“The way things are going there may not be a later.” I don’t want to sound incensed but I do. “If that damn MP5K is ever connected even indirectly to Lucy? It makes no difference that the gun was a movie prop at one time. Maybe it was refurbished. Carrie could have done that blindfolded I’m guessing,” I say and Benton is quiet. “And what a lot of trouble she could cause whether the records have been tampered with or not. Who’s going to prove they’ve been tampered with or even admit it because that alone is a massive public perception problem. You know what they say about revenge. It’s much better served cold. So why not wait years, almost a decade or even longer to decimate everyone you hate.”

“I knew what Carrie did at the time,” Benton says. “Lucy had to explain why the MP5K wasn’t returned to the display case in my unit. She said Carrie had it and wouldn’t give it back, and then they broke up and that was that. There’s paperwork about the gun or prop disappearing. Of course it could be returned to working order and Lucy knew that too. Even as a teenager she was too smart to be hoodwinked.”

“Erin Loria probably wasn’t. She probably isn’t.”

“I won’t argue with you.”

“If a movie prop became a working firearm again and it now appears it was used to assassinate someone”—I give him a scenario—“Erin might truly believe she’s in serious trouble.”

“Especially if Carrie’s done things to make her paranoid,” Benton agrees, and he knows far more than he’s saying.

“Which might explain her leading a raid on Lucy’s property. It might explain one of the most bogus search warrants I’ve seen in a while. Whose idea was it to transfer Erin Loria to Boston?”

“After you were shot in Florida she requested it.”

“I’m sure she did. Probably about the same time she fell into the trap of believing a former movie prop she’d once been in illegal possession of was suddenly matched to frag recovered from an assassination in 2007,” I reply. “But even if going after Lucy was Erin’s idea the Bureau has to be cooperating or nothing would be happening. So in essence the FBI deliberately moved Erin Loria here to sic her on Lucy.”

“I don’t deny that’s true,” Benton says as Marino orders me to floor it.

“Cambridge Street over to Charlestown Ave.” His voice is loud and urgent. “The old gravel quarry.”

THERE’S NO GOOD REASON for him to have driven his cruiser to the River Basin, especially in this weather. He wasn’t responding to a call. He wasn’t meeting anyone. Not officially.