They continued to the side door of the house. A policeman opened it for them, nodding at the lieutenant. They gathered in the foyer, where Braskie paused.
'We're still trying to get a handle on ingress and egress,' he said. 'The gate was locked and the grounds were alarmed. Circuit breakers and motion sensors, activated by keypad. We're checking out who had the codes. The doors and windows to the house were also locked and alarmed. There are motion detectors throughout the house as well as infrared sensors and lasers. We've tested the alarm system and it's working perfectly. As you can see, Mr. Grove had a rather valuable collection of art, but nothing seems to be missing.'
Pendergast cast an admiring glance toward one of the nearby paintings. To D'Agosta, it looked like a cross between a pig, a pair of dice, and a naked woman.
'Mr. Grove had a party last night. It was a small party, five in all.'
'Do you have the guest list?'
Braskie turned to D'Agosta. 'Get the list from Innocente.'
Pendergast stayed D'Agosta with a hand. 'I should prefer that the sergeant stay here and listen, Lieutenant, if you could spare another officer.'
Braskie paused long enough to cast a suspicious glance at D'Agosta, then gestured to another cop in the room.
'Pray continue.'
'By all accounts, the last guest was gone by 12:30. They all pretty much left together. From that point until 7:30 this morning, Grove was alone.'
'Do you have a time of death?'
'Not yet. The M.E. is still upstairs. We know he was alive at 3:10A.M. because that's when he called a Father Cappi.'
'Grove called a priest?' Pendergast seemed surprised.
'It seems Cappi had been an old friend, but he hadn't seen Grove in thirty, forty years. They had some kind of falling-out. Anyway, it didn't matter: all Grove got was the answering machine.'
'I'll need a copy of the message.'
'Certainly. Grove was hysterical. He wanted Father Cappi to come over right away.'
'With a Bible, cross, and holy water, by chance?' Pendergast asked.
'I see you've already heard about the call.'
'No, it was just a guess.'
'Father Cappi arrived at eight this morning. He came straight after getting the message. But, of course, by then it was too late, and all he could do was give the body the last rites.'
'Have the guests been questioned?'
'Preliminary statements. That's how we know when the party broke up. It seems Grove was not in good form last night. He was excited, garrulous, some say frightened.'
'Could anyone have stayed behind, or perhaps slipped back inside after the guests had left?'
'That's a theory we're working on. Mr. Grove had, ah, perverse sexual tastes.'
Pendergast raised his eyebrows. 'How so?'
'He liked men and women.'
'And the perverse sexual tastes?'
'Just what I said. Men and women.'
'You mean he was bisexual? As I understand it, thirty percent of all men have such tendencies.'
'Not in Southampton they don't.'
D'Agosta stifled a laugh with a burst of coughing.
'Excellent work so far, Lieutenant. Shall we move on to the scene of the crime?'
Braskie turned, and they followed him through the house. The peculiar smell that D'Agosta had caught a whiff of out on the lawn was much stronger here. Matches, fireworks, gunpowder-what exactly was that? It mingled with a smell of burned wood and a gamy roast of some kind. It reminded D'Agosta of the bear meat he had once tried roasting at his house outside Invermere, British Columbia, brought to him by a friend. His wife had walked out in disgust. They'd ended up ordering pizza.
They mounted one set of stairs, threaded a winding hallway, came to a second staircase.
'This door was locked,' said Braskie. 'The housekeeper opened it.'
They climbed the narrow, creaking staircase to the attic floor. At the top was a long hall with doors left and right. At the far end, one door was open and a bright light shone out. D'Agosta breathed through his mouth.
'The door to that far room and its window were also locked,' Braskie continued. 'The deceased, it appears, piled furniture up against it from the inside.' He stepped across the threshold, Pendergast and D'Agosta following. The stench was now overpowering.
It was a small bedroom tucked beneath the eaves of the house, with a single dormer window looking out toward Dune Road. Jeremy Grove lay on the bed at the far side of the room. He was fully dressed, although the clothes had been slit in places to accommodate the M.E.'s investigations. The M.E. was standing beside the bed, back turned, writing on a clipboard.
