Patricia Cornwell - Isle of Dogs

"Here we are talking about lightning and people's homes and clothing burning up, and then a candlestick lands in the butter," the First Lady said in a hushed, ominous tone. "I hope that's not a sign."

"Emmm emm." Pony shook his head and clucked his tongue. "I sure do hope you're right. Don't need no sign like that."

"What sign?" the governor came to and instantly thought of VASCAR and the signs Major Trader intended to post throughout the Commonwealth. "Get Trader on the phone," Crimm ordered Pony. "Tell him I want a briefing immediately on how things are going on Tangier Island. We should have that speed trap painted by now. And ask Trooper Macovich if he's figured out who Trooper Truth is yet. I'm going to find that scoundrel and silence him before he does any more damage! I don't give a hootenanny about the First Amendment!"

He pounded the table again, and Pony caught the candlestick just in time.

T.T. had not caught on to anything just in time, and Unique was certain T.T. had been more than dead by the time Unique had walked back across the footbridge last night and eventually driven off in her Miata. Even so, Unique felt a strong urge to check things out. Her memory of what had transpired after she and T.T. had gotten to the island was patchy and vague, but based on the amount of blood on her clothing she saw when she finally returned to her shabby downtown apartment, Unique had a pretty good idea of what she had done to that presumptuous, ugly woman who had been so bold as to think Unique would be interested in her or was her type at all.

She parked near Belle Island and set off in tennis shoes, carrying a Polaroid camera for what would appear to be a brisk morning nature walk. In the light of day, the island looked very different, and it took Unique a good twenty minutes to find the brick ruins where she apparently had dragged T.T.'s nude body, although Unique had no recollection of having done anything after she slashed the young woman's throat from ear to ear. Unique's pulse picked up and she felt a surge of power, excitement, and sexual arousal as she stood just inside crumbled brick walls and stared at the mutilated, bloody body lying face up in the mud.

T.T.'s eyes were partially open and dull, and her hair was clotted with blood and dirt. It disgusted Unique to think she had ever touched her lips or any part of her. She squatted and took photographs from every angle, so she could clearly remind herself of the event later without running the risk of having the film developed in a shop. She was a little surprised when she leaned in for close-ups and detected the faint scent of T.T.'s cologne, which brought back memories of a scream and then a gurgling sound as T.T. clutched her neck while Unique kicked her head before slashing her breasts and carving the name Trooper Truth across her belly. Unique was impressed that she had been clever enough to add the Trooper Truth bit. T.T. had wished she was Trooper Truth, and now she was.

"You got what you wanted," Unique said softly to the cold, gory body as she headed back to the footbridge.

She was long gone in her car when T.T.'s office began calling her home number to see why she hadn't shown up at work that morning. Unique was cruising past the blond undercover cop's row house when two women taking a walk with their babies in strollers discovered the appalling sight in the brick ruins on Belle Island at the very moment Pony pretended to discover the governor's missing magnifying glass.

Pony knew how out of sorts the governor got when he couldn't find one of his eccentric optical aids, and although the First Lady had given Pony strict instructions that he was not to make it easy for her husband to see while he was home, because of the trivets, Pony decided he needed to do something quick. He dipped into a pocket of his crisp white jacket and withdrew the silver magnifying glass, which he silently set inside a pewter compote.

"Well, I'll be!" he exclaimed. "Look what I found. Here's your magnifying glass, sir. Why you putting it in the compote for?"

Maude Crimm gave Pony the dirty look he deserved for defying her directive. She met the governor's enlarged right eye as he peered through the magnifying glass and scanned his surroundings.

"Where in thunder are the girls?" he inquired as he realized that his daughters were not sitting at the table.

"Oh, I told them they could sleep a little late this morning," their mother replied. "They stayed up late watching TV and are worn out. Isn't that something? Your magnifying glass was in the compote. Bedford, you need to keep better track of it, dear."

"From now on, it doesn't leave me," he threatened as his wife stiffened. "From now on, I intend to see what's going on under my own roof, you hear me? I wasn't born yesterday. Oh no, I wasn't. I was born in 1929 and am no fool." He pointed a stubby finger at his wife. "You're hiding something from me, Maude."

"I most certainly am not," she lied as she worried about the trivet she had found on the Internet that morning.

Governor Crimm pushed back his chair and got up with the napkin still tucked into his collar like a misplaced cape. For the first time in his marriage, he began to entertain the suspicion that his wife might be having an affair. There could very well be another man in the mansion right this minute, and that's why someone had deliberately tucked his magnifying glass in the compote. He imagined all the men out there who would jump at the chance to sleep with a First Lady, especially his, and the governor's submarine lurched violently.

"So that's what this is about!" he declared from the arched doorway as his daughters' thick, tired feet sounded on the stairs.

He had her figured out, all right. Of course, he knew what she was doing, and he imagined her casting her bo-somy, moist spell on other men. While Crimm anguished over erotic, unseemly images, the First Lady thought of her growing stash of trivets in the linen closet and panicked. Her husband somehow knew about them. Pony, meanwhile, decided it was time to brew fresh coffee and vanished without a sound as Mrs. Crimm's eyes filled with tears and her daughters' loud, slow approach drew nearer.

"Oh, will you ever forgive me, Bedford?" Mrs. Crimm begged and sniffed.

His magnifying glass caught the edge of the napkin and he yanked it out of his collar and flung it to the floor, his worst fear realized.

"Just tell me how," he said as cramps seized his submarine. "How did you find them? The phone book? Dinner parties?"

"Never at dinner parties." She was stunned that he might think she would go to a dinner party and steal a trivet. "I would never do anything that low. Nor do I need to," she added somewhat indignantly. "I found them on the Internet, if you must know. You can find anything on the Internet these days, and the temptation has been overwhelming. Oh Bedford, I just can't help myself. No matter how ashamed I feel, I know it will happen again. I suppose there are much worse flaws I could have."

"There is no worse flaw you could have! And Pony must be in on it, too," the governor said breathlessly as his submarine cut through the dark, convoluted surface of his well-being, the periscope up and spying on the enemy, which in this case was his unfaithful wife. "That scoundrel Pony had to know what you've been doing since he's here waiting on you hand and foot all day. And I doubt they've been sneaking into the mansion at night. Please don't tell me they have! That would be the most vile of degradations if you've been sneaking them in at night while I'm sleeping in the same bed! Go back upstairs this instant!" he ordered his daughters. "We're having a fight, and you know we never fight in front of you!"

"Never at night," Mrs. Crimm swore as her daughters' heavy footsteps sluggishly shuffled around and thudded back upstairs. "After I get them, they always arrive the next morning, sweet husband, and I've been hiding them in a linen closet."