The county opened an investigation into Wade Bancroft’s planning-commission votes within two weeks of Pam’s story airing. The one-hundred-eighty-thousand-dollar self-dealing scheme, voting to approve contracts that paid his own company, was exactly the kind of story that made county attorneys move fast. Wade resigned from the planning commission before the investigation concluded. His attorney issued a statement calling it a personal decision to focus on family. The statement did not mention the grand jury.
Ridgewood Estates hired an independent HOA management company out of Alpharetta. The new board, elected, not appointed, conducted a full financial audit. Dues dropped thirty percent. The clubhouse got a new roof that had been deferred for three years. The money had kept flowing to Bancroft Property Services instead.
I removed the bollards on a Sunday morning in April. Hank brought a sledgehammer. I brought a pry bar. The first bollard took eleven good swings before the concrete cracked and the post leaned. The sound was deeply, unreasonably satisfying. A crack like splitting firewood, then the slow metallic groan of the steel giving way. One by one, all three came down. I patched the holes with fresh concrete and let it cure for three days. Then I repaved the driveway. Not the whole thing. Just the yellow paint. I rented a concrete grinder, stripped the latex down to bare gray, and resealed the surface with a clear coat. When I got to the corner near the garage, I found it. Earl’s handprint. The paint had covered it, but had not destroyed it. The impression was still there in the concrete, slightly faded, but unmistakable. Five fingers, spread wide. 1991.
I parked my trucks in the driveway that night. The flatbed on the left. The wheel-lift in the middle. The wrecker on the right. Right where they belonged.