have a certified operator of record.”
She looked at the three contractors.
“Not a general contractor. Not an HOA board member. A licensed operator.”
Then back to Diane.
“Does Cedar Hollow Estates have one?”
Diane said nothing.
Brennan waited.
“No?”
Still nothing.
“Then the association could not legally operate this system even if the transfer paperwork were otherwise perfect.”
One board member shifted sideways.
Another took a step backward.
Brennan opened a second folder.
“Third. You said the association has been paying for this system for six years.”
“Yes,” Diane said quickly.
Brennan removed a sheet.
“This is the association’s own assessment schedule.”
She looked toward the residents.
“Three hundred ten thousand dollars collected over six years under a water infrastructure assessment.”
People stopped whispering.
Brennan turned the page.
“This is the service account.”
She paused.
“Zero dollars remitted to the operator during the previous twenty-six months.”
I heard somebody behind the fence say, “What?”
Brennan continued.
“Fifty-five thousand nine hundred dollars outstanding.”
The reaction spread through the crowd.
“Wait.”
“What did she say?”
“Three hundred ten thousand?”
“Where did that money go?”
Diane tightened her grip on the clipboard.
Brennan was not finished.
She removed one more document.
I recognized it before she spoke.
The work order.
“This is an authorization for a four-inch tie-in from the clubhouse irrigation loop into the community drinking-water main.”
Diane’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But it changed.
“No backflow prevention.”
Brennan looked at the signature.
“Approved by D. Caldwell.”
She read the handwritten note at the bottom.
“After hours. No county ticket.”
She placed the work order beside a laboratory report.
“Total coliform positive in four residences. All downstream of the unauthorized connection.”