“Then what you’re saying is Bryce has been letting you down, and you were upset with him even before he drove you to the Square. When you realized you had nothing to change into, that was the catalyst.” Benton slides his reading glasses out of their case. “But the fuel load was already laid.”
“And what fuel load might you mean?” I smooth my napkin over my skirt and am reminded of how badly I want to get out of these clothes.
“I think you know.”
What he’s leading up to is my family-specifically my reaction to my sister’s uninvited and unexpected visit, and I glance at the time. I’d planned on heading to Logan by nine thirty but now I’m not sure what to do. Lucy says Dorothy might be late. Well it would be nice of my sister to let me know so Benton and I don’t race away from here and end up sitting outside the baggage area for hours.
“Bryce stopped by my office around four thirty to give me a ride to The Coop, to take me on any errands and then drop me off here,” I begin recounting what happened this afternoon. “And that was fine except he wouldn’t stop talking. I honestly couldn’t take it.”
“Talking about what?”
“That’s very difficult to reconstruct when it’s Bryce. It seems he’s convinced I don’t feel the same about him, that I don’t like him or want him around, and this predates today’s incident with the panty hose. Lately I’ve gotten the impression he has some strange notion that I’ve distanced myself and am thinking of firing him or who knows what.”
“Based on?” Benton slips on the reading glasses, parking them low on his straight narrow nose, his hazel eyes finding me over the top of the frames.
“Based on his repeated questions about what else he’d done wrong. He kept asking that when he was arguing with me in front of The Coop.”
“Were you arguing or was he?”
“I’ve always heard it takes two.”
Benton laughs. “It doesn’t when it’s him. Bryce is pretty good at playing both sides of the net.”
“I didn’t argue. I just resisted and denied, telling him I needed to go. He was so worried about the broiling heat, and here I was standing out in the middle of it because he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“So in other words, he’s reacting to you.” Benton picks up the thickly bound wine list that was on top of his menu.
“As usual but it’s more extreme, it seems.”
“This may shape up to being one of those unfortunate situations that’s all about bad timing.” Benton turns several thick creamy pages, glancing at wines. “I hope not. But it was bad timing for you to get out of sorts with him while a detractor, possibly a stalker, was watching. Normally we could let it go, dismiss it as a deranged rambling. But the marijuana-leaf tattoo is a problem. If it wasn’t for that detail I wouldn’t give any credence to someone calling in what sounds like a completely frivolous complaint. I wouldn’t even bother listening.”
“What are you saying?” I reply. “And how did you know about the tattoo?”
But Benton turns another page in the wine list. He doesn’t answer.
“Are you suggesting that you’ve listened to the nine-one-one recording? Is that what you’re telling me?” I ask him next.
CHAPTER 7
THE WAITER HAS RETURNED with a bottle of still water, and we’re quiet as he fills our glasses.
We say nothing unless it’s related to appetizers and how lovely it is to have the dining room all to ourselves for as long as it lasts. Benton always gets the crab cakes with grilled scallions and pickled banana peppers, and I usually indulge in the lobster bisque with lemon brown butter.
But it’s too hot for either, we decide, and instead we pick the Mediterranean salad with heirloom tomatoes and crumbled feta. I ask if we can substitute purple onions for sweet ones and have extra dressing on the side with crushed red pepper to add a kick. I order another bottle of water, this one sparkling with lots of lime. The instant the waiter has moved on I return to what Benton was saying.
“What do you mean you wouldn’t bother?” I ask. “Your wife is the subject of a police complaint and you wouldn’t bother to pay attention? Even if it’s chickenshit?”
“This wouldn’t be the first time unstable people have spotted you in public and called the police and the media.” Benton turns another page in the wine list, and the light catches his gold signet ring engraved with his family coat of arms. “You’re recognizable, Kay, and people associate you with sensational crimes and disasters. I could tell you otherwise but it wouldn’t be the truth. So yes.” He glances up at me. “I might not have paid attention or as close attention as I should have.”
“You’ve listened to the recording.” I won’t let him evade the question. “I’m going to keep asking.”
He silently reads the wine list, and I can see his eyes moving up and down a page of white Burgundies. I’m not sure why. The most he can have is a glass. In a while he has to drive, and I think of Dorothy and get only more adamant with Benton. I can’t seem to help it.
“I want to hear the recording,” I tell him. “Do you have a copy? And I’m not interested in the transcript. I want to hear the bastard lie about me.”
“Marino should play it for you,” Benton says as he turns pages back and forth between different types of wines. “I assume he’s investigating your egregious disturbance of the peace just like any lead detective worth his salt would spend his time doing.”
“I told you he wouldn’t tell me scarcely anything the person said. He wouldn’t discuss it in detail, and legally I can push this, Benton. I have a right to face my accuser, and in this case the accuser is the person who’s lying about me on that recording. I want to hear it for myself-with my own ears. There are no legal grounds for withholding that recording from me unless you think I’m implicated in a federal crime. And last I checked, disturbing the peace wasn’t.”
This is exactly what Benton wants me to do-to threaten him in a confrontational offended way that doesn’t really reflect my true feelings. What I mustn’t do is treat him like my husband when it comes to this particular matter, which ironically he wouldn’t know about in the first place if we weren’t a couple. He needs to be Special Agent Benton Wesley this moment and I need to be the Chief, and we’ve been down this road many times.
He turns another page in the carte des vins. “I think we should have white wine,” he says. “But it depends on what you want to eat. We’ll have just enough to taste and cork the rest for later, after we finally get home.”
“It would take nothing more than a Freedom of Information Act request. But it’s stupid to make me go through that. I was thinking about fish. Something light.” I open my menu without picking it up as he reaches down next to his chair and finds his briefcase.
He places it in his lap, and I hear the bright snap of the locks again.
“Remember what my eighth-grade teacher said to me?” He pulls out his wireless headset in its zip-up case. “Good ol’ Mr. Broadmoor…”
“Who declared that one day you’re going to get what you ask for and be sorry,” I finish the anecdote for Benton, one he repeats often when he’s sure it applies to me.
“It won’t be pleasant and I’d rather spare you.” He unzips the small black case. “But as you know, the laws about nine-one-one recordings are rather murky in Massachusetts. There’s no statute that tells me you can’t listen. You’re right about that.”