Across the cul-de-sac, Dorothy Wills was pulling weeds near her front fence. Seventy-two years old, a retired English teacher, and entirely unwilling to surrender her right to speak plainly, Dorothy had lived on that street longer than most of the trees. She had become one of Sandra's closest friends after a neighborhood meeting about drainage complaints and had since appointed herself unofficial guardian of several gardens, two widowers, and any teenagers who looked as though they needed advice. Raymond often found himself listening to her lectures about grammar while she inspected the Chevelle for evidence of new scratches.
"Morning, Sergeant," she called when he stepped toward the end of the driveway to rinse the cloth. "Morning, Dorothy. You're up early." She lifted a handful of weeds like evidence in a trial. "Some of us don't have a vehicle that takes three hours to bathe." He laughed and returned to the bumper, unaware that within the hour Dorothy would become one of the most important witnesses of his life.
Farther down the sidewalk, sixteen-year-old Marcus Tilman had arrived at his grandmother's house for the weekend. His grandmother, Mrs. Henderson, had given him the task of walking her small brown terrier before he disappeared into his phone for the morning. Marcus loved cameras and spent more time filming ordinary things than his family understood. He filmed basketball games, storm clouds, old buildings being demolished, and the birds that landed on his grandmother's porch railing. The phone in his pocket was charging off a portable battery, ready for a Saturday he expected would produce nothing more interesting than footage of a dog refusing to walk.
On the other side of town, Officer Kyle Puit was beginning his patrol alone. His assigned partner, Jaime Briggs, had called in sick before shift change, and the duty supervisor had offered to move another officer into the car. Puit declined and told the supervisor he could handle the quiet sector for one day. What he did not volunteer was that he had been increasingly irritated by how little happened in Cedarwood Heights.
Puit was thirty-nine and had worn the Garland City uniform for eleven years. In the department photograph, his square jaw and carefully arranged expression made him look dependable. In person, he carried himself with the aggressive comfort of a man who believed that a challenge to his judgment was a challenge to the entire institution he represented. He spoke often about proactive policing, though officers who worked beside him sometimes noticed that the people who drew his suspicion followed a narrower pattern than the phrase suggested.
Eight months earlier, Puit had been transferred from the East Side Precinct after Captain Felix Drury concluded that the officer had become a liability his command could no longer manage. Three complaints involving force or intimidation had accumulated over several years, each filed by a man who said Puit had stopped him without a credible reason. One described being pinned against a wall outside his own workplace. Another said his identification had been held far longer than necessary, and the third had complained that Puit threatened to arrest him for asking to speak with a supervisor.