And the identity of the person standing opposite Michael was about to become impossible to ignore.
Ethan Walker stood beside the black SUV, watching Michael Hayes struggle to understand the situation he had created.
The last sunlight stretched across the pavement, casting long shadows beneath the parked vehicles. The city was beginning to change from the warmth of late afternoon to the cooler colors of evening, and the traffic moving through the intersection had become more noticeable.
Michael adjusted his tan uniform shirt, trying to restore the appearance of a professional officer. His metallic badge reflected the fading light, but the confidence he had displayed at the beginning of the encounter was gone.
He had approached Ethan believing that a badge would settle every disagreement.
Now he was asking questions he should have considered before planting the evidence.
OFFICER MICHAEL HAYES: "I'm asking you one more time. Are you connected to Internal Affairs?"
Ethan held his gaze for a moment.
Then he reached slowly toward the inside of his black jacket.
Michael immediately stiffened.
OFFICER MICHAEL HAYES: "Keep your hands where I can see them!"
Ethan stopped moving.
ETHAN WALKER: "I'm reaching for identification. Nothing else."
OFFICER MICHAEL HAYES: "Don't make any sudden movements."
ETHAN WALKER: "Then give me a moment to show you."
Michael watched his hands carefully.
The officer had become so accustomed to treating every unexpected movement as a potential threat that he could no longer distinguish between a genuine danger and an ordinary action. His judgment had been shaped by the assumption that he needed to maintain control at any cost.
Ethan moved slowly and deliberately.
He opened his jacket and reached into an inner pocket, removing a small identification wallet. He kept it visible as he opened the case and turned the credential toward Michael.
The officer's eyes dropped to the identification.
At first, he seemed unable to understand what he was reading.
His gaze moved across the photograph, the printed name, and the official designation beneath it. He looked at the credential again, then raised his eyes toward Ethan's face.
The expression that followed was unmistakable.
Michael had gone from anger to disbelief in a matter of seconds.
ETHAN WALKER: "My name is Ethan Walker. I'm an investigator with Internal Affairs."
Michael stared at him.
OFFICER MICHAEL HAYES: "Internal Affairs?"
ETHAN WALKER: "That's correct."
OFFICER MICHAEL HAYES: "No. That doesn't make any sense."
ETHAN WALKER: "You can examine the identification if you need to verify it."
Michael did not immediately respond.
He had spent the entire encounter treating Ethan as an ordinary civilian who could be intimidated into submission. He had planted a bag in the man's jacket, falsely claimed to have discovered it, and escalated the situation into a physical confrontation when Ethan refused to accept the accusation.
He had done all of that without knowing who Ethan was.
Now the man standing before him had revealed that his professional responsibility included examining allegations of police misconduct.
Michael's stomach tightened.
OFFICER MICHAEL HAYES: "Why didn't you tell me that earlier?"
Ethan closed the credential wallet but kept it in his hand.
ETHAN WALKER: "You didn't give me an opportunity to explain anything before you decided what kind of person I was."
OFFICER MICHAEL HAYES: "You could have shown me your identification."
ETHAN WALKER: "Would that have changed what you did?"
Michael opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He knew the answer he wanted to give.
He could have said that he would never knowingly mistreat an investigator. He could have claimed that he would have behaved differently if he had known Ethan's position.
But the implication was more damaging than he wanted to acknowledge.
If Michael would have treated Ethan differently because of his title, then his conduct toward an ordinary civilian would become even harder to justify.
The law was not supposed to protect only people with official credentials.
A person should not need to work in Internal Affairs to deserve an honest explanation from a police officer.
Ethan returned the credential to his inner pocket.
ETHAN WALKER: "You treated me as though I had no right to question your actions. You assumed that your uniform would make your account more credible than mine."
OFFICER MICHAEL HAYES: "That's not what happened."
ETHAN WALKER: "Then explain what happened."
Michael looked toward the plastic bag resting on the hood of the SUV.