“Chanel Gilbert was on the manifest, Kay,” he says. “And when agents boarded the plane at Logan they checked passports as you’d expect. There’s no question who was on Lucy’s jet.”

“Quite to the contrary. I think there are plenty of questions about who was on it.” I concentrate on my driving, careful to avoid deep puddles and big branches that are down.

I try not to give in to what I’m feeling. It’s bad enough that Lucy might have met Chanel in Bermuda. But if Lucy flew her to Boston then that likely makes Lucy a suspect in Chanel’s homicide. It could explain some of what’s happened today. But I don’t believe it explains all of it.

“Are we absolutely certain it was Chanel on the jet?” I ask him again. “As opposed to someone pretending to be her? Or maybe I should wonder if someone was impersonating Chanel Gilbert. Who the hell got murdered if it wasn’t her?”

“We’re sure of her identity,” Benton says, answering nothing.

He may be sure of her identity. But that doesn’t mean he’s telling us the truth about it.

“Did she work for you?” I ask him point-blank. “Was she undercover FBI?”

“Not for us. But with us.”

“I’m getting the feeling that after she left the Navy she didn’t merely do photography,” I reply wryly and with an edge. “But she may very well have suffered from PTSD. I would imagine working for some intelligence service like the CIA is very stressful. When were she and Lucy on the jet?”

“They landed in Logan day before yesterday, Wednesday,” Benton says.

“I assume you checked the catering in addition to the manifest,” I reply.

“Why do you ask?”

“Do you know what catering Lucy requested for her guest?”

“Shrimp stir-fry and brown rice.” His eyes are on mine in the mirror. “In addition to the usual things you’d expect Lucy to have on board. Nuts, raw vegetables, humus, tofu. Her standing order.”

“Someone ate Chinese food cold? Not that I haven’t done it a million times right out of the carton,” Marino says and I slow down as water blasts the undercarriage of the SUV. “But not on a private plane. Lucy’s doesn’t have a big galley and she refuses to have a flight attendant. Stir-fry seems a weird thing for catering.”

“Chanel’s gastric contents are consistent with her eating shrimp, rice and vegetables but the timing is off,” I reply. “Her meal had barely begun to digest. She certainly didn’t eat it during the short flight from Bermuda to Boston. But what I’m wondering is if she might have taken it home for later. If she’d been out of the house for months as her mother claims then there wouldn’t have been anything in the refrigerator, nothing much to eat.”