Marcella found me by the coffee urn. She came alone. She'd left the certificate somewhere. Her face had gotten some color back, but not much, and she held her folder against her chest like a shield.
"Chief Quarterman," she said. Her voice was steady, which I respected. "I didn't know."
"No, ma'am. You didn't."
"If I had known—"
"That's what I'd like to talk about," I said, "for about thirty seconds, and then I'm not going to talk about it with you again." I said it quietly, but I made sure Rafferty, who was standing four feet away holding a paper plate, could hear me, and Priscilla Nwosu, who was standing next to him. "Mrs. Vasbinder, I want you to understand something. I'm not going to handle anything that involves you, your HOA, or my house. Not your complaints about me, not my complaint about the call on my father, not the notices, nothing. As of tonight I've filed a written recusal with the city attorney. Captain Yarbrough will handle any of those matters, and he'll handle them exactly the way he'd handle them for anybody else. If you call 911, an officer will come, the same as for anybody else. If you need the police, you'll get the police. You won't get me. That's not a threat. That's a promise. You understand?"
She looked at me. She looked, for a moment, like somebody who'd been braced for a blow and had it not land, and didn't know what to do with her weight.
"Why?" she said.
"Because if I were to do anything else, I'd be doing exactly what I came here to stop." I set down my coffee. "Have a good evening, Mrs. Vasbinder. Get home safe."
She stood there another second. Then she said, very quietly, "Your father. Please tell him—" and stopped, and didn't finish, and walked away through the crowd and down the stairs.