Isle of Dogs by Patricia Cornwell

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, andthat’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 bosomy, 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 bethe 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