Then the adhesive can lying near the curb.
Then at me.
I was still standing there in gray pajama pants, a charcoal shirt, and house slippers.
She looked back at him.
“That yours?”
She pointed toward the phone.
The son swallowed.
“What?”
“The phone recording from the retaining wall.”
He glanced at it.
“Yeah.”
“Don’t touch it.”
His face tightened.
“I can touch my own phone.”
The uniformed officer spoke for the first time.
“Sir, leave it where it is for now.”
The son’s posture changed immediately.
Not because the officer raised his voice.
He didn’t.
That was the point.
The kid had spent the last five minutes performing for someone.
Me.
His phone.
His mother, maybe.
The neighborhood.
Now there were people standing in my driveway who did not need to perform back.
He looked at me again.
“You called them.”
“No.”
“Bull.”
“I didn’t know they were there.”
The investigator watched both of us.
“That’s correct.”
The son turned toward her.
“What?”
She opened a leather credential wallet just long enough for him to see it.
“I was already here.”
His confidence dropped another inch.
“Why?”
“Different matter.”
He stared.
“Different matter involving who?”
The investigator’s eyes stayed on him.
“The homeowners association.”
He laughed once.
Nervous.
“My mom runs the HOA.”
“No.”
The investigator closed the wallet.
“Your mother is president of an association currently under court-ordered review.”
Silence.
The son looked toward the white SUV parked farther down the street.
His mother’s SUV.
Suddenly the expensive hoodie, the watch, the car, the confidence—it all looked like costume pieces someone had forgotten to remove after the scene changed.
He pointed toward my Lamborghini.
“He’s been violating rules.”
The officer looked at the feathers.
“Which rule requires glue?”
The son did not answer.
The investigator asked:
“Did the homeowner ask you to touch his car?”
“No.”
“Did he give you permission to apply adhesive?”
“No.”
“Did he give you permission to enter the driveway to do that?”
The son hesitated.
“It’s an HOA community.”
I almost closed my eyes.
He genuinely believed that sentence solved something.
The investigator did not react.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“No.”
She looked toward me.
“Sir, I need you to remain separate from him while the officer documents this.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good.”
Then she pointed toward the house.
“Your exterior cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Working?”
“Yes.”
“Please don’t delete, edit, rename, or move the original files.”
“I won’t.”
The son’s eyes snapped toward my doorbell camera.
He stared.
He had known it was there.
Of course he had.
But people sometimes know a fact intellectually and still behave as though arrogance can defeat it.
His phone rang.
He looked down.