"I came to your office in 2019," he answered. "I signed the paper because I was scared. I have the paper. I still want to know who got the money."
Kincaid stepped down from the stage. He seized Harvey's arm and ordered him to leave, pulling hard enough to overturn the chair in front of him. Harvey stumbled, and his cap fell into the grass. Audrey followed with her hands open, calling out that the old man had only asked a question and should be released without force.
Near the lemonade booth, a young mother raised her phone. Somebody from the stage told her to stop recording. She said no, with the steady plainness of a person who had made up her mind after watching a man fall.
"My brother lost his vehicle on that highway," she told Audrey a few minutes later, showing her the recording. "He had nobody watching when they took it. I'm keeping this one."
Her brother's name was Manny. He had signed a waiver because he could not afford to miss work, and the county had taken his van without ever pressing a related criminal charge. Audrey wrote her contact information on a napkin and asked the woman to retain the original video as well as the copy she offered to send.
At the gate, Kincaid released Harvey with a final warning not to return. Harvey retrieved his hat from Audrey and brushed a smear of dirt from his church trousers. He had not been arrested. He had been publicly punished for asking a question about his own property, and the distinction did little to lessen the humiliation.
"Are you hurt?" Audrey asked.
"My arm's sore. My pride's been through worse."
"You didn't deserve that."
"No," he said. "And this time there was a camera."
On Monday morning, October twenty-sixth, Harvey drove his green pickup along a rural road to buy cat food. Kincaid stopped him under the pretext of a registration check, then ordered him out without explaining any defect in the paperwork. Within twenty minutes a tow truck removed the pickup as property held for investigation. Harvey called Audrey from the lot's office, his voice so controlled that she understood how hard he was working to keep it that way.
"They've got my truck, baby girl. You said the records showed a pattern. Well, now I'm part of it again."
"I'm coming for you. We'll take a rental car to Baltimore."
"And the filing?"
"Today," Audrey said. "We file today."
Audrey rented a small gray hatchback and collected Harvey from the county impound lot before lunch. He stood beside the office door holding a receipt on which no one had supplied a specific charge. The pickup was visible through the chain-link fence, parked among vehicles whose owners might be waiting for the same kind of explanation. Audrey photographed the notice and asked the clerk for a copy of the impound authorization.