“None of us?”
She blinked.
Then smiled sadly.
“Martin, this isn’t the time.”
“The time for what?”
“Getting angry.”
“I just came home and found police surrounding my house.”
“Exactly.”
One of the neighbors whispered something.
Diane heard it.
She always heard everything.
She raised her voice slightly.
“I’ve been telling the board for months that something wasn’t right.”
And there it was.
The story she wanted everyone to remember.
Not what the police found.
Not what the evidence showed.
The story.
For months, Diane Holloway had been preparing Maple Ridge to believe the worst about me.
And until that afternoon, I had thought she was merely trying to annoy me into moving.
I had underestimated her.
Badly.
My problems with Diane started eleven months earlier with a drainage assessment.
Maple Ridge was one of those neighborhoods people described as “quiet” when what they really meant was expensive enough that everyone cared too much about everyone else’s lawn.
Sixty-eight houses.
One community pond.
Two entrances.
Decorative stone signs.
An HOA.
When my wife, Rachel, and I bought our house nine years earlier, the HOA seemed harmless.
Keep the grass cut.
Don’t park broken cars in the driveway.
Don’t paint the house purple.
Fine.
Then Rachel got sick.
Two years later, she was gone.
After that, the neighborhood changed for me.
Or maybe I did.
People who had once been couples we invited to cookouts became people who waved while driving past.
I wasn’t angry about it.
Grief makes other people uncomfortable.
I understood.
I focused on Emma.
I focused on work.
I owned a small residential renovation company, which meant half my life was spent measuring walls, estimating material costs, arguing with suppliers, and explaining to homeowners why a project shown on television for twenty thousand dollars would actually cost forty-five.
I understood invoices.
I understood contracts.
And I understood when numbers didn’t make sense.
That was how Diane Holloway became my enemy.
She had been president of the Maple Ridge Homeowners Association for six years.
She treated the position like she had been elected governor.
Every monthly email came signed:
Diane Holloway
President, Maple Ridge Homeowners Association
Never just Diane.
Never Diane Holloway.
Always the full title.
She drove slowly through the neighborhood every morning in a silver Lexus and seemed capable of spotting a trash bin left out seventeen minutes too long from three blocks away.
Most people ignored her.
Others feared her.
A few enjoyed being close to power, even if the power involved mailbox colors and hedge heights.
I barely thought about her until the HOA announced an emergency drainage repair.
Every homeowner would pay eighteen hundred dollars.
Total project cost: $122,400.
I attended the meeting because eighteen hundred dollars was eighteen hundred dollars.
Diane stood at the front of the clubhouse beside a projector screen showing photographs of standing water.
“This work is essential,” she said.
I raised my hand.
“What exactly are they replacing?”
Diane looked irritated before I finished.
“The drainage system.”
“Which part?”
“The damaged sections.”
“What diameter pipe?”
She stared at me.
“Excuse me?”
“What pipe are they installing?”
A few neighbors turned around.
I continued.
“PVC? HDPE? Corrugated?”
“This is a board matter, Martin.”
“You’re charging every house eighteen hundred dollars.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s also a homeowner matter.”
Her smile tightened.
“We obtained professional bids.”
“Can we see them?”
Silence.