"Yes."
Ryan looked at Daniel.
"You knew?"
Daniel shook his head.
"No."
Evelyn folded her arms.
"I knew."
Ryan looked at her.
"You knew?"
"She told me when she moved in."
Ryan looked around the neighborhood.
Every face seemed to be watching him.
The teenager who had been filming earlier still held his phone.
A woman across the street was recording too.
Daniel took out his notebook.
"Ryan, we need to report this."
Ryan glared at him.
"Don't."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
Daniel shook his head.
"That's not how this works."
Naomi looked at Daniel.
"Officer Price."
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Make sure your body camera footage is preserved."
Daniel nodded.
"It will be."
Ryan's face tightened.
"You don't get to order us around."
Naomi replied calmly.
"I am not ordering you around. I am telling you what evidence should be preserved."
Ryan looked at her credential again.
"You could have identified yourself."
"I tried."
"You were evasive."
"I was exercising my rights."
Ryan laughed bitterly.
"You think because you're a judge—"
"No."
Naomi interrupted.
"I think because I am a citizen."
The sentence silenced him.
Naomi continued.
"What happened today wasn't about my position. If you had treated an ordinary woman the way you treated me, it would have been just as wrong."
Daniel looked down.
Those words affected him.
Ryan remained silent.
Naomi bent down and picked up one of the wet pages from her legal folder.
The ink had dissolved.
She looked at the ruined document.
It represented hours of work.
But suddenly the document seemed unimportant.
What mattered was what had happened.
"Officer Holt," she said, "I want your supervisor."
Ryan hesitated.
"I can contact him."
"No."
Naomi looked toward Daniel.
"I want you to call him."
Daniel immediately reached for his radio.
Ryan's expression changed.
"Daniel."
"I have to."
"You're my partner."
"And that doesn't mean I have to participate in misconduct."
The words hung in the air.
Evelyn smiled faintly.
"Good."
Daniel's call went out.
Within minutes, another patrol vehicle arrived.
Then another.
A lieutenant stepped out.
He was older than Ryan and had the exhausted expression of someone who had spent twenty-five years managing other people's mistakes.
He walked toward Naomi.
"Ma'am."
Naomi held up her credentials.
The lieutenant stopped.
"I understand."
"No," Naomi said.
"You understand who I am."
He looked at her.
"I need you to understand what happened."
He nodded.
"Yes."
She pointed toward Ryan.
"He approached my property twice without explaining a lawful basis for the investigation. He accused me of not belonging in my own home. Then, after an accidental splash of water struck his uniform, he deliberately turned a garden hose on me."
The lieutenant looked at Ryan.
"Is that accurate?"
Ryan hesitated.
"No."
Daniel spoke.
"Yes."
Everyone looked at him.
Ryan's face hardened.
"Daniel."
"I'm telling the truth."
The lieutenant turned toward Daniel.
"Did Officer Holt use the hose?"
"Yes."
"Did the woman attack him?"
"No."
"Did she threaten him?"
"No."
"Did she resist physically?"
"No."
The lieutenant looked at Ryan.
"Then we have a serious problem."
Ryan's shoulders dropped slightly.
The teenager stepped forward.
"I recorded everything."
The lieutenant nodded.
"Please preserve the recording."
The teenager held up his phone.
"I already uploaded it."
Ryan looked sick.
The video was spreading.
Naomi knew what would happen next.
News outlets would discover it.
People would argue over it.
Some would say she should have cooperated.
Others would say Ryan had no right to be there.
Some would reduce the entire incident to thirty seconds of video.
Others would demand the whole story.
Naomi hated all of it.
She had spent her career trying to make complicated things understandable.
Now she knew what it felt like to become the complicated thing.
The lieutenant approached her.
"Judge Greer, I'm sorry."
Naomi shook her head.
"Don't apologize yet."
He stopped.
"First, preserve the evidence. Then investigate. Then decide what happened."
The lieutenant nodded.
"Understood."
Ryan finally spoke.
"I made a mistake."
Naomi looked at him.
"Yes."
"I didn't know who you were."
"That isn't the problem."
He looked confused.
"What is?"
"You think knowing who I was would have changed what you did."
Ryan didn't answer.
Naomi continued.
"That's exactly the problem."
Daniel lowered his eyes.
The lieutenant seemed to understand.
Ryan did not.
Not yet.
By Monday morning, the video had spread far beyond the neighborhood.
It appeared on social media.
Then television.
Then national news websites.
The headline changed depending on who published it.
Some focused on the judge.
Others focused on the officer.
Some described the encounter as an abuse of power.