The street shifted then, the way a street shifts when the person who has been the weather suddenly becomes the problem. Brenda was still talking. She was explaining jurisdiction. She was explaining gnomes. She was explaining how a president’s duty did not pause for birthdays. Martinez had stopped listening in the way officers stop listening when the remaining words are only for the record of how a person sounds when they are finished.
“Brenda Kensington,” he said. “Place your hands behind your back.”
Her head jerked toward him. “What?”
“You’re under arrest for assault on a minor and attempted theft. You have the right to remain silent.”
A gasp moved through the neighbors, not quite unified, the sound of people who had watched her fine them for wreaths and were now watching cuffs. The color left her face so quickly it looked like a light had been switched off behind the skin. “This is outrageous. Do you know who I am? I’ll have your badge. I’ll sue this entire neighborhood.” She was still saying it as they escorted her, gently and firmly, toward the squad car. The bike stayed in David’s hands. One of the officers nodded at me, a small professional acknowledgment that the property was no longer in dispute. The streamers in the backyard lifted and fell in a wind that did not care what had happened on the pavement.
David stared, wide-eyed, as the door of the cruiser shut. “Dad, is she really getting arrested because of me?”