I got to my father and put my arm around him. He was cold. It was the first week of September in North Carolina and he was cold. He looked at me and said, "Beatrix, I didn't do anything," and his voice broke on the last word, and I will hear that for the rest of my life.
"I know, Daddy. Nobody thinks you did. This young man's just checking on you. Let's go inside."
Officer Arredondo helped me get him up the front steps; there's no ramp in front. He was gentle about it. He carried the walker. Once Daddy was in his recliner with a blanket and the radio, I came back out to the porch, and Arredondo was standing there with his notebook, looking miserable.
"I'm real sorry, ma'am," he said. "We got a call. A suspicious person."
"From who?"
He hesitated. That told me most of it.
"I'm not going to make trouble for you," I said. "I'd just like to know who calls the police on an eighty-one-year-old man with a walker at four in the morning."
"It came through Sergeant Dobrowski," he said finally. "He's the HOA liaison. He gets calls from the HOA president. Mrs. Vasbinder." He looked at his notebook. "She said this address had prior issues."
"I've lived here ten days."
"Yes, ma'am. I know. I mean, I don't know. That's what she said." He chewed his lip. Then, in the voice of somebody who's been bothered by something for a while and has finally found a person to say it to: "Ma'am, can I tell you something? Off the record?"