They stopped in front of my house. Of course they did.
"So this," Darlene said to her phone, half turning so the camera could get my house over her shoulder, "is the property I mentioned in my post. I'm not going to say anything about the ongoing investigation, out of respect for the process. But I think it's important for us to stand here, together, and say: not in Larkspur." She gestured at my mailbox, at the lavender, with her clipboard. "This is where I found it. Right there. Where any child walking to the bus stop could have picked it up."
"The bus stop is on Kingfisher," Lucía said under her breath. "Nobody walks past here to the bus stop."
"I'm not saying this to shame anyone," Darlene went on. "I'm saying it because we can't be afraid to look. A lot of people told me I was wrong. People in this neighborhood. People at the county. 'Oh, it's a hibiscus, Darlene. Oh, it's for paper, Darlene.'" Her voice went sing-song on those, and there was a scattered, uncomfortable laugh from the back of the group. "But I trusted my instincts. And I stand by—"
That was when the two cars turned onto our street.
The first was a white Kestrel Creek PD cruiser. The second was an unmarked grey Ford sedan with a spotlight on the driver's side mirror, which in a subdivision is roughly as unmarked as a giraffe. They pulled up at the curb in front of the Fisk house, about forty feet up the hill from the Safety Walk, and stopped. Officer Kowalczyk got out of the cruiser. Detective Lattimore got out of the sedan, put on his reading glasses, took them off again, and walked down the hill toward the group with a folded document in one hand. A second officer I didn't recognise got out of the cruiser and walked not down the hill but up the Fisks' front walk, between the blue hydrangeas, to the front door. Rick was already standing in it, holding it open, as if he'd been waiting.
Darlene saw them. She lowered the selfie stick an inch.
"Oh, Detective," she said. Her face rearranged itself into something warm and welcoming, almost relieved. "I'm so glad you're here. Is this about the Pruitt matter? Everyone, this is the detective who's been handling—"
"Darlene Fisk?" Lattimore said. He stopped about six feet away. His voice was not loud, but it carried in the morning air, and the Safety Walk went completely silent.
"Yes?"
"I have a warrant to search your residence, your vehicle, and your detached storage shed. I'm going to need you to stay here with Officer Kowalczyk while that's carried out. I'm also going to need to talk to you about the narcotics you reported on September 26th."
"Well, of course," Darlene said. "Anything I can do. Although I'm not sure why you'd need to search my house. I'm the one who found it."