The Bone Bed

him on Twitter to begin with? Unless there’s a personal reason to get him into serious trouble?”
    “Lucy set him up on Twitter in early July. When he moved into his new house,” I recall. “When did he and
Pretty Please
start tweeting each other?”
    “He claims she tweeted him first. He says this was late August, close to Labor Day, maybe the weekend before. That she said she was, quote, ‘a fan
.
’”
    “A fan of Jeff Bridges’ or of Marino’s?”
    “Exactly. Because he’s such an idiot,” Benton says. “Using the avatar of a character from some bowling movie, calling himself
The Dude.
From which Marino instantly concluded that she must be a bowling enthusiast, meaning they have something in common.”
    I slow to a stop in Peggy Lynn Stanton’s neighborhood, the headlights shining through rain, illuminating the dark street and the cars lining both sides of it.
    “I’ll go through all the tweets, his e-mails, his phone records, whatever it takes,” Benton says. “Because I’m the one who will get him out of this mess he’s made, isn’t that the irony?”
    Houses are old but not historic or expensive for Cambridge, single-family and occupied, charming and pristinely kept, and so close together it would be difficult for a person to walk between them.
    “He assumed she bowls, or she said she did?” I ask.
    Yards are small or nonexistent, parking coveted. Neighbors would be keenly aware of vehicles that don’t belong here.
    “I don’t know in detail what was tweeted back and forth between them, but he seems to have the impression she’s an avid bowler. Or was.”
    I try to imagine forcing a woman from her house, and I can’t see it. I can’t imagine someone screaming or causing any sort of disturbance that wouldn’t be witnessed. We sit in silence in the drumming rain, distant lightning like a flash going off as thunder rolls. I don’t believe Benton thinks Peggy Lynn Stanton was killed in her house or abducted from it, and I ask him that.
    “The fact is we don’t know,” he says. “Doug has her own opinion, but it’s not necessarily mine.”
    “Tell me yours.”
    “I’ll tell you who.”
    “Do you have a suspect in mind?”
    “I know who he is, in his late twenties at least but probably older.” Benton scans where we are on the dark rainy street. “Intelligent, accomplished, blends in but is isolated emotionally. Doesn’t get close. Those who think they know him don’t.”
    “‘Him’?”
    “Yes.” Benton looks at cars; he looks at houses. “Familiar with boating. Likely has a boat or access to one.”
    I think about Marino’s obsession with the CFC getting a boat, and I wonder who else he’s said this to.
    “Needs no help operating it, is skillful enough to pilot it alone.”
    Benton rolls down his window and stares out at the dark.
    “A smooth talker, glib, completely confident he can convince anyone of anything, including police, the Coast Guard.”
    He’s unmindful of the rain blowing in.
    “If his boat broke down or he got stopped while he had a dead body on board, he would be certain he could charm and convince and no one would know. Someone fearless. Someone with financial means.”
    Marino has a captain’s license issued by the Coast Guard.
    “A narcissistic sociopath,” Benton says, to the rain and the night. “A sexual sadist whose arousal comes from causing fear, from tormenting, from degrading, from controlling.”
    “So far I’ve found no evidence of sexual assault,” I let him know.
    “He doesn’t sexually assault them. He has a physical aversion to his victims because they’re beneath him. He makes sure they know how beneath him they are. Your description of a booby trap is correct, the more I think about it.”
    “A booby trap intended to pull her apart, to decapitate her, and maybe some or all of the body is lost. Why?” I ask. “Because he doesn’t want her identified?”
    “Because killing her wasn’t enough. He could kill her every day and it wouldn’t be enough to fill the void in him that was left by some terrible devastation he suffered earlier in life.”
    “A devastation you know about?”
    “I know because they’re all different and the same. A monster no one recognizes. Goes about his normal business while he keeps a dead body in a refrigerator or a freezer because he can’t let it go, can’t let go of the fantasy. He has to relive what he did to her constantly. And even when he finally decided to dispose of