The election was held on April 12th. I won with sixty-one percent of the vote. Karen lost by two hundred and fourteen votes, and she had been on a "wellness cruise" in the Caribbean during the final week of the campaign and the vote count, which is why she had not been present when the results were certified. The board had voted to delay the public announcement and the formal installation until the May general meeting, to give Howard Bell's resignation paperwork time to clear and to allow what the board secretary called "a smooth transition." Karen had returned from her cruise on May 1st to find a letter in her mailbox informing her that she had lost the election and that the new president would be installed on May 28th. She had, by all accounts, not taken it well.
None of this was public knowledge yet on that Tuesday morning in my parking lot. The installation was nine days away. The only people who knew I was the president-elect were the board members, the association's attorney, and Marisol Vega, my lawyer. Karen knew she had lost — the letter had told her that much — but in the strange arithmetic of her mind, she had apparently decided that the election was a technicality and that she was still, for all practical purposes, in charge. Hence the badge. Hence the demands. Hence the 911 call.
I had not told the officers any of this. It had not seemed like the time. But as I stood in my office that afternoon, replaying the morning's footage for Marisol over a video call, she said something that chilled me.
"Jake," she said, "you need to understand something. Karen Whitfield just filed a false police report against the incoming president of her HOA, on camera, with audio. That's not just a bad morning. That's the opening move of whatever she's planning for the next nine days."
"What could she possibly do in nine days?"
"Nine days," Marisol said, "is a lifetime for someone who thinks the rules don't apply to her."
She was right, of course. Lawyers usually are, which is why they charge what they charge. By Thursday, the retaliation had begun.
It started with the violations. On Thursday morning, I arrived at the station to find a bright orange notice zip-tied to my front door: NOTICE OF COVENANT VIOLATION — SUNDALE MEADOWS HOA. The cited violation was "unapproved commercial signage," referring to the hand-painted WE FILL PROPANE sign that had hung on my building since before Sundale Meadows had streetlights. The notice demanded removal within seven days or fines of fifty dollars per day would accrue. It was signed by Karen Whitfield, Vice President, acting — she had underlined the word — under "emergency enforcement authority."
By Friday, there were three more notices. One cited my delivery truck for "improper commercial vehicle storage" because it was parked in my own side bay, where it had been parked every day for three years. One cited "unpermitted exterior modification" for the new card reader housing on Pump Three — the one I had been installing when Karen arrived. And one, my personal favorite, cited me for "operating a commercial enterprise during prohibited hours" because Devon had taken out the trash at 6:45 in the morning, fifteen minutes before the community's commercial noise ordinance lifted.
Each notice was signed by Karen Whitfield. Each one threatened fines. And each one, Marisol assured me, was legally meaningless — issued unilaterally by a vice president without a board vote, in violation of the association's own enforcement procedures, which required written complaints, a hearing, and a majority vote before any fine could be levied. "She's papering you," Marisol said. "She's trying to create a record that you're a problem vendor before you take office, so she can move to terminate your vendor status at the first meeting."
"Can she do that? Terminate my vendor status?"
"Only with a board vote. And after May 28th, you're the president, so good luck to her. But Jake — she's not stupid. She's doing this now, while Howard Bell's chair is technically empty and she's claiming emergency authority, because she knows the window is closing."
The window, as it turned out, was not the only thing closing. On Saturday morning, I got a call from Luis Ortega, who owned the landscaping company that held the HOA's grounds maintenance contract — and who bought all his diesel from me.
"Jake, man, I don't know what's going on," Luis said, "but Karen Whitfield came to my office yesterday with a new vendor agreement. She says the HOA is rebidding the fuel supply contract, and she's already talking to some outfit out of San Marcos. She told me if I want to keep my contract, I should start buying my fuel from them instead of you."
I sat down hard on the stool behind my counter. The HOA's fuel contract — diesel for the common-area landscaping equipment, fuel for the clubhouse generators, propane for the pool heaters — was worth about sixty thousand dollars a year to me. It wasn't my biggest account, but it was steady, and more importantly, it was the reason I had been able to keep my mobile delivery truck running through the slow months. "Did she say why?"