She ran her fingers through her hair, realizing what Bryce and Fielding meant. Over the past year, she’d let her hair grow out another inch.

“You’re right,” she said. “Bryce—Mr. Hygiene—is always nagging me about it. It’s that in-between length where I can’t completely cover it, and yet it’s not long enough to tuck in. So there’s always a little fringe of it exposed.”

“He and Fielding both say the same thing,” Benton said. “This photograph was taken recently. As recently as the past six months, because both of them believe this was taken since they started working for you. They’re basing this on the length of your hair, the watch you’re wearing, and the face shield is the same type you use.”

“It’s just a face shield. Not like our fancy safety glasses with different neon-colored frames to cheer up the place.”

“Anyway, I’m inclined to agree with them,” Benton said.

“That says something. Because, obviously, if it was taken in Watertown, they’re on the list of suspects. And they don’t recall noticing anybody else taking it?”

“That’s the difficulty,” Benton said. “Everybody and their brother who’s through your place, as I pointed out earlier, could have done it. You can tell from your demeanor, the expression on your face, that you had no idea it was being taken. A quick picture taken with a cell phone. That’s my guess.”

“It wasn’t Marino, then,” she said. “He’s certainly not been within camera range.”

“I suspect he hates having that column on the Internet even more than you do, Kay. It wouldn’t make any sense to think Marino’s behind this.”

She looked through more photographs of Terri Bridges’s body on the bathroom floor, perplexed by the thin gold chain around her left ankle. She handed a close-up to Benton.

“Oscar told the police he’d never seen it before,” he said. “And since you don’t seem to know where it came from, I’m going to conclude that either Oscar told you he knew nothing about it or he didn’t mention it at all.”

“Suffice it to say, I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “But it doesn’t look like something she’d wear. For one thing, it doesn’t fit. It’s much too tight. Either she’d had the bracelet for a long time and had gained weight, or someone gave it to her without realizing or even caring what size she needed. I don’t think she bought it for herself, in other words.”

“So I’ll make my sexist comment,” Benton said. “A man is more likely to make a mistake like that than another woman. Had a woman bought this for her, she likely would be aware that Terri has thick ankles.”