He nodded.
"Do you have the original recording?"
"Yes."
He asked to view it.
I opened the security application and played the footage from the moment she entered the porch until the package struck the ground.
The officer watched without speaking.
Then he asked to see the earlier recordings.
I showed him several.
He took notes.
Meanwhile, the second officer spoke with the president.
I could hear her demanding that I be arrested, insisting that her clothing was worth thousands of dollars, and repeatedly describing the situation as a deliberate attack.
Then she accused me of targeting her because she was a woman.
I stared toward the sidewalk.
The officer looked at her.
"Ma'am, we're documenting everyone's statements. Please give me a moment to finish my questions."
She folded her arms.
The purple stain on her blazer had begun drying into uneven patches.
She looked furious.
But she also looked frightened.
And I suspected she was beginning to understand that an official report would include more than her preferred version of events.
My neighbor came outside while the officers were still speaking with us.
He was a retired postal employee in his late seventies, with a slow walk, a dry sense of humor, and a habit of sitting on his porch in the afternoons watching the neighborhood.
He'd lived across the street for almost twenty years.
When my wife and I moved in, he was the first person to welcome us.
He'd also been one of the people who warned me that the HOA president liked to turn small disagreements into expensive problems.
He approached the officer.
"Excuse me."
The officer turned.
"Yes, sir?"
"I recorded part of it."
The president's face changed.
She moved toward him.
"You had no right to film me!"
My neighbor looked at her.
"Ma'am, you were yelling loud enough for three streets to hear."
The officer stepped slightly between them.
"Please allow him to speak."
My neighbor held up his phone.
He had recorded the president standing on my porch with the package, pointing toward me, and shoving me near the doorframe. The footage also showed her throwing the box and being splashed when it opened.
It captured her scream.
Then her immediate attempt to blame me.
The officer watched.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then he looked toward the president.
"Did you push the homeowner?"
She lifted her chin.
"I was trying to move past him."
My neighbor shook his head.
"You shoved him."
She turned toward him.
"Nobody asked you."
The officer raised one hand.
"Ma'am."
The president went silent.