Calvin had believed Whit was giving him sensible financial advice. He later discovered the refinancing problem was not nearly as severe as he had been told, and that the LLC had been ready to buy his home before the final assessment was even sent. It took investigators months to reconstruct the dates, and Calvin was embarrassed to admit how grateful he had been when the papers were signed. The investigators reminded him that gratitude given under false assumptions did not make the underlying conduct fair.
I knew something about that kind of embarrassment. During the first months of the dispute, I had paid the fines because I wanted the problem to stop taking up room in my life. I had trusted that if I provided good documents, somebody on the board would act reasonably. Looking back, I could see the point when that hope became an advantage for Hadley.
One afternoon I invited Tate to come home from Athens for dinner and did not tell him the menu. He arrived to find me making the chicken casserole Marguerite used to prepare whenever someone in the family had a bad week. I had forgotten how much paprika she used, so I called her sister Claire and asked. Claire laughed at me for keeping the recipe in my head instead of reading the notebook Marguerite had left.
Tate ate two helpings. Afterward we walked into the garage, where the Mustang sat with a faint film of dust on the hood. For the first time in weeks I did not feel an urgent need to wipe it away. I told Tate that the sheriff's office had recovered evidence related to several other families, and that I was trying to understand how much of the case might become public.
"They might talk about Mom," he said.
"They probably will."
He went quiet. The thought of strangers using Marguerite's death as another detail in a sensational story bothered both of us. I asked whether he wanted his name kept out of interviews where it was not legally necessary. He said yes, though he was willing to testify about the things he had personally seen.
"I don't want them to make her sound like a prop," he said. "She was a person."
I told him that was what I wanted too. It is easy, when a story is being told in court or on television, for the central object to become larger than the human beings around it. A classic car can be photographed from six angles. A marriage cannot.
For several weeks the legal cases moved slowly. The defendants retained counsel, discovery requests multiplied, and forensic accountants reconciled the apparent discrepancies between HOA accounts and the LLC's books. The attorney representing the association sought court guidance on preserving records and maintaining essential services. The new temporary administration suspended disputed late fees while deciding which assessments were properly supported by the covenants.
Ruth secured release of the lien on my property after the association agreed it had not followed the required process. We also obtained a written schedule for reviewing the contested fines, including the first two hundred dollars I had paid simply to stop trouble. That was a smaller victory than I had imagined in the beginning, but I appreciated its practical value. The title to my home no longer carried a cloud created by a private quarrel.