The Bone Bed

does that? Not some stranger.”
    “She might not have been a stranger to him. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a stranger to her. I’m not saying their paths didn’t cross, but that doesn’t mean she was personal with him or even aware of him.” I think of everything Benton said about who we’re looking for. “What I’d like to do is get trace and latent prints started on her car first thing in the morning. In other words, a full-court press. Not just checking mileage and the GPS but checking everything. Can you come in?”
    “With bells on.”
    “And if you happen upon paperwork such as vet records or bills? Maybe something will have the cat’s name on it?”
    “She could have one of those chips.”
    “I’ll have her scanned at the vet’s office,” I reply. “Maybe Bryce can take her in tomorrow. We’ll see if there’s an ID number we can check with the National Pet Registry.”
    I get off the phone, turning right on White Street, and feel terrible that I don’t know what to call her.
    “I’m really sorry, but I can’t just call you ‘the cat,’” I say to her, and she purrs loudly. “If you could talk you could tell me who put you out of the house, what bad person did that. Not just a person who isn’t nice but an evil one, and I suspect you were scared of him because you sensed what he really is. A man nobody thinks twice about. But he’s cruel. And you picked up on it, didn’t you, when he let himself inside your house? You wouldn’t come up to him until he tricked you with those treats I saw on the counter?”
    I stroke her flat-eared head, and she rubs her face against my palm.
    “Or maybe you ran out the door. Maybe you fled. I’ll buy you a bag of treats. The same thing, salmon Greenies, because I know that’s what your mother bought for you, lots and lots of bags of them in a cupboard. And grain-free turkey and salmon, which I also saw in the kitchen, plenty of it. She made sure you were well fed, had lots of healthy things to eat, didn’t she? You don’t seem to have fleas, but I’ll give you a bath and get you cleaned up, so you’re probably going to be angry with me.”
    It’s almost midnight as I pull into the Shaw’s supermarket parking lot, illuminated with tall light standards and bordered by bare trees moving in a wind that has died down considerably.
    “I guess I could call you Shaw,
since this is our first outing together.” I park near the brick columned entrance. “I apologize I don’t know who you are exactly, and I don’t want you to worry, but I’m going to have to leave you in the car for a few minutes because I don’t have anything at home for a cat. Only things for a dog, his very boring fish diet and sweet-potato treats. An old greyhound named Sock who is very shy and probably will be afraid of you.”
    I leave her wrapped in the towel in the driver’s seat, shut the door, and am pointing the remote to lock it when headlights blind me as another car turns in. For an instant I can’t see, and then a window rolls down and Sil Machado is grinning at me.
    “Hey, what’s doing, Doc?”
    “Cat shopping.” I walk over to his Crown Vic. “You following me?”
    “We sure it’s really her cat?” He shifts the car into park and props an arm on the door frame. “And yeah. I’m following you. Somebody’s got to.”
    “Logic would tell you it’s her cat. But I don’t know it for a fact. She certainly seems lost and homeless.” I look around at the almost empty lot, at someone rolling a shopping cart at the far end of it. “Are you coming inside?”
    “Don’t need anything at the store,” he replies. “Just making sure you get home okay.”
    It seems a strange thing for him to say.
    “I know you’re used to riding around all over the place at all hours. But I’m just making sure,” he repeats.
    “Do you know something I don’t?” I notice bags of evidence in the dark backseat, including those I collected.
    “Someone who’s familiar with Cambridge, right?”
    “Someone who’s familiar with her house, her neighborhood. Someone who made himself familiar, anyway.” I step back to look through the driver’s window of my SUV, making sure the cat’s okay.
    She’s sitting up on the towel.
    “Getting her mail out of the box, right? Maybe emptying her garbage and rolling out her can?” Machado looks at me, and he’s as serious and unyielding as granite. “So I’m thinking this guy’s way too comfortable around here. Knows