Then she walked away.
Andre saved that clip too.
The criminal investigation did not move as quickly as neighborhood gossip.
Police had to separate bad judgment from unlawful entry, personal payments from HOA funds, and guests who knowingly trespassed from guests who had been misled.
Officer Patel became Detective Patel on the case after the financial evidence expanded. She interviewed rental hosts, board members, pool guests, locksmith employees, the security contractor, and the management company.
Marlene's defense changed several times.
First, she claimed implied authority.
Then community necessity.
Then homeowner benefit.
Then she argued Andre had suffered no meaningful loss because the guests caused little physical damage.
That last claim angered Andre more than the others.
Loss was not only broken furniture.
He replaced the mudroom locks.
He replaced the gate controller.
He installed a new alarm zone.
He drained and refilled the pool after learning several parties involved glass bottles near the water.
He paid for a professional safety inspection.
He replaced towels, food, drinks, and outdoor supplies.
But the larger loss was invisible.
For months after the discovery, Andre checked camera feeds compulsively.
A leaf moving near the gate triggered him.
A delivery driver stepping too close to the side fence made him open the app.
He stopped traveling overnight unless Tasha stayed at the house.
His backyard had become a place he monitored instead of enjoyed.
Simone told him this mattered in the civil claim.
Andre said he hated that something so personal had to become a damages category.
"That is what civil cases do," she said. "They translate harm into evidence. It is imperfect, but it is the system we have."
The financial review found fifty-eight separate pool-related payments to MP Community Hospitality.
Some were small.
Twenty-five dollars.
Fifty.
Others were hundreds.
Four events exceeded one thousand dollars because they included catering coordination, decorations, and alcohol delivery.
One had been a corporate team party.
Andre found that almost funny.
A business had held an off-site event in his backyard while he was inspecting a warehouse in another state.
The organizer told police she paid Marlene $1,400.
She had received a PDF titled Brookhaven Private Retreat Package.
The package included:
Heated pool.
Private patio.
Changing room.
Outdoor refrigerator.
Bluetooth audio.
On-site neighborhood host.
Two-hour base session.
Optional evening extension.
The photographs were all Andre's property.
Some had been taken before he installed cameras.
One photograph showed his dining room through the patio glass.
That disturbed him more than the pool images.
Marlene had not only used the backyard.
She had been looking inward.
Detective Patel discovered that MP Community Hospitality also paid the security contractor for "access consulting."
The contractor's owner claimed those payments were for technical support.
One technician admitted Marlene had asked how to preserve admin access after homeowners changed codes.
He said he warned her that installer credentials were for service, not community management.
She allegedly replied, "I am not asking you what it is for. I am asking whether it still works."
The technician documented the conversation in an internal service note.
That note became important.
So did the locksmith form.
So did the fake authorization.
Marlene was eventually charged with multiple offenses related to unauthorized entry, fraud, forgery, and theft by deception. The exact counts changed as prosecutors narrowed the case.
Andre did not follow every motion.
He wanted distance.
The HOA removal process mattered more to his daily life.
Residents held a recall vote.
Marlene was removed by a margin so large that even Thomas Greer looked surprised when the numbers were read.
The board then commissioned an independent audit.
No evidence showed the entire board knew about the pool business.
That distinction was important.
Andre resisted neighbors who wanted to describe everyone in leadership as corrupt.
Diane had been careless.
Thomas had been passive.
The treasurer had failed to investigate conflict disclosures carefully.
Those were governance failures.
They were not the same as secretly renting Andre's pool.
The audit found one area where board responsibility was clear: access control.
Nobody maintained an inventory of contractor credentials linked to homeowner-installed smart systems.
Nobody required technicians to remove installer privileges after service.
Nobody prohibited board officers from using contractor portals on private devices.
The policy gap gave Marlene opportunity.
Opportunity did not excuse choice.
But it explained how one person's choices went undetected.
The new board adopted strict rules.
Before those rules were finalized, Andre insisted the board invite two outside security consultants to review the entire neighborhood access architecture. The consultants found a problem larger than Marlene: more than a dozen homeowners still had dormant installer accounts attached to gates, cameras, or alarm panels from previous service calls. None had been abused as far as anyone could prove, but the credentials existed without most owners knowing. Every affected homeowner received a letter, every credential was revoked, and the association paid for independent verification. Andre considered that one of the few useful outcomes of the scandal. The solution did not depend on trusting the next president to behave better. It removed the unnecessary access entirely.
No HOA employee or director could retain credentials to homeowner-controlled locks, gates, alarms, cameras, or smart-home systems.
Contractors had to certify removal of temporary credentials after each installation.
Homeowners received written notice of any active service profile.
Board members could not own or receive compensation from vendors or service companies operating in the community without full disclosure and disinterested approval.
Most importantly for Andre, the bylaws were amended to state plainly:
No private residential recreational amenity may be treated as a community resource without a written, revocable agreement signed by the owner.
Andre read that sentence several times.
It seemed ridiculous that adults needed it written down.
Then he remembered the champagne table.
Apparently they did.
The short-term rental hosts were angry too.
Several had paid Marlene believing access was legitimate.
They refunded guests.
One removed pool language from every listing and added a line saying amenities were limited to those physically located on the rented property or formally owned by the HOA.
That sounded painfully obvious.
Again, apparently necessary.
Andre's civil case settled before trial.
The terms were confidential except for recorded property protections.