“A broken-out window with no screen,” Machado says, and what he just overheard seems etched in the air. “You know, near the ground, and the garage doesn’t have an alarm, maybe the cat somehow pushed it open and pushed out the screen. So I guess it’s been in and out of the garage all this time, made a bed in a box in there. Probably plenty to eat around here, or maybe people were feeding it.”

I take the cat from Benton, short-haired gray-and-white, with gold eyes and flat ears, a Scottish Fold that looks like an owl, the flea collar around its neck faded and old.

“No tag,” Benton says, and the look he gives Burke is piercing.

“Obviously an indoor cat. A girl. What’s your name?” I wrap her in a clean towel, and she doesn’t resist me. “I see. You’re not going to say.”

She’s thin and dirty but seems in relatively good shape, her claws very long and curled and needle-sharp.

“Well, it didn’t get out of the house on its own.” Benton looks at me, and he knows what just happened. “And she certainly wouldn’t have abandoned it.”

Peggy Stanton wouldn’t have put her cat outdoors and then left town, and his rage is simmering.

“So who let her cat out?” He pulls off his white hood and runs his fingers through his hair. “Someone who has no regard for human life but wouldn’t hurt an animal.” He bends over to take off his boot covers. “Had it been left in the house, it would have starved to death. So he came back. He let himself in. He knew her alarm code. And he had her keys.”

“There was an open bag of treats on the counter.” The cat has tucked its head under my chin and is purring. “Treats to lure her so he could let her out, perhaps?”

“Where are these treats?” Machado takes off his boot covers, and they are wet and dirty from walking outside.

I indicate the bags of evidence I’ve set on the entryway table.

“If he needed to lure the cat, then he wasn’t someone familiar,” Benton says.

“Did she run from you?” I ask.

“Came right up to us when we were inside the garage.”

“Well, she seems very friendly but maybe wasn’t with him. Maybe she sensed something that made her wary,” I reply, as I wonder what I’m going to do with her.

I’m not leaving her here.

“It looks like the electrical panel was recently modified.” Benton says this to me and ignores Douglas Burke, and I know when he’s seething. “A subpanel that doesn’t meet code. In the basement.”

“Hooked up to what?” The cat rubs against my ear, purring.