By the first Saturday evening, eighty-seven households had responded to the meeting notice or offered to attend. Not all of them agreed with my conclusions. A few thought Victoria was harsh but effective. I made sure those people received the same documents as everyone else.
The point was not to replace Victoria's private circle with a different circle of people who believed their own side automatically deserved the truth. The point was to make the information available and let the members decide.
Victoria heard about the meeting almost immediately. One of her allies forwarded her an invitation, and she left three angry messages on my voicemail demanding to know who had authorized me to "represent the community."
I called back once. "The notice went out under the association's meeting procedure. If there's a problem with it, send it in writing."
"You are trying to take my position."
"I'm trying to see the financial records. If the records support you, you'll be able to explain them."
"You think you're clever because you found a lawyer."
"I'm not asking you to admire me, Victoria. I'm asking you to answer the questions."
She made a sound that was almost a laugh. "You will regret making yourself the face of this."
I wrote down the time of the call and saved the voicemail.
The next day, Mrs. Patterson called and asked whether she could come by. When I opened the door, she was holding a grocery bag full of folders and looking more upset than I'd ever seen her.
"Victoria's holding an emergency board meeting," she said. "She wants to fire the management company, cancel the records contract, and move all the older files into private storage."
"Can she do that?"
"Not without a properly noticed vote and the right authority. But she has enough frightened people around her that I'm afraid they'll try."
She set the folders on the table. Several were carbon copies of minutes dating back years. One contained ledger extracts and contractor approvals, including pages missing from the copies I had been allowed to inspect. I asked her whether she was entitled to retain and disclose them.
"These are association records," she said. "I kept duplicate copies in my role as secretary. I'll let the lawyer decide what can be used. But I am not putting the only set back into Victoria's hands."
I called Nadia. She arranged a secure transfer of the relevant association material and asked Mrs. Patterson to write down where the originals were held. We did not open sealed folders containing information about individual homeowners beyond what was needed to identify them.
That was the beginning of the weekend when Victoria stopped trying to win an argument and began trying to erase the record of it.
Victoria's emergency board meeting took place in the clubhouse at ten on Saturday morning, eight days before our scheduled member gathering. I attended with Nadia and two other homeowners. The chairs had been arranged in a tight semicircle facing the board table, and Victoria had placed a printed agenda on every seat.
The agenda listed three items. Termination of the management company. Emergency retention of association records. Temporary suspension of external financial inquiries.