Ellery looked at the fence, then back at the officer. The metal was cold in the morning light, patched in places, bent where children had climbed it for years. He kept his voice even.
"Officer, I will comply," he said. "I want that clear. I am complying. My identification is in my back pocket. If you reach for it, or let me reach for it slowly, this ends in ten seconds."
"I told you to face the fence."
"I heard you." Ellery turned slowly, deliberately, giving Brandt no sudden movement to point to later. He raised his hands to shoulder height, palms open. "My name is Micah Ellery. I live in this city. I work for this city. You can verify that without putting hands on me."
Brandt stepped closer. Gravel crunched under his boots. "You keep talking like talking changes anything. It does not. People who belong here do not hang around a playground at this hour taking notes and touching equipment."
"I have explained why I am here. The swing chain is rusted. The bolt on the frame is exposed. Parents reported it. I came to see it myself before I asked anyone to fix it."
"And I am telling you what I see." Brandt's hand closed around Ellery's left wrist. "I see a man who will not stop arguing."
There was a difference, Ellery thought, between arguing and answering. He did not pull away. He kept his feet planted and his other hand open and visible.
"That is my wrist you have," he said quietly. "I am not resisting. I want you to note that. I am not resisting."
"Put your other hand behind your back."
Ellery lowered his right hand slowly, as instructed. The movement pulled at his shoulder. Before he could settle, Brandt seized that wrist too and forced both arms higher than they needed to go, twisting the left arm at an angle that sent a sharp line of pain up to Ellery's elbow and into his neck. He drew a breath through his teeth but did not cry out.
"That hurts," he said. "You are twisting it. There is no need for that. I am standing still."
"Stop telling me how to do my job."
"I am telling you what you are doing to my arm, so there is a record in the air between us. Loosen your grip and I will stay exactly where I am."
Brandt answered by pulling the arm tighter. The cuff came out with a metallic clink. The first bracelet snapped around Ellery's left wrist, then Brandt yanked it to meet the right, cinching both far tighter than circulation allowed. The steel bit into skin. Ellery flexed his fingers and felt them begin to throb, then tingle, then ache in a deep, insistent way.
"These are too tight," he said. "My hands are going numb. Standard practice is to check the fit. You can fit a fingertip between the cuff and the wrist. You have not checked."
"You do not get to lecture me on practice."
"It is not a lecture. It is a request. Loosen them one notch. I am cuffed. I am against a fence in an empty park. Where do you believe I am going?"
For a moment Brandt said nothing, and Ellery allowed himself to hope the question had landed somewhere reasonable. Then Brandt gave the chain between the cuffs a short, unnecessary tug, testing nothing except his own temper, and the steel ground harder against bone.
"You should have thought about comfort before you decided to be difficult," Brandt said.
"I have not been difficult. I have been clear. Those are not the same thing, and one day the difference will matter to you."
Brandt leaned in close enough that Ellery could hear his breathing. "Turn your head. Keep looking at the fence."
Ellery turned his head. Through the diamond gaps in the mesh he could see the street beyond, quiet houses, a porch across the way, a curtain that might have moved. He focused on breathing slowly, on keeping his shoulders from rising with the pain, on remembering every detail in order: the time, the words, the twist, the cuffs, the refusal. Memory, he knew, was a kind of evidence too, especially when a man was determined to act as if no one would ever ask him to account for a Sunday morning.
"Officer Brandt," he said at last, reading the name he had noted earlier and using it with care. "Please check my pocket. Right now. Before this goes any further than it already has."
Brandt's hand pressed hard between his shoulder blades, holding him to the fence.
"It has gone exactly as far as I say it has," Brandt said. "And we are not done."
Chapter 7: The Punch
Ellery stood against the fence with his hands going numb and tried one more time, because trying was still his responsibility even if listening was not Brandt's.