I typed 159 into the calculator, multiplied it by 847 households, then by twelve months. The result was more than $1.6 million in disputed charges at the current rate. If I blindly multiplied that same amount by eight years, I would get nearly $13 million. But the rates hadn't been the same for eight years. I needed to reconstruct every annual increase before I could honestly estimate the total.
By midnight, I had a preliminary schedule. The cumulative difference between the recorded limit and what homeowners had actually been assessed, assuming no valid approving votes existed, was in the neighborhood of $10.8 million over the eight-year period.
I stared at the number for a long time. It represented not just Victoria's possible misconduct, but something far more complicated: money collected from hundreds of families, some of which had undoubtedly paid for real community expenses and some of which appeared to have disappeared through questionable contracts. It wasn't possible to label every disputed dollar "stolen" without an audit.
Still, it meant that the argument was no longer about three dandelions or a truck parked in a driveway.
I called Nadia the next morning and sent her the calculations. She was silent for a full minute before speaking.
"Riley, don't publish the total yet. I need to examine the amendment history, the annual rate schedule, and the member approvals. If you're right, the association could face enormous restitution claims. But we need the actual records, not a number that sounds impressive on a poster."
"I know," I said. "I think I'm right, but I want somebody independent to tell me where I'm wrong."
"Good. That's the difference between building a case and building a rumor."
When the call ended, I looked out the kitchen window. My California poppies were opening in the morning sun. Across the street, Mrs. Chen was putting out her garbage bin at precisely the permitted hour.
The neighborhood looked as orderly as the brochure had promised. Underneath it, I was beginning to suspect we had been paying for a much more expensive kind of chaos.
That night I asked Maria a question I should have asked months earlier.
She was sitting at the far end of my couch with a mug of tea, reading a novel she had been trying to finish for weeks. I had printed the assessment calculations and left them in the kitchen so we could have one evening without spreadsheets. But I couldn't get the number out of my head, and I couldn't ignore the way Maria had grown quieter every time I talked about Victoria's finances.
"What do you actually do for the county?" I asked.
She marked her page with a receipt and closed the book. "You know I work in law."
"I know you told me you work in legal matters. I know you have meetings you can't describe, and I know you ask the kinds of questions lawyers ask when they don't want somebody to guess the answer. That's not the same as knowing what you do."
Maria looked down at her tea. For a few seconds, the room was silent except for the refrigerator motor.
"I'm the district attorney for Riverside County," she said.
I thought I had misheard her. "The district attorney?"
"Yes."