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.
“I’ll be going—”
“No, you won’t.” The sergeant took out his notebook, flipped back a wad of pages, licked his pencil. “You live around here?”
“I’ve taken a house in Amagansett for a week.”
“Address?”
“The Brickman House, Windmill Lane.”
Another rich asshole. “And your permanent address?”
“That would be the Dakota, Central Park West.”
The sergeant paused. Now, that’s a coincidence. Aloud, he said, “Name?”
“Look, Sergeant, honestly, if it’s a problem, I’ll just go on back—”
“Your first name, sir?” he said more sharply.
“Is that really necessary? It’s difficult to spell, even more difficult to pronounce. I often wonder what my mother was thinking—”
The sergeant gave him a look that shut him up quick. One more quip from this asshole, and it would be the cuffs.
“Let’s try again. First name?”
“Aloysius.”
“Spell it.”
The man spelled it.
“Last?”