Simone smiled. "They're just showing off because you gave me the right fertilizer. Yours taught them everything they know."
"If I believed that, I'd send you an invoice. Don't forget your tea on Sunday."
"I'll bring the lemon cake."
Eleanor waved and turned toward her porch. Simone bent to adjust the green hose nozzle to a gentler setting and let the water settle at the base of the first rosebush. The damp soil smelled clean and rich, and for a few moments the morning was exactly what she had hoped it would be. She had no reason to notice the marked patrol car slowing on the opposite side of the street.
Officer Derek Whitmore noticed her immediately. He was thirty-eight, a fifteen-year veteran of the Portland Police Bureau, with a buzz cut, a square jaw, and the habit of gripping the steering wheel as if every other driver were doing something personally insulting. His partner, Ryan Mills, had graduated from the academy eight months earlier and was still learning which of his training instructors' rules actually survived contact with daily patrol work. The contrast between them had been apparent from their first shift together.
Whitmore took pride in being the kind of officer who could "read a street." He used the phrase often enough that Mills had begun to dislike it without being able to explain why. Sometimes it meant noting a vehicle parked in an unusual place or remembering a suspect description. More often it meant Whitmore deciding that a person belonged somewhere else and then finding a reason to ask questions until that person agreed with him.
"You see that?" Whitmore asked.
Mills looked up from the dispatch screen. "See what?"
"Woman with the hose. Look at the house."
Mills turned. A woman in jeans was watering flowers in front of an attractive home. There was a newspaper by the steps and an expensive-looking commuter bicycle against the porch. Nothing appeared disturbed, and nobody was signaling for help. "She's gardening, Derek."
"Black woman. Half-million-dollar neighborhood. By herself. Something doesn't fit."
Mills felt his stomach tighten. "That's not reasonable suspicion. We don't even have a complaint."
Whitmore shifted into park. "You get comfortable, Mills, you stop noticing things. That's when people get hurt."
"Captain Reynolds said to keep our community contacts professional after the last complaint."
"Reynolds isn't here. And I know what suspicious looks like."
He opened the driver's door before Mills could answer. The younger officer sat still for a moment, watching his partner cross the quiet street with one hand resting near his equipment belt. He considered calling the sergeant, then imagined Whitmore finding out and writing something damaging in his probationary evaluation. The hesitation felt small at the time. Later, Mills would remember it as the first of several moments when he could have changed what happened.
Simone heard the boots on the walkway and turned off the spray. She gave the approaching officer the same courteous expression she gave any stranger who stopped near her porch. "Good morning, officer. Can I help you?"