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.