One succeeded after several homeowners signed a petition they thought concerned fire safety.
Leonard believed the petition had later been used to justify inspections that nobody fully understood.
He also had a photograph from the day of my inspection.
It showed Patricia standing near my porch while Owen carried a toolbox toward the side entrance.
Behind them stood Elise, wearing a jacket with the logo of a company called Civic Reach Consulting.
I had not remembered seeing Elise that morning.
Leonard explained that she arrived after I left and remained for almost twenty minutes.
His security camera captured her vehicle entering and leaving the street.
He had saved the footage because Patricia later accused him of parking too close to the intersection.
Simone reviewed the images and asked Leonard to preserve the original recording.
She did not promise the footage would prove entry into my home.
The camera angle could not show the front door clearly enough.
Still, the timing contradicted Patricia’s account of who had participated in the inspection.
Leonard said he had spent decades teaching children to distinguish between being loud and being right.
He regretted forgetting that lesson when Patricia became the loudest person on the block.
Before he left, he told me he had another reason for speaking up.
His grandson had been offered a summer internship at Northstar and had been asked to sign a confidentiality agreement before seeing any work.
Leonard wanted to know whether the company was legitimate before the boy accepted.
I could not answer that question yet.
I promised him I would not pretend certainty where we had only suspicion.
Chapter 20: A Meeting Without Patricia
The association board called a special meeting after the inspection controversy reached the local newspaper.
Patricia demanded that the board exclude me because of the pending lawsuit.
The board’s attorney advised against turning a public neighborhood meeting into a private disciplinary hearing.
I attended with Simone, but she told me to speak only about facts I could personally verify.
The room was crowded enough that residents stood along the back wall.
A young father asked whether the association had ever authorized cameras inside homes.
The secretary said the minutes contained no such approval.
An older woman asked whether any association funds had paid Harbor Signal.
The treasurer admitted that invoices had been submitted under a category labeled emergency technology.
He had approved the payments because Patricia described them as smoke-detector testing supplies.
Someone demanded to know why the invoices had not been discussed at a board meeting.
The treasurer said Patricia had insisted that the purchase was time-sensitive.
