Chaos. Patricia Cornwell

as Benton watches me quizzically.

      “Is there something I’m missing?” he finally asks, but the waiter is waiting.

      He stands by our table in his white jacket, starched and buttoned up, and he has the gaunt face and loose skin of someone once handsome who lost a lot of weight. He looks at Benton, the pen resting on the order pad. We’d like water before anything else, my husband says, and suddenly I remember my panty hose in the ladies’ room trash and I’m amused again.

      “I’m sorry.” I dab my eyes with my napkin. “But sometimes I’m struck by the absurdity. To answer your question, I ran my hose just like any other woman, I’m sure.”

      “I doubt it.” He’s watching the waiter talking with the young man we saw out front a few minutes earlier, both of them checking on a big table set for a large party, fussing with silverware, repositioning the flower arrangements. “Usually your mishaps involve sharp weapons, body fluids, and blowflies,” Benton adds.

      “I ran my panty hose on a gurney, one of those cadaver carriers with a crank for raising and lowering. As I was helping lift a body off I got snagged, possibly on one of the casters.”

      “And then what?” and it begins to penetrate that he really is asking for a reason. “You didn’t change into a new pair of panty hose,” he says. “Why not?”

      It’s not a frivolous question after all. Of course nothing he asks really is even when he’s being funny.

      At my headquarters, Bryce is in charge of keeping certain necessities in stock including coffee, snacks, standard toiletries—and extra pairs of panty hose.

      If he doesn’t oversee the supply of such things there’s a good chance they won’t enter my mind because skirts and stockings aren’t my friends even if I pretend otherwise. Given the choice, I wear my usual field clothes of flame- and insect-resistant cargo pants, the more pockets the better, and tactical shirts embroidered with the CFC crest.

      And of course sturdy cotton socks and low-profile boots. I’m also partial to parkas, packable jackets, baseball caps, and I suppose it all goes back to those impressionable years in medical school and the Air Force. When I was getting started I lived in scrubs and BDUs, and if I had my way I still would.

      But since I’m often summoned to testify in depositions, in court and before lawmakers, I have to keep other accoutrements on hand that are appropriate for a director and chief who can influence the type of body armor our soldiers wear or whether someone should land in prison.

      “I go through several pairs of hose a week at work,” I’m explaining all this to Benton. “And I suppose Bryce hasn’t been shopping much in this heat. Or maybe he’s been too busy with his own dramas to bother ordering things online. So yes, I wasn’t happy when I discovered I had nothing to change into after I ruined my hose. But I don’t know why it didn’t enter my mind to stop in the CVS myself at Harvard Square and pick up another pair so I’m not sitting here bare-legged. I suppose that’s yet another miscalculation on my part.”

      “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.

       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