At 10:26 that morning, I sat in the cab of my truck and called the Hartwell County Sheriff’s Office, and reported that unknown persons were trespassing and squatting on my private property.

Greg laughed at me from the porch.

“You’re really going to call the cops on your own family, Edmund?”

“I’m not calling the police on my family,” I said into the phone, keeping my voice level.

“I’m reporting two people who broke into my house.”

About eleven minutes later, a white county cruiser came up the gravel and stopped hard in the drive.

A young deputy stepped out — Brian Grady, his name tag read — and asked, politely, that everyone come down off the porch and into the yard so he could sort out what was going on.