Three thousand dollars was not an amount he could simply dismiss. He had earned it through years of work, careful spending, and the habit of setting aside something whenever he could. He had not withdrawn the money to impress anyone. He had withdrawn it because he had obligations to meet, and he preferred to handle those obligations without unnecessary complications.
But the money was only one part of what troubled him.
The officer had taken it openly, in daylight, while another officer stood nearby. He had not appeared frightened, embarrassed, or uncertain. He had behaved as though the act required no explanation.
Walter could not shake the feeling that he had witnessed something more deliberate than a moment of poor judgment.
He looked at the patrol car again.
Cole was speaking to his colleague beside the passenger door. Their conversation remained too distant for Walter to hear, but their body language was easy enough to observe. The second officer listened with his head tilted slightly toward Cole, occasionally nodding. Neither man appeared to be discussing an emergency.
Then Cole pointed toward Walter's sedan.
The second officer looked over.
Walter remained still.
He refused to turn his attention away simply because the officers might prefer not to be observed. He had done nothing wrong by watching what happened around him, and he had no intention of pretending that the encounter was ordinary.
A few moments later, Cole approached the sedan again.
OFFICER COLE:
"Do you have somewhere to be?"
WALTER:
"I have things to take care of."
OFFICER COLE:
"Then you should learn to make things easier for yourself."
Walter looked at him.
WALTER:
"I've been trying to do that since you stopped me."
Cole leaned toward the open window.
OFFICER COLE:
"You keep acting like this is some kind of personal dispute."
WALTER:
"It became personal when you took my money."
The officer's face tightened.
OFFICER COLE:
"You're not listening."
WALTER:
"I'm listening to every word."
Cole straightened, visibly irritated by the answer.
OFFICER COLE:
"Then listen to this. You are going to wait until I finish here. You're not going to reach for anything, you're not going to start making calls, and you're not going to turn this into a scene."
Walter held his gaze.
WALTER:
"I'm sitting in my car. I'm not making a scene."
OFFICER COLE:
"Good. Keep it that way."
Cole stepped away again.
Walter watched him return to the patrol vehicle, then looked at the small device mounted near his rearview mirror.
It was a compact dash camera that he had installed several months earlier. He had purchased it after a friend told him about an accident in which two drivers remembered the same event very differently. Walter had never expected the camera to become important during a traffic stop, but he had come to appreciate having a record of what happened on the road.
The camera had been running throughout the drive.
He could not yet know how much of the encounter it had captured. The position of the lens offered a view through the windshield, and the open driver's window might have allowed it to record some of the conversation. Whether it had captured Cole's hand reaching into the vehicle was another question.
Walter did not want to assume anything before checking.
He also did not want to announce the camera's presence to an officer who had already demonstrated that he was willing to take the money without permission.
So Walter said nothing about it.
He simply noted the camera's position and returned his attention to the patrol car.
Cole opened the driver's door and sat inside. His colleague remained outside for a moment before moving around the front of the vehicle.
The patrol car's lights were still flashing.
Walter checked his mirrors, then looked ahead.
He could see the road continuing beyond the intersection. A delivery truck had passed a few minutes earlier, and a small blue car was now approaching from the opposite direction. The ordinary movement of traffic made the roadside seem strangely detached from the confrontation taking place there.
The world had continued without noticing what had happened.
Walter wondered how many people had driven past without looking closely enough to understand that anything unusual was taking place.
He wondered how many would have stopped if they had known.
Then he forced himself to put those thoughts aside.
He could not depend on strangers to intervene. He could only decide what to do with the information he had.
After a short interval, the patrol car's engine changed pitch. Cole remained behind the wheel, and the second officer climbed into the passenger seat.
Walter waited.