Laila asked whether people would have believed Cody if I had not been police chief.
The question caught me off guard because it was the question Naomi and I had been carrying privately for months.
I told her that I could not know what everyone would have believed.
I also told her that Evelyn’s testimony, Tessa’s recording, and proper investigative procedures should have mattered regardless of my job.
Laila considered the answer and asked whether that always happened.
“No,” I said.
“That’s why people have to keep working to make it happen.”
She looked down at the drawing she had been making of our house.
She had colored the mailbox post green and added yellow flowers beside the front walk.
“Can I put a badge on the door?” she asked.
I told her she could draw whatever she liked, but the badge did not belong on our house.
She frowned and asked why.
“Because this is our home, not my office,” I answered.
She drew a red heart on the door instead.
Naomi saw the finished picture and put it on the refrigerator beside the grocery list.
Later that night she told me the child’s questions had been more direct than most of the interviews I had given.
I said children often recognized contradictions before adults found polite ways to explain them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX G: A RECORDS REQUEST FROM BETTINA
After resigning from the board, Bettina submitted a formal request for records relating to the audit and settlement discussions.
Some residents wanted the board to reject the request because they believed she had withheld records from them for years.
Meredith insisted that the association apply the same rules to Bettina that it applied to every other owner.
Counsel identified documents subject to disclosure and others protected by legitimate legal restrictions.
The board provided the available records with a written explanation of any withheld material.
Bettina later complained that the production was incomplete.
Meredith answered her questions in writing and offered the normal review procedure.
I heard about the exchange during a meeting on the association’s future budget.
A resident asked why the board was spending time accommodating someone who had treated neighbors unfairly.
Meredith replied that fair procedures were most meaningful when applied to people the decision makers disliked.
The room remained quiet for a moment.
I could not have expressed the principle better.
A neighborhood that responded to unfairness by inventing new exceptions for its enemies would simply replace one problem with another.
