The officer’s mouth tightened.
But he moved.
The marshal asked quietly:
“Better?”
The judge watched the sergeant speaking to the officer twenty feet away.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because now I’m the federal judge.”
The marshal understood.
She continued:
“I want to know what she would have done if I were nobody.”
He looked at her.
“You’re not nobody.”
“That isn’t the point.”
The sergeant returned.
“Your Honor.”
The judge looked toward her.
There was the title again.
She almost hated it now.
The sergeant continued:
“I’m placing the officer on administrative reassignment pending review.”
The judge shook her head.
“I did not ask for that.”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’m informing you because he will not be issuing the citation.”
The judge looked toward the paper.
“What happens to it?”
“It will be voided.”
“No.”
The sergeant frowned.
“No?”
“Preserve it.”
The marshal looked toward her.
The judge continued:
“He wrote it after the damage.”
“It is evidence.”
The sergeant stared.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
The judge looked toward the patrol officer.
He stood beside the second SUV.
Face rigid.
Hands on his belt.
Watching.
The sergeant said:
“Professional Standards will contact you.”
The judge answered:
“I will cooperate as a citizen.”
The sergeant’s expression shifted slightly.
Not as judge.
As citizen.
She understood.
The judge continued:
“My chambers are not handling anything related to this matter.”
“Obviously.”
“Yes.”
“And if any case involving this officer appears before me?”
The marshal glanced toward her.
The sergeant said:
“That’s outside my lane.”
“Correct.”
The judge nodded.
“It won’t be outside mine.”
That afternoon, she filed a recusal notice on an unrelated traffic matter scheduled for the following month involving the same patrol division.
Nobody had asked her to.
She did it because even the appearance of retaliation mattered.
Power complicated everything.
The irony was almost unbearable.
The officer had abused assumed authority because he thought she lacked power.
Now she had to restrain actual authority because she possessed too much.
Court began forty-seven minutes late.
The judge changed in chambers.
Ivory clothing disappeared beneath the black robe.
She looked at herself in the mirror.