I also don’t trust Benton’s imperviousness to the helicopter that’s begun flying up and down the river. Or maybe it’s more than one. But he acts as if he doesn’t notice what at this hour isn’t a sightseeing tour, and it sounds too big to be a local TV news crew. I have a feeling the Feds have started showing up or are about to, and I don’t think Marino suspects what’s going on. Probably because oblivion is better, and as I rest and hydrate I give him another second or two before he faces reality in a most unhappy way. I know a not-so-friendly takeover when I see one.

“… The question’s also going to be why she really left their employment,” Benton is talking to Marino about the Portisons in London and their former au pair Elisa Vandersteel. “Because if the family was happy with her they would move heaven and earth to hang on to her. Why did she leave?”

“Maybe her visa.”

“There are ways around that if the family wanted to keep her and she wanted to stay. The two boys are older though. Thirteen and fourteen, and it may be as simple as they don’t need someone looking after them anymore.”

“What two boys? How the hell do you know that? Did Lucy tell you?”

But Benton doesn’t feel obligated to answer questions unless it suits him. He’s asking and commenting about the case as if he’s in charge, and Marino is beginning to fidget and get flustered. After carefully packing his Pelican case, he’s suddenly kneeling back on the grass to reopen it as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

“Yeah, I know what the questions are,” he retorts, unsnapping clasps, and he’s getting defensive and louder. “You must have talked to Lucy and I don’t know why because last I checked this wasn’t your damn case.”

“Maybe she found out something from the people at the theater?” Benton doesn’t answer that question either as he looks toward the body some fifty feet away. “For example, what or who brought her to Cambridge?”

Marino opens the big lid on his scene case.

“The question is whether Elisa Vandersteel was an intended target or simply random—in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Whose question?” Marino begins rechecking the evidence he packaged, and I see his paranoia and anger grow by leaps and bounds. “I thought you were here to talk about Briggs.” His hot flushed face stares warily at Benton as the truth sinks in.