Phelps smiled in a way that was not a smile.
“Yours.”
“That’s what I said.”
Noah stood near the passenger door of the cruiser, watching the exchange with his jaw tight.
Marcus noticed him.
He noticed everything.
Phelps stepped onto the driveway.
One boot on private property.
Then the other.
“Pretty expensive piece of machinery for a Saturday side hustle.”
Marcus tilted his head slightly.
“Side hustle?”
“You detailing cars in this neighborhood?”
“No.”
“You working for the owner?”
“I am the owner.”
Phelps looked at the house, then at Marcus, then at the car again.
He chuckled.
Not because anything was funny.
Because disbelief needed somewhere to go.
“Convenient answer.”
Marcus picked up the microfiber towel and slowly dried the hood.
“What seems to be the issue, Officer Phelps?”
Phelps stiffened at the sound of his name.
He did not like being read before he had finished performing authority.
“The issue is we’ve had thefts in neighborhoods like this. Classic cars. Tools. Garage break-ins. I see somebody I don’t recognize standing around a high-end vehicle, I ask questions.”
“Standing around?”
Marcus kept drying the car.
“I was washing it.”
“You got ID?”
Phelps blinked.
“No?”
“No, I’m not providing identification without a lawful basis for the request.”
Noah’s eyes dropped briefly to the pavement.
He knew Marcus was right.
Phelps knew it too, though ego began shouting louder than training.
“You don’t decide what’s lawful out here.”
Marcus folded the towel once and placed it on the fender.
“Actually, the law decides that. You can ask for my name. I can decline unless you have reasonable, articulable suspicion that I have committed, am committing, or am about to commit a crime.”
Phelps took another step closer.
“I don’t know what YouTube lawyer nonsense you watched, but when an officer asks for ID, you provide ID.”
“That is not the law.”
“It is today.”
Marcus sighed.
Not loudly.
Just enough.
That sigh seemed to offend Phelps more than any insult could have.
The neighbor across the street opened her front door.
Mrs. Elaine Robards, seventy-eight, wearing gardening gloves and holding a half-dead basil plant, stepped onto her porch and stopped. She had brought Marcus banana bread the week he moved in and was one of the few people on Ashbury Lane who had introduced herself without turning curiosity into interrogation.
She watched the officers.
Marcus saw her watching.
So did Phelps.
An audience changed things.
Not for the better.
Phelps raised his voice.
“Put the towel down and step away from the vehicle.”
“For what purpose?”