Not now. Not with blood running down her fingers and pooling on the sidewalk. Kesler zip tied her wrists tight, tighter than he needed to, and she felt the plastic bite into her skin. The same way the dog's teeth had bitten into her arm. A second patrol car rolled up, then a third.
Two more officers stepped out, drawn by the crowd gathering on porches and lawns, by the shouting, by the dog still pacing near the car with blood on its muzzle. "What do we got? " One of them called out. "Suspect resisting a burglary stop," Kesler said, already reaching for his radio again. K9 deployment. Subject secured.
Nobody asked her name. Nobody asked if she needed a doctor right away. She lay there, wrists bound, arm bleeding, listening to Kesler describe her to other officers like she was a thing that had happened to him instead of a person he had hurt. "Please," she said again, quieter now, mostly to herself. "Somebody just look at my arm. " A neighbor, a woman named Diane from Three Houses Down, though Walker wouldn't learn her name until much later, stepped off her porch and walked closer, phone still recording, voice shaking with anger.
"You just watched that dog maul her for a full minute. She wasn't doing anything. I saw the whole thing from my window. " "Ma'am, step back," one of the newer officers said, holding up a hand. This is an active scene. It's an active scene because you people made it one.
Walker closed her eyes against the pain and against the sun beating down on the pavement. She focused on breathing in, out. She had sat in her courtroom and listened to victims describe moments like this one. The confusion, the fear, the strange calm that settles in once the worst part is already over and there's nothing left to do. But wait, she heard sirens again, closer this time.
Another car. She heard Kesler straighten up beside her, heard the shift in his voice as he turned to greet whoever had just arrived. Someone with rank, someone he needed to sound confident in front of. Sarge, he said. Got a resisting suspect.
K-9 deployment. Subjects secured now. Walker opened her eyes. A woman in a sergeant's uniform stood over her, scanning the scene. The blood, the zip ties, the crowd of neighbors with their phones raised, the dog still pacing by the car.
Sergeant Remy Blair's eyes moved from Kesler to the wound on Walker's arm and back again. Get her up, Blair said. Let's get this processed. They hauled Walker to her feet. Her legs wobbled beneath her, and pain shot up her injured arm the moment gravity pulled the blood downward.
She didn't cry out. She'd already decided somewhere in the last few minutes that she wasn't going to give this street a show. She kept her spine straight and her breathing even, even as blood dripped steadily off her fingertips onto the sidewalk. "Name? " Blair asked, pulling a small notepad from her vest. "My identification is in my briefcase," Walker said.
"I'd like you to check it, please. " "I asked your name. " "And I'm telling you where to find proof of it," Walker said, calm but firm. "I'm not going to shout it at you like I'm hiding something. Checked the bag. Blair's jaw tightened. She wasn't used to suspects talking to her like that.
Measured, direct, like she was the one being told what to do instead of the other way around. She glanced at Kesler, who shrugged like he didn't have an answer either. She give you her name? Blair asked him. Wouldn't stop moving long enough to ask.
Kesler said she was resisting the whole. I was not resisting. Walker cut in voice sharp now despite the pain. I told your officer I was reaching for identification. I told him I understood why he was here.
I never once refused an order I understood. You pulled away from me. Kesler snapped. I was falling. Walker said you grabbed my arm and I lost my balance.
That is not the same thing and you know it. Blair held up a hand between them. More out of habit than real interest in settling the dispute. She'd have officers and suspects arguing at scenes like this every week, it rarely meant anything. She started patting Walker down for weapons, running her hands quickly and impersonally along her sides, her waist, checking pockets.
"Anything on you I should know about? Needles? Knives? Anything sharp? " "No," Walker said. "Nothing.
My briefcase is right there on the sidewalk. My identification is inside the front pocket. Blair finished the pat down and straightened up. Something about the woman in front of her didn't sit right. She'd processed plenty of people who screamed their innocence, who cursed and spat and fought the whole way to the car.
This woman wasn't doing any of that. She was standing there, wrists bound, blood soaking through her sleeve, speaking in complete, careful sentences like she was giving a statement she'd rehearsed a thousand times in a courtroom. Around them, the crowd hadn't thinned. If anything, it had grown. More neighbors stood on lawns now, phones still raised, murmuring to each other, catching every word.
She said, "Get her ID. " One voice called out, "Why won't you just check it? " Blair ignored the crowd and walked over to the briefcase lying open on the pavement where it had fallen. She crouched down, unzipping the front pocket, glancing back once at Walker, who watched her without blinking. "It's right there," Walker said quietly. "Top of the stack. " Blair's fingers found a leather badge holder tucked just inside the pocket, the kind with a metal clip and a laminated card behind clear plastic. She pulled it out slowly, turning it over in her hand.
Gold lettering caught the afternoon sun. United States District Court. Beneath it, a photo. Beneath that, a name in bold federal print. Blair's stomach dropped before she even finished reading it.
She looked up at Walker, still standing there bleeding, still standing there straightbacked and calm, despite everything that had just been done to her. And for the first time since arriving on scene, Sergeant Blair felt something close to real fear. "Kesler," she said slowly, not taking her eyes off the badge in her hand. "Come here. " Kesler walked over, still riding the adrenaline of the last 10 minutes, expecting maybe a question about paperwork or backup. What he saw instead was Blair standing frozen, staring down at a small leather badge holder like it had teeth of its own.
"What? " he said. Blair turned the badge around and held it up so he could see it clearly. Gold Federal seal, a photo that matched the bleeding woman standing 3 ft away. And beneath the photo, printed in bold black letters that suddenly felt very loud. Judge Audrey Walker.
United States District Court. Kesler's face went through several things at once. Confusion first, then disbelief, then something colder. Something that looked a lot like fear trying to disguise itself as annoyance. That's not, he started.
It's real, Blair said. It's a federal ID. It's real, Kesler. Walker watched the two of them from where she stood, wrists still bound, blood still dripping from her fingertips onto the pavement. She kept her voice level, even though every part of her wanted to scream at them both.