“Now I’m wondering,” he says. “Now I’m really wondering.”
“It could be Lucy, too. She might have been reacting to Lucy,” I consider, as I get eggs from the refrigerator and begin cracking them in a bowl. “People aren’t always one thing. Almost never, if they’re honest about it. I’m not aware they really know each other, beyond Lucy making a point to avoid her and every other FBI agent if possible.”
“Could be something conflicted there.” Benton refills his cup and checks mine. “She’s asked me about her.”
“She’s asked you about Lucy?”
“She’s curious about Lucy’s FBI past. Why she left the Bureau. Why she left ATF.”
“What did you tell her?” I turn on the stovetop.
“Nothing.”
“She’s just curious, or are her questions an attempt to be critical? Maybe she wants to find out information that might make her feel superior to Lucy.”
“Doug’s competitive.”
“You probably don’t know the half of it.” I open a cabinet, deciding on cookware.
“I don’t talk about us, don’t confide in her, never have and wouldn’t.”
“I’m not surprised. You barely confide in me.”
“I know Doug takes all sorts of stuff, has real problems with allergies, but I’d never really given it a second thought.”
“Have you seen symptoms and behavior like this from the beginning?” I whisk eggs and melt butter in a saucepan. “What about when you first started working with her closely?”
“On and off and then on. These past few months? On all the time. Revved up like an overspeeding engine.” He drops English muffins in the toaster. “I thought it was her mood, her problem.”
“Her problem with you. There should be chopped asparagus and fresh basil on the top shelf. Refrigerator one. Fig preserves are in the door of refrigerator two.” I am overly diligent about having plenty of food in the house.
If I have a compulsion, it’s making sure I don’t run out of anything I might need for cooking, especially if the weather is taking a turn for the worse.
“When I finally realized what she felt, by then it was pretty bad, and I attributed it to her being anxious, stressed, when she was around me.” He sets the jar of preserves, the basil, and the asparagus on the counter near me. “Cheese?”
“Parmesan is already grated. And you’re in charge of the preserves.” I slide the jar back in his direction. “It will be good on the muffins.”
I need to get to the store today. There probably won’t be time. I uncover Parmigiano-Reggiano I grated late last night and asparagus I chopped while I was waiting for Benton to come home. I whisk the eggs, adding salt and pepper.
“Pseudoephedrine is structurally similar to amphetamine and has been used for performance enhancement.” I tear the basil leaves and mix them in. “It’s commonly abused by athletes, for example, causing euphoria, boundless energy, and people can get dependent, taking it three or four times a day or even more. Some use it to lose weight because it’s an appetite suppressant.”
“She certainly doesn’t need to lose weight.”
“Maybe that’s why.”
“I’m suggesting she request a transfer to a different field office.”
“You suggested it or you’re going to suggest it?” I turn the heat down very low. “And how did the moment of enlightenment happen after you’d gone all this time supposedly assuming she’s gay?”
“When we went to Quantico together in August.” He checks the muffins and presses the levers back down. “She wanted to come into my room, and it became quite apparent what her interest was, and I made it very clear it wasn’t going to happen.”
“And last night?” I open the oven door to make sure the broiler is heating up. “When she dropped you off to pick up your car and you didn’t get home until some two hours later? By which time I’d gone through half a bottle of wine by myself and dinner was ruined.”
“We sat in your parking lot talking,” he says, and I believe him. “She can’t get over it.”
“She can’t get over you.”
“I guess not. No.”
“I guess even an FBI agent can have a personality disorder. Narcissist? Borderline? Sociopath, or a little dash or all three? What is she? Because I know you know.”
“I don’t expect you to feel sorry for her, Kay.”
“Good.” I grab potholders. “Because I don’t.”
I lift the stainless-steel saucepan off the induction stovetop and place it inside the oven on the top shelf.
“This will take all of ten seconds, and I’m quite sure the muffins must be done,” I say. “She tries to seduce my husband, wants Marino to go to jail and basically accuses me of being a liar and resorts to interrogation methods reminiscent of rubber hoses.”
“She probably needs a leave of absence.”
“It was her intention to degrade if not annihilate the competition.”
“She probably needs to see someone.” He pops up the muffins and quickly drops them on a plate and butters them. “She needs to be away from Boston and, quite frankly, away from me. I need her away from me.”
Lightly brown on top, the frittata is done, and I slide it out of the saucepan and onto a platter and slice it like pizza while Benton continues telling me his concerns about Douglas Burke.
“The problem is, you seek counseling, especially if you need to be on meds, it’s not just your own private business.” He carries our coffees and silverware to the breakfast table by the window. “With the Bureau, nothing is just your own private business. So she doesn’t want help even though she needs it.”
“Are you worried she might be a danger to herself?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you don’t know, that’s the same as saying yes.” I pull out a chair, and the morning beyond the window is getting light and a car going by on the street is moving slowly, carefully, because of ice. “If you don’t know if she’s safe for herself or maybe others, then you have to assume she isn’t. What do you do about that?”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to talk to Jim.”
Jim Demar is the special agent in charge of the Boston Field Office.
“Unfortunately, it will give a life to something.” He spreads fig preserves on half a muffin, which he offers to me. “She could be put on administrative leave with pay, which wouldn’t be the worst thing if it gives her time to get her head straight, maybe get her moved and let her start fresh.”
“Where?”
“I’m going to recommend Louisville, Kentucky, where she’s from. A new office there, a great facility and lots of opportunity. Maybe the Joint Terrorism Task Force or the Intelligence Fusion Center or foreign counterintelligence or public corruption.”
“Whatever gets her mind off of you,” I reply.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine. It’s just not a good fit for her around here.”
• • •
I think about that as I drive back to the CFC, not a good fit, and yet Douglas Burke’s problem has nothing to do with Boston and everything to do with Benton. He’s being naïve, and it concerns me, and I contemplate how strange it might seem to almost anyone that my husband the profiler can be thick, downright dense. I’ve never been in this exact predicament. I’ve never had to deal with someone obsessed with my husband quite to this degree, and he doesn’t see it the way I do. Douglas Burke is dangerous to herself and I’m not sure to whom else.
twenty-eight
I PULL IN BEHIND MY BUILDING AND CAN DETERMINE BY the cars in the lot the key people who are here, the ones I will need. Luke and Anne, and Ernie, George and Cybil, and I notice Toby’s pickup truck. He’s on call tonight and is supposed to be off today. His red Tacoma is parked in an Investigation space next to the white Tahoe I was in yesterday, and I think of what Lucy said when we talked at one a.m.