“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
The Black woman laughed once.
He frowned.
“What’s funny?”
“You’re treating every fact as suspicious.”
“Because your behavior is suspicious.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You decided I was suspicious.”
“Now everything I do has to fit that.”
The officer stepped closer again.
“You done?”
“Not yet.”
His expression hardened.
“What’s your job?”
There it was.
She almost answered.
Deputy chief.
Your incoming deputy chief.
But again she stopped.
“What does my employment have to do with why you detained me?”
“People who live here usually have jobs.”
That was so absurd she stared.
“Most people everywhere have jobs.”
“Answer.”
She looked at his nameplate.
She memorized the surname.
Then:
“I work for the city.”
The officer paused.
“What department?”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
He smiled.
Not kindly.
“Because now we’re getting somewhere.”
“You say you live here.”
“You say you work for the city.”
“But you don’t have ID.”
“You won’t give an address.”
“You won’t say where you work.”
The Black woman’s anger finally broke through her composure.
“Listen carefully.”
The officer stiffened.
She continued.
“You stopped me while I was running on a public sidewalk.”
“You have identified no crime.”
“You have demanded my home address, my phone, my employment, and identification I am not carrying.”
“Every time I answer part of a question, you treat the answer itself as suspicious.”
“You’ve now called backup and described me as possibly casing houses without a single reported attempt to enter property, touch property, hide my face, flee, or commit any observable offense.”
The officer’s face darkened.
She stepped half a pace closer.
Not threatening.
Firm.
“And you still have not explained what I did besides exist somewhere you decided I looked out of place.”
The officer snapped:
“Don’t make this racial.”
The dog walker’s phone remained up.
The Black woman stared.
“I didn’t use the word race.”
The officer froze.
A tiny mistake.
He had supplied it himself.
She continued:
“You did.”
His jaw flexed.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He pointed sharply toward her.
“Enough.”
His finger came within a foot of her face.
She looked at it.
Then at him.
He lowered it slightly.
Behind them, a second patrol SUV turned onto the street.
The officer visibly relaxed.
Backup.
He looked toward the arriving unit.
Then back at her.
“You’re about to make this harder than it needs to be.”
The Black woman’s voice went quiet.