Chapter 4 - The Badge and the Broken China
The sirens died down as two blue-and-white cruisers of the parish sheriff's department crunched over the gravel driveway.
I didn't rush downstairs. I walked into my bathroom, took a clean washcloth, dampened it with warm water, and gently wiped the stray bit of sweet potato puree from my forearm. I smoothed down my hair, adjusted the collar of my navy blue linen shirt, and walked down the stairs with steady, deliberate steps.
The front door was wide open. Officer Marcus Cole, a young deputy who had grown up two streets down from me, stood on the porch with his hand resting near his belt, his jaw slack as he took in the scene.
Makenna was sitting on the bottom porch step, weeping hysterically, pointing at her bruised cheek and the scattered piles of bras and dresses strewn across the lawn.
"She assaulted me!" Makenna wailed, her voice hitting a dog-whistle pitch. "She punched me in the face, dumped hot food on my head, and threw all my property out the window! Look at my cheek, Officer! That’s assault and battery! Arrest her! Put her in handcuffs right now!"
Demetrius had rushed down the back staircase and was already standing beside his wife, playing the outraged protector. "Officer, I witnessed the entire thing. My mother has clearly suffered a mental break. She attacked my wife unprovoked, and now she’s attempting an illegal eviction. We are legal tenants here."
Officer Cole blinked, looking over Demetrius's shoulder as I walked out onto the porch.
"Evening, Ms. Evelyn," Cole said, his shoulders visibly dropping with respect. "Everything alright here?"
"Does it look like everything is alright?!" Makenna shrieked, springing up, her pink dress stained orange and brown. "She punched me! Why are you chatting with her like you're at a church picnic? Look at my face!"
Cole glanced at Makenna’s cheek, which was indeed swollen and red, then looked at the broken serving platters visible through the front doorway.
"Deputy," I said calmly, crossing my arms over my chest. "Twenty minutes ago, this young woman stood at my dining room table, screamed profanities, and flipped a heavy wooden table loaded with boiling gumbo and hot dishes directly toward twelve guests—including eighty-two-year-old Mrs. Fontenot."
Mrs. Fontenot stepped forward from the driveway, her phone held high like a torch. "I have the entire sequence of events recorded in high definition, Marcus," she announced proudly. "From the moment the girl started screaming to the moment Evelyn neutralized the threat."
Makenna’s face went pasty white under the smear of sweet potatoes.
"Let me see that, ma'am," Cole said, stepping toward Mrs. Fontenot.
Demetrius tried to interject, his voice cracking. "It doesn't matter what happened before! Self-defense doesn't cover punching someone after the fact! And what about our home? We live here! She threw our belongings into the dirt!"
"Do you have a lease, son?" Cole asked without looking up from the phone screen, where Makenna’s screech and the crash of china could clearly be heard.
"We have mail!" Demetrius yelled. "I have a utility bill confirmation on my phone!"
"A change of address submitted forty-eight hours ago does not constitute a tenancy agreement under state law, Demetrius," a second voice rang out.
It was Marcus’s senior partner, Sergeant Thibodeaux, who had just stepped out of the second cruiser. He was an older man with gray hair, someone who had known me since I was twenty-five years old working the ER night shift.
"Sergeant," Demetrius protested, "this is our family home!"
"No, it isn't," Sergeant Thibodeaux said flatly, looking at the deed papers that I had conveniently left on the entryway credenza next to the guest book. He picked up the heavy manila folder, flipped through the first two pages, and tapped the title insurance document. "Evelyn Miller is the sole owner of this property. No co-signers. No liens. No secondary occupants listed. And from what I’m seeing on this phone video..."
Thibodeaux turned his gaze onto Makenna, whose aggressive posture was rapidly dissolving into sheer terror. "...you, young lady, committed aggravated battery with a deadly weapon when you flipped a table covered in boiling hot soup at senior citizens."
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Makenna backed up against the porch railing. "It... it was an accident! I lost my temper!"
"You threw a cast-iron pot of gumbo at an eighty-year-old woman's knees," Thibodeaux countered, his voice hard as river rock. "If Ms. Evelyn wants to press charges, you’re spending the night in the parish jail. And as for you, Demetrius—if you don't start picking up your wife's undergarments off this woman's lawn within the next sixty seconds, I’m citing you both for criminal trespass and littering."
