Doug was the vice president of the Kestrel Run HOA, a retired insurance adjuster in his late sixties with a white mustache and a golf-cart habit. He'd been on the board almost as long as Sheryl, and I'd always had the impression that he served the way some men serve on a church committee: out of a sense of duty, mostly, and because his wife thought it would be good for him to get out of the house. He stood on my porch in a windbreaker, not quite meeting my eyes, and asked if he could come in.
I let him stand in the front hall. I didn't offer him coffee. I'd stopped being the guy who offers coffee.
"Grady," he said, "I'm here as a neighbor. Not as the board."
"Okay."
"Nobody wants a big scene on Wednesday. I think there's a way to make this all a lot easier on everybody." He cleared his throat. "If you'd take the cameras down, I think Sheryl would be willing to let the hearing go. Let the police handle their side of it. Let everybody calm down. That's all. Just take them down."
I looked at him for a while. He fidgeted.
"Doug," I said, "did Sheryl send you?"
"I'm here as a neighbor."
"That's not what I asked."
He looked down at my shoe pile. "She mentioned," he said, "that it might help."
"I'm not taking the cameras down. My lawyer sent the board a letter about that. I'd assume you've seen it."
He had. I could tell. "I just think," he said, "you've got to ask yourself if it's worth it. Living somewhere where everybody thinks—you know. I mean, you could sell. There'd be buyers. Good ones. People who'd pay over the odds just to be on this street."