Halverson emerged from his cruiser with the deliberate swagger of someone walking toward an audience. He was broad-shouldered, perhaps in his early forties, his uniform tailored closely enough to suggest vanity rather than comfort. He stopped behind the driver's door, then moved forward just enough to be visible in the side mirror. One hand settled near his holster. The other adjusted a small device clipped to his chest, although Nia could not tell whether he was turning it on or merely touching it.
“License. Registration,” he said.
“Certainly. My license is in my wallet and my registration is in the glove compartment. Which would you like first?”
He tilted his head. “You always have a speech ready?”
“No, officer. I'm telling you where my documents are before I reach for them.”
“Hands where I can see them.”
“They are where you can see them.”
He looked past her toward the passenger seat, then down at the dashboard. A moment later he glanced at the camera mounted inside his cruiser, as though checking the composition of a picture. “Know why I pulled you over?”
“No, sir.”
“Taillight's out.”
“I had the rear lights checked yesterday,” Nia said. “If one has failed since then, I'd appreciate knowing which one.”
His mouth tightened. “Now you're going to tell me how to do my job.”
“I haven't done that.”
He leaned closer. “Your car also matches a description connected to suspicious activity.”
Nia waited. She understood that an officer might have legitimate grounds to stop a vehicle, but she also understood when a stated reason shifted under examination. The first explanation had been mechanical. The second was vague and impossible for her to verify.
She could feel the beginning of a familiar courtroom instinct, the impulse to ask what description, what incident, what time. She suppressed it. This was not her courtroom, and he was behaving like a man eager for a challenge.
“I can provide identification,” she said. “I'm Judge Nia Whitaker, of the federal district court. My judicial credential is in my purse, but I will not reach for it until you tell me to.”
Halverson gave a short, derisive laugh. “Every week somebody tells me they're connected. Judges, senators, cousins of the mayor. You think a title changes the rules?”
“No. That's not what I said.”
“Then quit talking. Step out.”
Nia looked at the vehicles streaming past. She could see the pharmacy awning and a narrow island of sunlight at the intersection. She knew that refusing an order to exit the vehicle could make the encounter more dangerous, even if she later challenged the lawfulness of the stop. She asked if he would give her space to unbuckle safely. He pulled at the door before she had finished the sentence.
She could not know then that a dispatcher had logged an unusually brief message about her car three minutes before the lights came on. She could not know that Halverson had already exchanged two calls with someone whose number would not appear in the official report. She knew only that the man's impatience did not fit his supposed reason for stopping her, and that he was watching the growing crowd with a strange, hungry satisfaction.