“Don’t give the board ideas,” I muttered.
He snorted, tipped his head in a goodbye gesture, and drove off.
The crowd began to disperse, but not without a barrage of comments.
“About time.”
“She had it coming.”
“Lieutenant Delaney, please find her next.”
“Best Saturday morning ever.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
But while the war she started was effectively over, the aftermath was only beginning.
HOA politics spread through Willow Bend Meadows faster than gossip in a church choir. By that evening every porch in the neighborhood buzzed with retellings of the showdown. I overheard one couple recounting the story to their visiting friends. They reenacted the whole scene with dramatic gestures.
“She told him she’d impound a cop’s car,” the husband gasped.
“A cop? On his own driveway?”
“No!” his wife exclaimed. “Did she really?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “And then—boom!—Officer Keller said, ‘Good morning, Lieutenant.’ And Caroline turned redder than a tomato.”
I couldn’t help smiling as I walked past. If nothing else, this whole ordeal had inspired some truly entertaining theater.
But the real tipping point came that Sunday afternoon. An emergency HOA meeting notice was delivered door-to-door. The flyer was printed in large, bold letters: “Mandatory Meeting. Urgent Community Matters.”
Translation: Caroline’s meltdown had consequences.
I attended, purely for the entertainment value. The room was packed. Even residents who avoided meetings like the plague were squeezed into the back. Everyone knew what this was about.
Caroline sat at the front table looking like she just swallowed a lemon dipped in battery acid. Her hair was frizzed, her makeup uneven, and her clipboard conspicuously absent.
HOA Vice President Marla Chesney called the meeting to order.
“As many of you are aware,” she began, “there was an incident involving former citations issued to a resident regarding an alleged impersonation vehicle.”