"I wasn't leaving."
"Good."
The younger officer returned.
"Mr. Cole, can you show me the video you just recorded?"
Adrian unlocked his phone.
He played the clip.
They watched Brenda pour paint.
They heard the confrontation.
Then the gesture appeared.
Two fingers against the chest.
Point.
The gray sedan's brake lights blinked.
The officer asked Adrian to replay it.
He did.
She watched again.
Then a third time.
Brenda folded her arms.
"This is absurd."
The officer turned toward her partner.
"In the Maple Court video, the woman by the sidewalk does that right before the truck moves."
Brenda's face lost color.
Adrian looked between them.
"What Maple Court video?"
The officer hesitated.
"Different property complaint."
"What happened?"
"Mailbox got damaged."
Brenda spoke quickly.
"That had nothing to do with me."
The officer looked at her.
"I didn't say it did."
Silence.
Adrian noticed the mistake immediately.
So did the officer.
Brenda had answered a question nobody had asked her.
The first officer's posture changed.
"Ma'am, how do you know what incident she's talking about?"
Brenda blinked.
"Everyone knows."
Adrian shook his head.
"No, they don't."
"It was discussed at an HOA meeting."
"It was not."
Brenda looked at him.
"You don't attend every meeting."
"I attended that one."
The officer asked again.
"How do you know about the mailbox?"
Brenda gripped the folder tighter.
"I receive complaints."
"Was it reported to the HOA?"
"Everything is reported to us."
Adrian looked at the officers.
"Not that."
Brenda glared at him.
He continued.
"The Maple Court mailbox thing wasn't an HOA issue. At least not publicly."
The younger officer nodded slowly.
"Victim thought it was random vandalism."
Brenda looked away.
The first officer asked Adrian to send a copy of the video.
He did.
Then something unexpected happened.
A man stepped out of a house across the street.
His name was Calvin Harris.
Sixty-six.
Retired electrical engineer.
One of the quietest people in Willow Ridge.
He walked toward them holding his phone.
"I've got something you might want."
Brenda looked at him sharply.
"Calvin, this doesn't concern you."
He kept walking.
"I think it does."
The officer met him near the curb.
Calvin held out his phone.
"Three weeks ago, somebody dumped fertilizer concentrate across my front lawn."
Adrian remembered.
Half of Calvin's grass had turned brown.
Brenda had fined him for failing to maintain landscaping.
Calvin continued.
"My camera caught a dark sedan stopping outside around two in the morning."
Brenda's jaw tightened.
"Lots of dark cars exist."
Calvin ignored her.
"My camera didn't get the plate."
He opened a video.
"But it got this."
The four of them watched.
Nighttime footage.
Grainy.
A dark sedan stopping.
A person walking from the passenger side with a plastic container.
Another figure standing near the sidewalk.
The second figure was too far away to identify clearly.
But the movement was unmistakable.
Two fingers to the chest.