"Good."
He returned to his cruiser.
The meeting fell apart without him.
Mara looked at me.
"You think this is funny?"
"No."
"You humiliated me."
I shook my head.
"I think you humiliated yourself when you called the police before checking the map."
She stared at me.
Then walked away.
The neighbors remained.
One by one, they began talking.
Betty Walsh, who had lived there for nearly twenty years, approached me.
"I always knew she'd pick the wrong fight someday."
I smiled.
"Guess she finally found it."
But I wasn't finished.
Not even close.
The Auction
The following week was strangely quiet.
No fines.
No letters.
No photographs.
I knew better than to mistake silence for surrender.
So I kept researching.
One night, while browsing county auction listings, I noticed three parcels.
11B.
An abandoned retention lot.
11C.
A narrow pedestrian walkway.
11D.
A utility buffer.
I checked their coordinates.
Then checked them again.
All three were inside Oakrest Meadows.
But none were legally owned by the HOA.
The original developer had intended to transfer them to the association.
The transfer had never been completed.
Then the developer went bankrupt.
The parcels eventually became subject to county foreclosure procedures.
I stared at my screen.
The HOA had been maintaining land it didn't own.
Their park.
Their walking path.
Their utility buffer.
Possibly even the land beneath their community hall.
The auction was Thursday.
I attended.
There were only two other bidders.