"Did you check the Lafayette Room?" Mrs. Crimm asked her husband. "Sometimes your magnifying glass ends up in there on the Sheraton chest next to the oil lamp. I believe I may have seen it near the two-part mirror the other day, now that I think of it."
"Why would it end up in the Lafayette Room?" the governor sullenly responded. "We only let other governors and former presidents sleep in there. Someone's hiding it from me. What is it you don't want me to see around here?" he demanded as he got up from the spindly old chair.
"You know I never want you to not see anything, dear," she replied as she led him out of the parlor. "However, I did happen to read that dangerous Trooper Truth this morning. I don't suppose you've seen what he put on his website again?" she added to divert his attention.
"What?" the governor followed her and bumped into a tilt-top tea table in a sitting room, jostling a finger lamp. "Did you print it out?"
"Of course I did," Mrs. Crimm gravely said. "Since you can't find your magnifying glass, I'll have to read it to you. But I fear it will aggravate you, Bedford, and upset your submarine again."
The governor did not appreciate his wife's openly discussing his submarine, which was their pet name for his constitution.
"Who's here?" he asked, squinting about, making sure no one was within earshot.
"Nobody's here, precious. Just you and me and we're almost to the breakfast room. There, turn right and watch out for the lithograph. Oops! Here, I'll straighten it."
He heard something scrape as she rearranged the lithograph he had just knocked with his large nose.
"I bang my head on that damn thing one more time," he threatened as he shuffled into the breakfast room and groped for a chair. "What is it of, anyway?"
"William Penn's treaty with the Indians." Mrs. Crimm shook out a linen napkin and tucked it into the collar of her husband's dress shirt, which was buttoned crooked and did not match his paisley suspenders, green velvet vest, or striped necktie.
"This is not Philadelphia and I fail to see why William Penn should be inside the mansion," the governor said. "Since when did that happen?"
Clearly, he had forgotten his wife's fleeting passion for lithographs, if he had ever known about it. The governor sighed as Pony materialized with the coffee pot.
"Good morning, sir," Pony said as he poured.
"No it's not, Pony. No, indeed. The world's going to hell in a handbasket."
"It most certainly is, sir," Pony agreed with a sympathetic nod of the head. "I tell you, I thought the world already went to hell in a handbasket a long time ago, but I was wrong. I sure was. Things is just getting more messed up, that's right. It's enough to make a man want to run down to the church and beg God Hisself to please, please help us out of our misery and forgive our sins and our enemies and make people behave. What wrong with folks anyway?
"You know, the other day when them caters showed up for that big dinner of yours?" Pony went on. "I was minding my own business getting them tea and I heard one of 'em say to the other, 'I wonder if I could take one of these little teacups that's got the Com'wealth of Virginia on it. What you think?' 'I don't know why not,' the other one say. 'You pay tax, don't you?' 'I sure do,' say the other lady cater. 'And nothing in here belong to the Crimm family anyhow. It belong to all of us.' 'Well, if that isn't the God's truth. It belong to us.'
"Then," Pony went on, getting more animated as his tale wore on, "both them caters stuffed their teacups in them big handbags of theirs, can you believe that?"
"Why on earth…?" the First Lady sputtered in shock and disgust. "Why didn't you stop them, for heaven's sake! I certainly hope they didn't take the handleless cups and saucers, those lovely pearlware ones with the Leeds floral design."
"Oh, no, ma'am," Pony assured her. "It was the ones with handles and the Com'wealth logo on 'em in gold."
"You shouldn't be serving tea to caterers, to begin with," Mrs. Crimm reprimanded Pony. "And certainly not in official tea cups. Caterers are common workers, not VIP guests of the mansion, oh dear me." She looked at the governor for support as he slopped coffee on the table cloth and missed the saucer when he set down the cup. "We really must stop being so generous with the public, Bedford. Why, I suppose next thing, some taxi driver or toll collector will show up at the guard gate and demand a private tour which includes tea in official china!"
"The mansion doesn't belong to us," the governor reminded her, and dark thoughts crowded together like unfriendly people on an elevator as the door to his patience slid shut and his mood began to descend. "Any person off the street could come here and ask for a tour, if the truth be known. But that doesn't mean we have to do it or that they can make us. The public doesn't know this is their legal right and I'm not about to tell them. Now read that damn essay to me, Maude."
He was desperately hoping there would be another riddle today that might guide him through the thickets that seemed to be closing in on him from all sides.
"Mummies," she said, peering over reading glasses and scanning the printout. "You know, I've always been rather frightened by mummies, too. I had no idea anyone else felt the same way. But what is all this about Tangier Island? It's the second time Trooper Truth has mentioned it. What's going on out there, Bedford?"
"Would you like grits or hash browns with your eggs?" Pony politely inquired.
"I didn't know we were having eggs," the governor replied.
"I told him poached eggs," Mrs. Crimm informed her husband as she smoothed her dressing gown over her ample lap. "I thought that might be soothing. Nothing like bland food when your submarine's out of sorts."
Governor Crimm's mind, like his constitution, was submerging without any clear direction. He scarcely heard another word his wife said or read as he moved closer to a suspicion that soon enough became a conviction. There was an encrypted message in what Trooper Truth had written about mummies, and Crimm suddenly remembered that as a child, he had called his mother "Mummy."
Lutilla Crimm had conceived her oldest son in a wealthy section of Charlottesville called Farmington during a terrible snowstorm. Crimm dimly conjured up what he could remember hearing about that event, and it seemed that when his father would get annoyed with his wife, he would make snide asides to little Bedford about never allowing a woman to run and ruin his life.
"They're full of mendacity, women are," Bedford's father would say when the two of them were carrying in logs for the wood-burning stove or shoveling snow off the brick sidewalk in front of their imposing brick house that rose before a backdrop of mountains. "They'll sweet-talk you, son, and make you think they're right desperate to have sex with you, then when they've got you wrapped around their fingers and saddled down with kids, guess what?"
"What?" Bedford had begun giving voice to what would become his most frequently asked question.
"What?" echoed his father. "I'll tell you what! They'll suddenly announce that the ceiling needs to be replas-tered or the molding is crumbling or there are cobwebs hanging from the chandelier, right when you're in the middle of…"
"Oh," Bedford replied as he dumped split logs into the bin by the stove.
"Let's just put it this way," his father went on while his wife worked on a needlepoint in her parlor upstairs. "Half of you was scattered over the quilt, son. That's probably why you're a runt with bad eyesight."
"What exactly did Mummy say?" Bedford had to know the truth. "Was she asking about the ceiling or the cobwebs?"
"Neither one. Not that night. She sat straight up in bed and said, 'Why, I don't believe I fed the cat.' "
"Had she?" young Bedford inquired, and he would never forget his dismay at learning that he would forever be visually impaired, short, and homely-all because of a cat. "Why would Mummy suddenly think of the cat at that precise moment?"
"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.
"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."
"Well, you can rest assured I'll check every linen closet the moment I arrive home today," the governor thundered, and he would have checked now, but his submarine was in distress and headed straight for a mine. "And if I find them there-or even one-that's it. I mean it."
"You won't," she said, dabbing her eyes and calculating where she could hide the trivets after she snatched them out of the linen closet the instant he left. "I promise on my life. You can check the linen closets all you like forever, my dearest, and they'll have nothing in them but linens. All of our pretty linens, neatly pressed, folded, and stacked."
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