Whitfield was the finish, the thing he'd pictured during the long stakeouts, the overnight transports, the years of government housing and per diem hotels. A place where the only sound at 5:00 in the morning was the river moving and the mockingbirds arguing about territory. He kept two horses, a chestnut quarter horse named Duke, and an older gray mare named Pearl, who had more opinions than most people. He fished the pond on Sunday mornings. He read history books on the veranda.
He cooked steaks on a cast iron grill he'd welded himself from scrap steel in the barn. For two years it was everything he'd earned. Then Palmetto Crest Estates went up next door. A developer out of Charleston named Greer Whitman Partners bought 110 acres of old soybean fields on the eastern boundary of the Whitfield estate and built 122 homes in 18 months. Mediterranean style stucco terracotta roofs, three-car garages, community pool, fitness center, wrought iron entrance gate with a fountain that looked like it belonged at a casino.
The HOA dues were $480 a month and the CC&Rs were 62 pages long. 62 pages of rules about mailbox height, fence material, lawn shade, trash can visibility, holiday decoration timelines, and the approved list of exterior paint colors. 18 shades of beige and one shade of gray they called coastal whisper. James watched the construction from his veranda, the way a man watches weather moving in from the west. Curious, not worried.
His property was separated from the new subdivision by a tree line and a 100 yards of unmowed field. He figured people would move in, wave politely, and leave him alone. He figured wrong. Patricia Davenport moved into Palmetto Crest in year one and became HOA president by year two. She ran unopposed because she was the only person who wanted the job badly enough to knock on 60 doors and make it sound like a favor she was doing for the neighborhood.
She was 53, platinum blonde, always dressed like she was about to walk into a country club luncheon, and she carried a leather-bound planner the size of a hymnal that she consulted the way other people check their pulse. She was also a licensed real estate agent. She sold nine of the first 30 homes in Palmetto Crest and collected commissions on every one. She served on the architectural review committee that she created. She appointed herself chair of the landscaping subcommittee that she invented.
She hired her sister's husband to do the pool maintenance and her college roommate to manage the HOA's social media page. Every committee, every vendor, every decision ran through Patricia. She wasn't a neighborhood leader. She was a franchise owner who happened to live in the building. The first time James met her, she was standing at his front gate.