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against
     crime and all that.
    I noticed a helicopter overhead, and I could see by the light of the moon that it was from one of the networks. Though I couldn’t
     hear the reporter’s voice, he or she was probably saying something like, “Tragedy struck this exclusive Long Island community
     earlier this evening.” Then some stuff about Plum Island and so on.
    I made my way through the last of the stragglers, avoiding anyone who looked like the working press. I stepped over the yellow
     tape, and this immediately attracted a Southold cop. I tinned the guy and got a half-assed salute.
    The uniformed crime scene recorder approached me with a clipboard and time sheet, and again I gave him my name, my business,
     and so forth, as he requested. This is SOP and is done throughout the investigation of the crime, beginning with the first
     officer at the scene and continuing until the last officer leaves and the scene is returned to the owner of the property.
     In any case, they had me twice now and the hook was in deeper.
    I asked the uniformed officer, “Do you have a guy from the Department of Agriculture logged in?”
    He replied without even looking at the sheet, “No.”
    “But there is a man from the Department of Agriculture here. Correct?”
    “You’ll have to ask Chief Maxwell.”
    “I’m asking you why you haven’t logged this guy in.”
    “You’ll have to ask Chief Maxwell.”
    “I will.” Actually, I already knew the answer. They don’t call these guys spooks for nothing.
    I walked around to the backyard and onto the deck. In the places where the Gordons had lain were now two chalk outlines, looking
     very ghostly in the moonlight. A big sheet of clear plastic covered the splatter behind them where their mortality had exited.
    Regarding this, as I said, I was glad this was an open-air shooting, and there was no lingering smell of death. I hate it
     when I go back to the scene of an indoor murder and that smell is still there. Why is it that I can’t get that smell out of
     my mind? Out of my nostrils? Out of the back of my throat? Why is that?
    Two uniformed Southold guys sat at the round patio table drinking from steaming Styrofoam cups. I recognized one of them as
     Officer Johnson, whose kindness in driving me home I had repaid by getting a little rough with him. It’s a tough world, you
     know, and I’m one of the people who make it that way. Officer Johnson gave me an unpleasant glance.
    Down by the dock, I could make out the silhouette of another uniformed man, and I was glad someone had taken my advice to
     post a guard by the boat.
    There was no one else around so I went into the house through the sliding screen door, which opened into a big living room
     and dining room combo. I’d been here before, of course, and recalled that Judy said most of the furnishings came with the
     rental, Scandinavian from Taiwan, as she described it.
    A few forensic types were still messing around, and I asked one of them, a cute latent fingerprint lady, “Chief Maxwell?”
    She jerked her thumb over her shoulder and said, “Kitchen. Don’t touch anything on the way there.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” I floated across the Berber carpet and alighted in the kitchen, where a conference seemed to be in progress.
     Present were Max, representing the sovereign Township of Southold, Elizabeth Penrose, representing the free and independent
     County of Suffolk, a gentleman in a dark suit who didn’t need a sign that said FBI, and another gentleman, more casually dressed
     in denim jacket and jeans, a bloodred shirt, and hiking boots, a sort of parody of what a Department of Agriculture bureaucrat
     might look like if he ever left the office and had to visit a farm.
    Everyone was standing, like they were giving the impression of literally thinking on their feet. There was a cardboard box
     filled with Styrofoam coffee cups, and everyone had a cup in his or her hand. It was interesting and significant, I thought,
     that