She put the phone to her ear and turned away, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk like a lawyer in a courtroom.
“Yes, this is Brenda Miller at 405 Maple. I need a unit at 402 immediately. He has set up an illegal storefront. He is mocking me. He has a sign with my name on it. I feel threatened. He’s inciting a riot.”
Mike looked around the empty street. A lone tumbleweed of grass clippings blew by. “Hell of a riot,” he muttered.
“Yes, now he’s aggressive. He has a large man with him—a hired thug.”
Mike pointed at himself. “Thug? I’m a licensed contractor with a five-star rating on Angie’s List.”
She hung up and turned back to us with a triumphant sneer. “They’re coming. And this time you aren’t talking your way out of it. I’m going to have them cite you for every code violation in the book. I’m going to have that table seized as evidence.”
“Okay,” I said calmly.
“Okay?” She blinked. “That’s all you have to say? You should be taking this down. You should be begging for mercy.”
“I’m just going to wait for the police,” I said. “I like talking to Officer Miller. He seems like a reasonable guy.”
I walked back to the porch steps and sat down. Mike sat next to me. Brenda stood her ground at the end of the driveway. She wasn’t going to let us escape. She stood guard, arms crossed, tapping her foot, glaring at the pitcher of lemonade as if it were a vat of toxic waste.
The wait was agonizingly perfect. Ten minutes. Twelve minutes. Then we saw it—the familiar cruiser turning the corner. Officer Miller. And this time he wasn’t alone. A second cruiser followed him. Brenda had apparently sounded the alarm so effectively that they sent backup.
“Showtime,” I whispered to Mike. I reached into the bag by my feet, pulled out the Manila folder, and held it in my lap.
The cruisers pulled up. Officer Miller got out of the first car. He looked at the lemonade table. He looked at the sign. He looked at Brenda. Then he looked at me. His shoulders slumped.
“Mr. Bennett,” he said, walking up the driveway. “Brenda.”
“Officer!” Brenda lunged at him. “Look! Look at this! He’s selling lemonade without a license. And look at the sign—it’s a hate crime.”
Miller walked over to the sign and read it. The corner of his mouth twitched. “Ma’am, a sign excluding you from free lemonade isn’t a hate crime. It’s… well, it’s rude, maybe, but it’s not illegal.”
“It is harassment! He is targeting me. And look at the structure—a table on the driveway? That violates HOA Bylaw 7.3 regarding temporary structures.”
“I don’t enforce HOA bylaws, ma’am. I enforce the law. Is he selling it?”
“It says complimentary,” Miller noted. “That means free.”
“It’s a trick! It’s a front. He’s using it to lure people into… to…”
“Give them hydration?” I offered.
“Officer,” Brenda switched tactics, “I want him arrested right now for disturbing the peace. He is disturbing my peace intentionally. He is provoking me. I am a tax-paying citizen and I demand you remove this… this criminal element from my neighborhood.”
Miller sighed. “Ma’am, I can’t arrest a man for giving away lemonade. I can ask him to take the table inside if it’s blocking the sidewalk, but—”
“It’s not blocking the sidewalk,” Mike piped up. “I measured. Three feet of clearance.”
“You see?” Brenda yelled. “They are mocking the law. If you won’t arrest him, I will call your supervisor. I will call the mayor. I know people. I have a clean record, and I am a victim here.”
A clean record.
The words hung in the air.
I stood up. My heart was hammering against my ribs, but my hands were steady. This was it. The moment Sal had promised me.
“Officer Miller?” I called out.
Miller turned. “Yes, Mr. Bennett? Can we just put the table away and call it a day?”
“I’m happy to put the table away,” I said, walking down the steps. “But before you go, there’s something you need to see. Since Brenda brought up records…”
Brenda scoffed. “Oh please. What is he going to show you? His library card?”
I walked past the lemonade stand. I walked past Brenda, who recoiled as if I were contagious. I stopped in front of Officer Miller and his partner.
“My neighbor has been very vocal about the law,” I said, keeping my voice loud enough for the neighbors who were now peeking out of their windows to hear. “She’s very concerned with rules, ordinances, warrants.”
“Get to the point, Bennett.”
“I hired a private investigator,” I said. Brenda froze. Her mouth, which had been open to launch another insult, snapped shut. Her eyes went wide.
“I wanted to know why my neighbor was so obsessed with policing everyone else. And it turns out projection is a powerful thing.” I handed the Manila folder to Officer Miller.
“What is this?”
“That,” I said, “is a dossier from the state of Ohio. It contains three active bench warrants for Brenda Kowalski.”
Brenda made a sound like a deflating tire. “Kowalski? I… that’s not…”
“Brenda Kowalski,” I said, pointing at her. “DOB April 12, 1973. Also known as Brenda Miller. She never legally changed her name after the divorce. She just started using it. But the fingerprints don’t lie, and neither do the court dockets.”
Miller opened the folder. The other officer leaned in to look. Silence descended on the street. Even the birds seemed to stop singing to watch.
Miller flipped a page. He read. He flipped another page. He looked at the mug shot stapled to the third page. He looked up at Brenda.
Brenda was pale. Her tan seemed to drain away, leaving her looking like uncooked dough.
“That’s… that’s old,” she stammered, her voice an octave higher than usual. “That was a misunderstanding. I paid those fines. I sent a check.”