A deputy checked a number.
No one got cuffed.
No machine got loaded.
No one needed a federal badge.
The system had remembered.
Reeves seemed to know what I was thinking.
"Worth all the trouble?"
"Ask the farmer with the skid steer."
"There he is again."
He headed back to his cruiser.
Before getting in, he called over his shoulder.
"You ever think about running for county office?"
"No."
"Good. You'd make everybody miserable."
"Drive safe."
He left.
Luis closed the service panel and looked at me.
"He likes you."
"No, he doesn't."
"That's what it looks like when men your age like each other. You insult each other and discuss documentation."
"Start the generator."
"Changing the subject."
"Start it."
He pressed the manual test switch.
The diesel engine turned over, caught, and settled into a steady rhythm.
Vanessa's term as president came up for election that fall.
I knew because three different homeowners stopped me in town to ask whether I thought she should stay.
My answer never changed.
"I don't vote in your association."
That frustrated people who wanted the generator dispute turned into a referendum with a simple villain and a simple verdict.
The election was close.
Vanessa won by eleven votes.
Howard called the next morning.
"You surprised?"
"No basis to be."
"That's not an answer."
"It is if you're asking whether I predicted an HOA election."
He sighed.
"Half the neighborhood thinks keeping her means nobody learned anything."
"Did she lose unilateral recovery authority?"
"Yes."
"Is the asset register reconciled?"
"Yes."
"Do disputed removals require counsel review?"
"Yes."
"Then something changed regardless of who sits in the chair."
Howard was silent.
"You really don't care who wins?"
"I care whether the process works when the person in charge is wrong."
That was the part people often miss about reform.
If a system only works when good people run it, it is not much of a system.