The Bone Bed

don’t have a guess.”
    “I don’t guess.”
    “Then you don’t know.”
    “I don’t know for a fact at this point.”
    “Isn’t that unusual, when the body is in relatively good shape?” Burke hasn’t taken her eyes off me, and it occurs to me she might think I’m lying.
    “Yes,” I answer. “I find this case extremely complicated and unusual. It’s probably going to be a tox case or asphyxia. It may take a while to sort through it.”
    “Then we’ll look for anything in here that could point in the direction of an overdose, a poisoning, or asphyxia,” she says. “Drugs, meds, something like a plastic dry-cleaning bag that could have been used to smother her.”
    “Then what?” I remind her. “Someone carried her body out of here without anybody seeing it and dumped her into the bay?”
    “I’m hoping you’ll tell me. Cold storage or heat?” Her questions are beginning to feel like an interrogation, as Benton looks around and doesn’t look at us.
    “Where she was kept was cold,” I reply. “Very cold and dry.”
    “We just don’t have the facts,” Burke says dismissively, as my boot covers make plastic sounds on heart pine flooring.
    “Are you allergic to cats?” I ask.
    “As a matter of fact, horribly. And I thought Benton was the psychic.”
    “The plastic ring on the floor.” I indicate what’s behind the umbrella stand. “A cat toy.”
    “No sign, but appears there was one.”
    “As in recently?” Benton is interested.
    “There’s a litter box in the master bath,” Burke says. “Water and food bowls are on the kitchen floor.”
    “But no cat alive or dead?” Benton is caught up in what it might mean.
    “Not so far.”
    “Where is her car key now?” I inspect the entryway table, crafted of old distressed wood with hammered copper accents, the bowl high opalescent glass with a pattern of bluebirds.
    I pick it up and read the back. Lalique
,
another expensive antique, and I wonder if Peggy Stanton spent much time in France.
    “Sil has it. Swabbed it and the keychain for DNA, checking them for possible prints, for anything, before he unlocks her car, assuming the car is locked,” Burke says. “But when the fire guys got us inside, the key was right there in that bowl you’re looking at, what appears to be a key to her 1995 Mercedes. The keychain has an old compass on it, maybe an old Boy Scout compass? Where you’d expect keys to be when someone’s walking into the house. A typical place to put them, just inside the door.”
    “Except if she’s coming in from the garage she’s not likely to walk all the way around to the front, up the steps, and onto the porch, especially if she’s carrying groceries,” I reply. “There’s a path that leads from the garage to a side door that I’m guessing is the kitchen door.”
    “Anything else on the keychain besides a car key and a compass?” Benton asks. “A house key, garage key?”
    “No.”
    “What about mail?” He looks through doorways, but he doesn’t walk inside the rooms. “I noticed a mailbox in front.”
    “Empty.”
    “Was she having her mail forwarded to another address?” I set down the bowl on the smooth top of the hand-built table and don’t believe for a minute that Peggy Stanton kept her car key or any keys in the entryway. “If her mail wasn’t forwarded, the mailbox should be overflowing.”
    “Nothing in it but a couple of circulars, junk mail,” Burke replies. “So it appears someone was taking it for some reason.”
    “The same person paying her bills and impersonating her,” Benton says, as if he knows. “What I’d like to do first is check out the garage, walk the property with Machado, then walk through the house while giving Kay room for what she needs. Doug, maybe you can show her around in here.”
    What he’s doing is giving me space, but he knows I can’t be alone. I convince myself he’s simply following protocol because I don’t want to believe he’s delivered me to this place and to Douglas Burke so she can casually and spontaneously continue an inquisition I can’t afford to abort.
    Looping the camera strap around my neck and picking up my scene case, I tell her for the record that I intend to go through certain areas of the house very thoroughly and it’s important she’s with me the entire time. I won’t open drawers or look inside medicine cabinets or closets unless what I do is witnessed, and I won’t collect any evidence myself unless it