“I know.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after?”
“He said never mind.”
The father looked toward the teenage boy.
“Thank you.”
His daughter asked:
“What happened?”
He did not want to alarm her.
“HOA issue.”
“That sounds bad.”
“I’m handling it.”
“Dad.”
“I’ll tell you later.”
He ended the call.
The lieutenant said:
“That doesn’t explain the current code.”
“No.”
The teenager apparently had more.
The lieutenant lowered his voice.
“The boy says his mother found the code in your trash.”
The father stared.
“What?”
“She gave him a note this morning with six digits.”
“My code is six digits.”
The lieutenant nodded.
“She told him an HOA security contractor recovered it during an ‘access audit.’”
The father looked toward the street.
His trash cans had been collected yesterday.
The current code had been written nowhere.
At least he believed so.
Then he remembered.
A week earlier, he had replaced the garage lockbox battery.
The instruction sheet required entering the new code twice.
He had tested it on a scrap of paper.
Had he thrown it away?
Maybe.
That was disturbing.
Not necessarily illegal depending on where the trash had been when accessed.
But combined with the rest—
The lieutenant said:
“We’ll investigate.”
The father nodded.
“Not me.”
“Correct.”
The chief looked toward the teenager.
“What did he think was happening?”
The lieutenant paused.
“He says his mother told him the Audi had been surrendered to HOA collections and you were refusing to release it.”
The chief looked down.
“Does he believe her?”
“Not anymore.”
The lieutenant continued:
“He says she promised him the car as a graduation gift if he helped move it.”
The father felt something complicated.
Anger at the mother.
Sympathy for the boy.
And a strange sadness.
A seventeen-year-old had been taught that someone else’s property could become his because an adult produced enough paper.
The lieutenant asked:
“Do you want to pursue charges?”
The chief looked toward him.
“That isn’t solely my decision.”
“For the garage entry and key theft, your complaint matters.”
The chief thought.
“I want the facts documented.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I know.”
He looked toward the teenager.
Then toward the woman.
“I’m not interested in arresting a seventeen-year-old today unless facts require it.”
“Understood.”
“As for her—”
He stopped.
The woman was watching.
Not angry now.
Afraid.
The chief continued:
“Follow evidence.”
“Don’t ask me what outcome I want.”
The lieutenant nodded.
Good answer.
The HOA president was not arrested that morning.
That infuriated half the neighborhood once they learned about it.