Gerald was charged with conspiracy to file false reports and aiding the misuse of emergency services. His attorney argued he was a bystander. The evidence said otherwise.
The trial took place ten weeks after the barbecue. Margaret Prescott was charged with twenty-six counts of filing false police reports, one count of assault, one count of property destruction, and one count of misuse of the emergency-services system with a hate-crime enhancement. Her attorney argued she was an overzealous neighbor who genuinely feared for her safety. The jury did not buy it. The 911 recordings told a different story. The pattern told a different story. The security footage told a different story. The words she had used, trash, filthy, you people, told a different story.
Margaret was found guilty on twenty-four of the twenty-six false-report charges. Guilty on the assault charge. Guilty on property destruction. Guilty on the hate-crime enhancement. She was sentenced to two hundred forty hours of community service at the Glenfield Multicultural Center, three years of probation, a fine of twenty thousand dollars, full restitution for the destroyed property, and a permanent restraining order prohibiting contact with the Fletcher family.
The judge, a fifty-eight-year-old woman named Judge Helen Ramsey, addressed Margaret directly during sentencing. “Mrs. Prescott, you turned the emergency system into a weapon of prejudice. You endangered lives. You wasted public resources. You physically assaulted a woman in her own yard. And you did it repeatedly, deliberately, and without remorse. This court does not take that lightly.” Margaret cried in the courtroom. Not the kind of crying that comes from understanding what you have done. The kind that comes from understanding what has been done to you. She still did not see the difference.
Gerald Prescott pleaded guilty to conspiracy and aiding misuse of emergency services. He was sentenced to one hundred twenty days, suspended, eighteen months of probation, and mandatory counseling. His pension, which he had fought to keep after his termination, was reduced by forty percent following a civil review. The Prescotts put their house up for sale four days after the verdict. The listing agent removed it from the luxury-market sites within a week. Nobody wanted their name associated with the address. The house sat empty for three months before selling at thirty percent below market value. They never spent another night on Hawthorne Ridge.
Andre did not go back inside right away. He sat on the porch steps with his wife while the last light of the afternoon stretched across Hawthorne Ridge. The air still smelled like wet charcoal and ruined food. Water from the hose had pooled beneath the folding table and run in thin lines across the patio. A rack of ribs sat in the mud. Paper plates clung to the grass like wilted flowers. The speaker had finally gone silent. Nobody had turned it off. The battery had just died. Duke lay between them, his chin on Andre’s shoe. His tail moved once every few seconds, slow and uncertain, like he was not sure the trouble was over.
Sonia peeled the bag of ice away from her forearm. The bruise had turned a deep, uneven purple. She flexed her fingers. Everything moved the way it was supposed to. But the welt looked worse in the fading light, and Andre could not stop staring at it. “Stop looking at it,” she said. “I can’t.” “It’s a bruise. I’ve seen worse in the ER on a Tuesday.” “This isn’t the ER. This is our front yard.” She leaned against his shoulder. “I know.”
They sat there for a long time without speaking. A robin landed on the ruined grill and hopped across the grate. It pecked at something, found nothing, and flew away. Duke watched it go with his ears perked. Lieutenant Webb came out the front door carrying two garbage bags. He had been cleaning the backyard without being asked. He set the bags by the curb, looked at Andre, and nodded. “I got the table folded up. Most of the food is trashed. You want me to hose down the patio?” Andre almost laughed. “I think we’ve had enough hoses for one day.” Webb smiled, a small, tight smile, the kind that holds more weight than it shows. “Colvin’s inside wrapping up the leftover corn. She says the coleslaw is a total loss.” He paused. “You did the right thing today, Chief.” “Don’t call me that.” “Not today.” “Especially today.”
Webb went back inside. The screen door closed behind him with a soft click. Across the street, the Prescott house was dark. Every curtain was drawn. Every light was off. The house looked the same as it had that morning. Stone walls. Iron gate. Brass mailbox. But something about it had changed. It looked smaller. Quieter. Like a building that knew what it had lost.
Andre reached into the cooler beside the steps. Two cans of root beer floated in what was left of the ice. He opened one and handed it to Sonia. He opened the other for himself. “First day in the new house,” she said. “First day.” “You think it’ll get better?” Andre took a long drink. He looked at the street, at the houses with their perfect lawns and their closed doors, at the neighbors who had watched everything and said nothing, at Russell Conrad’s house, where the porch light had finally gone off. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m not leaving.” Sonia nodded. “Good. Because I already unpacked the kitchen.”