"Mr. Jeremy?"
But Agnes Torres knew there would be no answer. Mr. Jeremy wasn't sleeping, not with his charred eyes burned permanently open, the ashy cone of his mouth frozen in a scream and his blackened tongue-swelled to the size of a chorizo sausage-sticking straight up from it like a flagpole. A sleeping man wouldn't be lying with his elbows raised above the bed, fists clenched so hard that blood had leaked between the fingers. A sleeping man wouldn't have his torso scorched and caved in upon itself like a burned log. She had seen many dead people during her childhood in Colombia, and Mr. Jeremy looked deader than any of them. He was as dead as they come.
She heard someone speaking and realized it was herself, murmuring En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo . She crossed herself yet again, fumbling out her rosary, unable to move her feet or take her eyes from the scene in the room. There was a scorched mark on the floor, right at the foot of the bed: a mark which Agnes recognized.
In that moment, she understood exactly what had happened to Mr. Jeremy Grove.
A muffled cry escaped her throat and she suddenly had the energy to back out of the room and shut the door. She fumbled with the keys and relocked it, all the while murmuring Creo en Dios, Padre todopoderoso, creator del cielo y de la tierra. She crossed herself again and again and again, clutching the rosary and holding it up to her chest as she backed down the hall, step by step, sobs mingling with her mumbled prayers.
The cloven hoofprint burned into the floor told her everything she needed to know. The devil had finally come for Jeremy Grove.
{ 2 }
The sergeant paused from stretching the yellow police tape to take in the scene with a jaundiced eye. It was a mess that was about to become a fucking mess. The barricades had been set up too late, and rubberneckers had overrun the beach and dunes, ruining any clues the sand might have held. Then the barricades had been set up in the wrong places and had to be moved, trapping a matched set of his-and-hers Range Rovers, and the two people were now out of their cars, yelling about important appointments (hairdresser, tennis) and brandishing their cell phones, threatening to call their lawyers.
That wet sound over his shoulder was the shit already hitting the fan. It was the sixteenth of October in Southampton, Long Island, and the town's most notorious resident had just been found murdered in bed.
He heard Lieutenant Braskie's voice. "Sergeant, you haven't done these hedges! Didn't I tell you I wanted the whole crime scene taped?"
Without bothering to respond, the sergeant began hanging the yellow tape along the hedge surrounding the Grove Estate. As if the twelve-foot hedge with the concertina wire hidden within wasn't enough to stop a reporter, but the plastic tape was. He could see the TV trucks already arriving, vans with satellite uplinks, and could hear the distant dull thud of a chopper. The local press were piling up against the Dune Road barricade, arguing with the cops. Meanwhile, backup squad cars were arriving from Sag Harbor and East Hampton along with the South Fork homicide squad. The lieutenant was deploying these newcomers along the beaches and dunes in a failing attempt to keep the public at bay. The SOC boys were arriving, and the sergeant watched them entering the house, carrying their metal crime lab suitcases. There was a time when he would have been with them, even directing them-but that was a long time ago, in another place.
He continued hanging tape on the hedges until he reached the dunes along the beach. A few cops were already there, keeping back the curious. They were pretty much a docile crowd, staring like dumb animals toward the shingled mansion with its peaks and turrets and funny-looking windows. It was already turning into a party. Someone had fired up a boom box and some buffed-up guys were cracking beers. It was an unusually hot Indian summer day and they were all in shorts or swimming trunks, as if in denial over the end of summer. The sergeant scoffed, imagined what those cut bodies would look like after twenty years of beer and chips. Probably a lot like his.
He glanced back at the house and saw the SOC boys crawling across the lawn on hands and knees, the lieutenant striding alongside. The guy didn't have a clue. He felt another pang. Here he was, pulling crowd control, his training and talent wasted while the real police work went on somewhere else.
No use thinking about that now.
Now the TV trucks had unpacked, and their cameras were set up in a cluster, with a good angle on the mansion, while the glamour-boy correspondents yammered into their microphones. And wouldn't you know it: Lieutenant Braskie had left the SOC boys and was heading over to the cameras like a fly to a fresh pile.
The sergeant shook his head. Unbelievable.
He saw a man running low through the dunes, zigzagging this way and that, and he took off after him, cutting him off at the edge of the lawn. It was a photographer. By the time the sergeant reached him, he'd already dropped to his knee and was shooting with a telephoto as long as an elephant's dick toward one of the homicide detectives from East Hampton, who was interviewing a maid on the veranda.
The sergeant laid a hand on the lens, gently turning it aside.
"Out."
"Officer, come on, please-"
"You don't want me to confiscate your film, do you?" He spoke kindly. He'd always had a soft spot for people who were just trying to do their job, even if they were press.
The man got up, walked a few paces, turned for one final quick shot, and then scurried off. The sergeant walked back up toward the house. He was downwind of the rambling old place, and there was a funny smell in the air, like fireworks or something. He noticed the lieutenant was now standing in the middle of the semicircle of TV cameras, having the time of his life. Braskie was planning to run for chief in the next election, and with the current chief on vacation, he couldn't have gotten a better break than if he'd committed the murder himself.
The sergeant took a detour around the lawn and cut behind a small duck pond and fountain, keeping out of the way of the SOC team. As he came around some hedges he saw a man in the distance, standing by the duck pond, throwing pieces of bread to the ducks. He was dressed in the gaudiest day-tripper style imaginable, complete with Hawaiian shirt, Oakley Eye Jacket shades, and giant baggy shorts. Even though summer had ended over a month ago, it looked like this was the man's first day in the sun after a long, cold winter. Maybe a dozen winters. While the sergeant had some sympathy for a photographer or reporter trying to do his job, he had absolutely no tolerance for tourists. They were the scum of the earth.
"Hey. You."
The man looked up.
"What do you think you're doing? Don't you know this is a crime scene?"
"Yes, Officer, and I do apologize-"
"Get the hell out."
"But, Sergeant, it's important the ducks be fed. They're hungry. I imagine that someone feeds them every morning, but this morning, as you know-" He smiled and shrugged.
The sergeant could hardly believe it. A guy gets murdered, and this idiot is worried about ducks?
"Let's see some ID."
"Of course, of course." The man started fishing in his pocket, fished in another, then looked up sheepishly. "Sorry about that, Officer. I threw on these shorts as soon as I heard the terrible news, but it appears my wallet is still in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing last night." His New York accent grated on the sergeant's nerves.
The sergeant looked at the guy. Normally he would just chase him back behind the barriers. But there was something about him that didn't quite wash. For one thing, the clothes he was wearing were so new they still smelled of a menswear shop. For another thing, they were such a hideous mixture of colors and patterns that it looked like he'd plucked them randomly from a rack in the village boutique. This was more than just bad taste-this was a disguise.