Wynn closed the folder. She set it on my desk. She did not say a word. I looked at the photograph on her desk of her father in his patrol uniform. I looked at the photograph of Marguerite on the bookshelf behind me.
I said one sentence. “Sergeant, let's catch them all.” Wynn nodded once, solemn, with her chin tucked the same way Tate's did, the same way Marguerite's had. I asked her to keep this quiet. I asked her to walk it across the hallway to major crimes.
I asked her to bring Detective Holt Bramwell into a conference room at the end of the day. She stood up. She paused at the door. Chief, one more thing. Yes?
Mrs. Lockwood doesn't know what you do for a living, does she? No, Sergeant. Good. She closed the door behind her.
Detective Holt Bramwell sat down in my conference room at 5:30 that Tuesday with a coffee in one hand and a manila folder in the other. Holt is 38, major crimes, 10 years on the force. He grew up in Gainesville, served 4 years in the Georgia Army National Guard, and runs marathons in zip codes nobody in Cedarvale visits. He listened to Wynn lay out the pattern. He listened to me explain the Mustang.
He listened to the recording of Hadley's voicemail offering $35,000. He listened to a description of the cease and desist letter with the retired attorney's bar number on it. When Wynn was done, Holt closed the folder. He looked at me. Chief, with respect, you're a party to this case.
I can't have you running it. I know that, Detective. I'm here as a witness, not as the chief. I want this case off my desk and onto yours. Then I want to do this right.
I want a warrant package by Friday. I want Sheriff Thrasher's office involved because the LLC and the husband's commercial property cross jurisdictions. I want the DA in on the false report charges from day one. And I want at least one documented attempt by Mrs. Lockwood to act on her scheme before we move.
I called Cassandra Pickering at the Forsyth County District Attorney's Office that night. Cassandra had been the assistant DA on three of my cases back in my major crimes days. She'd made DA in 2022. She picked up on the second ring. She listened.
She did not interrupt. When I finished, she said one sentence. Chief, I've been waiting for a case like this in Briarwood Glen for two years. We had three quiet civil settlements with that HOA last year. Nobody ever pressed.