The board treasurer, Daniel Wexler, stood and admitted he had approved several transactions based on invoices Vivienne forwarded without independently verifying them. He looked miserable.
“I thought the vendors were already approved,” he said.
A woman asked why she’d been denied reimbursement for tree removal while a landscaping expense appeared on another street. A retired nurse questioned the use of association funds for a private social event. Denise asked whether the fines she’d paid had ever been reviewed by the full board.
Vivienne called the questions unfair. She reminded everyone that volunteers were doing their best.
“Then let us check their work,” Priya said. “That’s what responsible people do when money belongs to everyone.”
A vote was taken on retaining an independent bookkeeper to reconcile the records, and it passed by a wide margin. Under the bylaws, directors could remove the board president from that office, while removal from the board itself required a vote of homeowners. The secretary scheduled the appropriate procedures.
Vivienne rose so abruptly her chair tipped backward.
“This is because of Malcolm Bennett,” she said. “He moved here and decided our standards didn’t apply to him.”
I was sitting near the back. I hadn’t spoken.
Arthur turned toward her. “No,” he said. “It’s because we finally read the papers.”
People didn’t cheer. They simply looked at the documents in front of them and waited for the next item. That was the part Vivienne couldn’t control. The meeting no longer required her interpretation to mean something.
Afterward Eli Harper asked me why grown-ups pretended not to know their own rules.
“Sometimes,” I told him, “because knowing would require them to make a decision.”
He considered that for a moment. “Sounds exhausting.”
I laughed. “It is.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE — The Other Side of the Video
I had tried not to read the comments about my story. Most were written by people who had no reason to care what happened except that conflict had appeared on their screens. Some were kind. Some were cruel. Some invented details with astonishing confidence.
One evening, a video surfaced from a local commentator who called himself a community advocate. He argued that I had used my money to destroy a young man’s prospects. He said the damage estimate was inflated because I owned a shop and knew how to manipulate prices. He suggested the cameras were suspiciously well placed.
I watched twenty seconds before stopping it.
The allegations were wrong, but they were designed to sound plausible to anyone who believed that expensive things must have been acquired through deception. I drafted an angry response. I typed four paragraphs explaining every invoice, every restoration step, every policy provision.
Then I called Dana.
“Should I post this?” I asked.
“Do you want an answer as your lawyer or as someone who has heard you talk about this for months?”
“Both.”
“As your lawyer, don’t publish technical claims that could be misquoted while disputes are pending. As a person, get some sleep.”
I deleted the draft.
The next morning I discovered that Nia had seen the video. She came into my office carrying the final assessment for a customer vehicle, but she lingered after handing it over.
“Mr. Bennett, why do people believe stuff like that?”
“Sometimes because it’s easier than checking.”
“My cousin sent it to me. He said maybe you made the car a bigger deal so the insurance would pay more.”
