He told me he'd have three deputies on standby for execution. He told me he'd buy me a steak at the Texas Roadhouse on Atlanta Highway when this was done. I drove home that Wednesday night and walked to the garage. Tate had just finished waxing the Mustang's hood. The brass dash plaque caught the overhead halogen.
I touched the rivets Marguerite had set with her own thumbnail in 2017. The next morning, I issued a press release through the Cederville Police Department's public information officer. The release announced the second annual Forsyth County restored classic showcase at the Cumming Fairgrounds, sponsored by Cederville PD's youth outreach division. The showcase was scheduled 6 weeks out. The release included a photograph of three restored cars participating in the event, one of which was my 1968 Mustang fastback, photographed in my garage with the Briarwood Glen Estates monument visible in the soft background of the shot.
I knew Hadley read the Forsyth County news. I knew Hadley subscribed to Cederville PD email updates because all Briarwood Glen residents did. I knew she would see that photograph by Thursday morning. And I knew exactly what a woman like Hadley Lockwood would do when she saw the car she'd been trying to take from me publicly showcased by the same police department whose dispatch line she'd been hoping to weaponize. She would move faster.
She would file the false report sooner. She would make her mistake on a timeline I could control. The takeaway is simple. The fastest way to catch a person who only acts in private is to give them a public reason to act in public. I told Tate the plan over chicken thighs and rice on Thursday night.
He listened the whole way through. He asked one question. "Dad, where do you want me Saturday?" "Upstairs window, phone camera. Don't come down unless I call your name twice."
He nodded. He cleared the plates. He went up to his room. I heard him close his door and call his best friend on speaker. He used the same low, calm voice his mother used to use to settle a litter of rescue kittens.
I sat on the back porch in the cool October air and looked at the moon over the longleaf pines. Hadley Lockwood would call dispatch on Saturday at 1:47 in the afternoon. I would be ready by 1:30. The press release ran in the Forsyth County News on Thursday morning. By Thursday evening, Hadley Lockwood had made four mistakes.
The first arrived in my mailbox in a beige envelope. A formal HOA lien. $12,400 in cumulative fines, late fees, community remediation surcharges, and vehicle compliance penalties. The lien was filed with the Forsyth County Clerk of Court. Whit Lockwood's signature was on the cover page as treasurer. I forwarded the lien to Cassandra at the DA's office.
She forwarded it to the clerk. The clerk called Hadley's HOA office Friday morning to inform her that the lien was procedurally invalid under the Georgia Property Owners Association Act because the HOA had failed to provide statutory 30-day pre-lien notice. The lien was withdrawn within an hour. The clerk's office sent me a stamped copy of the withdrawal. The second mistake arrived on Friday at 1:00 in the afternoon.
A Forsyth County code enforcement inspector knocked on my door. Polite, apologetic. He'd received an anonymous complaint that the property at my address was in significant disrepair and constituted a public nuisance under Georgia title 41. He walked the perimeter. He looked at the pine straw beds I'd raked the previous Sunday.
He looked at the painted garage. He looked at my hostas. He went to his truck. He came back. He had a no violation observed report in his clipboard.
"Chief, I'm sorry for the visit. I owed it to the complaint to walk it. Have a good afternoon." He drove away. The third mistake came on Friday afternoon in the form of a Nextdoor post written by Hadley herself.
The post described, without naming me, a resident who had been showing off his vehicles publicly to provoke neighbors and who was openly disregarding HOA leadership requests. The post invited residents to attend a special HOA meeting Saturday at 6:00 in the evening to discuss concerning patterns of community disruption. 47 residents commented. I screenshotted the post. I sent it to Holt.
Holt added it to the manifest. The fourth mistake was the one she did not see coming. That night at 9:15, my son Tate's phone rang. The caller was Caspian Wells, Tate's friend from Lambert High School. Quiet kid, plays trumpet in marching band.
Caspian had been one of Bryson Lockwood's casual friends from the country club pool. Tate took the call in the kitchen. I was at the counter with a cup of decaf. I could only hear Tate's side of the call. "Hey, Cass."