"She was — " Karen started. "I was documenting a pattern. I needed to know what she was doing with the camera. She keeps it in the house — "
"These go back to June," Reyes said, still swiping. "There's a lot of them. Ma'am, she's inside her own fenced yard here. She's inside her house here." She looked up at Karen, and the professional blank was gone; what was under it was not friendly. "You're telling me you took these to document her invading your privacy."
Karen's mouth opened. Nothing came out of it.
"Officer," I said, and I was surprised by how steady my voice was, "would you do one more thing for me? On her phone. One of those pictures. If you swipe up on it, the phone will show you the information about the camera that took it."
Reyes looked at me for a second. Then she swiped up.
"Nikon D7500," she read. "Seventy to three hundred millimeter lens."
I opened the first binder to the tab marked 12 and turned it toward her.
"That's the metadata from a photograph the Wren Hollow Homeowners Association used to fine my neighbor Gus Delgado two thousand three hundred and fifty dollars for a violation it said it observed on June sixth of this year," I said. "The camera recorded the actual date. April sixteenth. Same make and model. Same lens. And this" — I put my finger on the line — "is the serial number of the camera body. 3026718. Your phone won't show you the serial. But a detective's computer will, from the original files. And if Mrs. Whitcombe sends you the originals of what she's shown you tonight, as evidence for her complaint, I would bet this house that it's the same number."
Karen had gone white. Not pale — white, the color of the inside of a shell, the color of somebody whose blood has gone somewhere else to hide. Her hand came up and touched the zipper of her copper vest, as though she wanted to make sure it was still there.
"That's a — that's HOA business," she said. "That has nothing to do with — "
"It has everything to do with it," I said, "because you didn't call the police about me because I took a picture of you. You called them because two days ago you got served with this." I put the second binder on the table, open to the cover page of Priya's filing. "You called them because you want to be able to stand in front of a judge and say the only witness against you is a crazy old woman with a camera who's under police investigation for voyeurism."