Then I looked toward Eleanor.
"Did Vivian approve the largest payment?"
She nodded.
"Yes."
For a moment, the kitchen became completely silent.
Gavin Rhodes was thirty-nine, a tall white man with closely cut brown hair, an expensive pickup truck, and a reputation for winning property-maintenance contracts through personal connections.
He wasn't a licensed engineer.
His company specialized in landscaping, grounds maintenance, and coordinating subcontractors for residential developments.
There was nothing inherently improper about an HOA hiring a business connected to a board member's relative, provided the relationship was disclosed, conflicts were handled appropriately, and the transaction complied with the relevant requirements.
But Eleanor's documents suggested Cedar Grove hadn't consistently done those things.
Some of the contracts appeared to have been approved without a competitive review.
Certain payments exceeded the amounts discussed in board meetings.
And several financial reports described completed improvements that homeowners couldn't locate.
The more we examined the records, the more worried I became.
But I didn't want to turn the investigation into an amateur hunt for criminals.
So I contacted Daniel Reeves.
He advised us to preserve the documents and provide relevant information to investigators and the independent accountants through the proper channels.
He also cautioned against making public claims about Gavin's conduct before the evidence could be verified.
I agreed.
Eleanor agreed.
And we began transferring the relevant material through counsel.
The following morning, Vivian posted a message on the neighborhood's private community page.
It was titled:
An Important Statement About False Accusations and Neighborhood Harassment.
I opened it while drinking coffee.
By the time I finished reading, my hands were shaking.
Vivian claimed that a small group of homeowners had organized a campaign of misinformation against the HOA board.
She described our cookout as an unauthorized gathering intended to intimidate association leadership.
She wrote that she'd visited our property to discuss community standards and had been falsely accused of contaminating food after offering what she called a harmless seasoning.
Then she made a more personal accusation.
She suggested that I had deliberately edited a video to create a misleading impression and pressure the board into abandoning legitimate enforcement.
She never explicitly mentioned my race.
But the replies quickly became uglier.
One resident asked why I was always causing trouble.
Another suggested that people who disliked the neighborhood's rules should move somewhere else.
A third wrote that Vivian had maintained Cedar Grove's standards for years and deserved the benefit of the doubt.
Several homeowners defended us.
They asked why Vivian had entered our fenced backyard.