“Anyone else you can think of who was directly affected by Donnie’s murder?” Phil asked.

“Not that comes to mind.”

“Friends of Donnie’s? The kids from back then who knew him best?”

Mrs. Davies shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that much about Donnie. He was just one of the kids. You should ask Charlie; he’d remember the younger crowd better than I.”

Phil nodded. He asked for the full names of the other children who’d been staying in the home while Shana was there. Samuel Hayes, AnaRose Simmons, Trevor Damon.

We rose to standing, the orange tabby leaping gracefully from my lap.

For all the strain and remembered sorrow of our conversation, I could tell that Mrs. Davies was sad to see us leave. I wondered what it must feel like, still living in the same neighborhood after all these years, and still feeling like a pariah.

I leaned over instinctively and kissed her on her papery-thin cheek.

She squeezed my hand.

Then she escorted us back down the long, narrow hallway to the front entrance. The last I saw was her deeply lined, sorrowful face, right before she closed the door.

Chapter 29

HOW’S YOUR SHOULDER?”

“Fine,” D.D. grumbled, though in fact, her shoulder was killing her and she knew she had to be moving even more stiffly than usual. She should be at home, resting, icing, delivering impassioned soliloquies to Melvin. Instead, she’d pushed it too hard today, and now her shoulder, arm and neck were paying the price.

She didn’t care. At least, she didn’t want to care; she was a detective on a case. And things were finally getting interesting.

She glanced over at Adeline, who was walking on one side of her, Phil on the other, as they headed back to Phil’s car. Parking was a bitch in Southie; they had a ways to go.

“Do you know you’re bleeding?” she asked the doctor now.

“What?” Adeline stopped walking.

D.D. regarded the doctor curiously as Adeline took a quick inventory of her body, finally discovering the three gouge marks on her wrist, probably left by the cat as it’d leapt down from her lap.

“Are you allergic to cats?” D.D. asked, because in addition to bleeding, the scratches appeared swollen.

“I don’t know. I don’t spend time around animals. For just this reason.”

“You can’t feel that?” Phil spoke up.

The doctor’s features remained expressionless. She shook her head.

“I have a first aid kit in my car,” he offered.

“Thank you.”

“I bet if we clean the marks with an antiseptic wipe, that’ll do the trick.”

“Thank you,” Adeline repeated. They continued walking, the doctor appearing more troubled than before.