"And the Martinez family," I went on, gesturing to them, "should their children be denied a place to play basketball because of an obscure rule that is enforced at the whim of the president?" Mr. Martinez stood up. "She told us if we fought it, she'd find other things," he said, his voice shaking with anger.
"She said she'd make our lives difficult." The room erupted in a buzz of conversation. Others started chiming in with their own stories of petty fines, of threats, of being intimidated into compliance over peeling paint or a holiday wreath left up a day too long. It was a dam of resentment breaking wide open.
Karen was on her feet now, her face a mottled mask of fury. "This is not the topic of this hearing. This is out of order," she shrieked, banging her toy gavel repeatedly. "You are the one on trial here, Mr. Caldwell."
"No, Karen," I said, my voice dropping back to that quiet, calm place. "You are. You just don't know it yet."
I picked up my binder, gave a slight nod to the stunned homeowners, and walked out of the room, leaving behind the smoldering wreckage of her authority. The show trial had become a mutiny. Karen's defeat at the hearing did not chasten her. It enraged her.
A cornered animal is at its most dangerous, and Karen, stripped of her public authority and exposed as a bully, retreated into the last bastion of her power, the HOA's checkbook and its legal authority, however flimsy. She was done with letters and hearings. She was moving on to direct action. My lawyer, Frank, had predicted this.
"She's going to do something rash," he'd said, rubbing his hands together with glee. "She has to reassert her dominance. She'll probably try to put a lien on your house or hire some goons to do her dirty work. Just be ready."
The first move was the lien. A week after the disastrous hearing, I received another certified letter. This one wasn't from Karen. It was from a law firm I'd never heard of, a small, seedy-looking operation from a neighboring town.