The sergeant met her eyes, and Naomi saw that she understood exactly how inadequate the word was, and that she had said it anyway because it was the word she was allowed to say.
"I'd like your name and badge number," Naomi said. "And Officer Brandt's badge number. And the incident number for tonight."
Amaro wrote all three on the back of a business card without arguing and handed it over. "There's a complaint process," she said quietly. "Online, or in person at the Accountability Board office downtown. The forms are on the city website."
"I know," Naomi said. "Thank you."
She walked back to her car. Officer Brandt was standing beside it, and when she came close he stepped aside, and he did not say anything, and she did not look at him. She picked her father's hammer up off the fender, leaned in over the engine, found the starter by feel, and tapped it twice, smartly, the way she had been taught. Then she closed the hood, got in behind the wheel, and turned the key.
The Skylark started on the first try, the way it always did after a little encouragement, its big V8 settling into a deep, steady idle.
She sat there with her hands on the wheel at ten and two. Her left arm ached where he had grabbed it. Her wrists were ringed in red. The radio was still playing the oldies station, low, a song she half recognized, something with strings. The clock on the dash, which her father had kept accurate to the minute for forty years, said one twenty-eight.
Hector tapped on her window. She rolled it down.
"You okay to drive, Captain?"
"I'm okay."
"I got it," he said, and held up his phone. "From when I got here. Not the beginning. But I got it. I'm going to send it to you."
"Thank you, Hector."
"You want me to follow you home?"