"That's exactly what I mean about women, son. They think of all kinds of things at that precise moment because they want to create a diversion." His father shoved a log into the wood stove and sparks flew up in protest. "Your mummy knew exactly what she was doing when she brought up the cat."
Since then, Bedford Crimm not only hated cats, but he also carried a pain in his heart and was deeply insecure because his mummy had committed interruptus during his conception, thus spilling much of his vitality on the quilt. She could not possibly have loved her quickening son much, Bedford mused unhappily as he picked at a poached egg he could scarcely see and groped for the pepper mill and continued to tune out his wife, who was having a stressful conversation with Pony about people who have been struck by lightning. Crimm believed he had put his unfair childhood behind him when he had become powerful in politics, and now Trooper Truth had brought it all back.
A miasma of paranoia and anger leaked through Crimm like a noxious gas, and his submarine went into alert. Somehow Trooper Truth knew the truth about the mighty governor's shameful start in life and the last thing Crimm needed was for others to find out. Oh, of course Trooper Truth knew! He knew everything. Why else would he have mentioned mummies in his essay?
"This is an outrage!" He slammed his fist down on the table and a silver candlestick toppled over into the butter dish.
The breakfast room froze in silence.
After a moment, a startled Maude Crimm said to him, "My goodness! It's a good thing that candle wasn't lit, dear, or the butter might have caught on fire. Real butter is animal fat and will burn just as easily as lighter fluid."
"Not quite as easy as that, ma'am," Pony voiced his opinion. "But don't want to take no chances." He picked up the candlestick and wiped it off with the napkin draped over his arm. "Don't want no fires in the mansion. This place would go up in flames quick as a dried-out broom, old as it is."
"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.