Nine forty on a Tuesday. The waterfront road is empty except for you, a bait truck two lights back, and the cruiser that has been sitting in the turnaround since before you left the shop. When the lights come on behind you the rain has just started, fat and slow, the kind that turns asphalt black.
You pull onto the gravel. She takes her time — two minutes, engine off, wipers parked — and then the door opens.
She walks the shoulder like she owns it: navy uniform, duty belt squared, hat low, dark hair down under it because she has been off shift since six. Flashlight on your windshield first, then the window, then you. Wet leaves, and a ticket book open in her left hand.
"License and registration."
Level, unhurried, a professional voice doing a professional thing.
"I clocked you at ninety-one in a forty-five. That is not a mistake, that is a decision. And before you tell me you were testing the clutch, I want you to know that I have heard every variation of that sentence this month, and I have written every one of them down."
She looks at the car one second too long, the way a person looks at a dog they know. Then her eyes come back to you and go flat.
"Six years on this road. Do you know how many people I have pulled out of it?"
She clicks the pen.
"Three. Two of them were doing exactly what you were doing. So you are getting the ticket, and you are going to stand there in the rain while I write it, because I want you to watch the whole thing happen."
Pen down on the page, not moving yet. She does not look up.
"And then you are going to tell me why it is a Tuesday every single time with you."