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look through the glass.
    The place was a disaster. From the sidelight I was looking into a vestibule; if the inner door had been closed I couldn’t have seen anything, but it stood wide, and I saw enough. Glass from smashed pictures sprinkled the stairs, glittering in the hallway lights still burning now, in full daylight. Broken furniture, maybe from the rooms upstairs, littered the landing. I looked left and right through the sidelight, then came back down off the porch and walked through the shrubs to the windows beside it.
    They gave into the living room. The living room was wrecked. No furniture stood upright; a lot of it was ripped, stuffing hanging out, throw pillows thrown, side tables on their sides. One lone oil painting hung on a wall, its mates all fallen, their frames twisted, their canvases slashed. Beer cans, some crushed, some still round and upright, covered the carpet, the mantelpiece, any surface that could hold them, like an occupying army after a mighty battle.
    I walked around the house, looked in other windows. The kitchen, dining room, den were no different. I took out my cell phone and called the police.
    â€œIt’s Bill Smith,” I told the young cop.
    â€œOh, hey, yeah, Sullivan’s available,” he said. “You want him now?”
    â€œYes. But not on the phone. Maybe he, or someone, better get out here.” I gave the Wesleys’ address.
    â€œWhy?” the cop asked. “What’s up?”
    â€œIt looks to me like someone had a party.”

four
    I was sitting on the porch steps smoking a cigarette when the cops got there. They came up the curved drive in a blue-and-white with gold Warrenstown PD insignia sparkling on the doors. The cop behind the wheel pulled next to my Acura. A tall man ducked his head to get himself out of the passenger seat, reset his hat as I came down to meet them.
    â€œJim Sullivan,” he said, offering his hand. “You Smith?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong here?”
    â€œTake a look.”
    Our footsteps crunched over the expanse of marble chips that blanketed the drive. “You called before. You wanted to talk to me about Gary Russell,” Sullivan said. He had a marine’s weathered face, a marine’s bristled haircut and straight back. He was an inch or so taller than I was, younger but not by much, and thinner, hard-looking, a man who still spent time in the gym. All the cops I knew who made detective grabbed the chance to go back into civilian clothes, but Sullivan wore a uniform, same navy pants and tie as the cop who’d driven him, flawless white shirt, short jacket with bars on the shoulders.
    â€œI’m trying to find him,” I said. “I came out here to see Tory Wesley. I heard she’s a friend of his.”
    The bushes rustled as we pushed through them to reach the living room windows. Sullivan said, “Oh, Jesus.”
    The other cop, the one who’d been driving, came to stand beside us. “Wow,” he said.
    Sullivan gave a short laugh. “Burke’s new,” he told me. “Your first, huh?” he said to Burke.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œFirst what?” I asked.
    Sullivan’s look said it had just occurred to him I might be new, too. “Parents Are Away Party. P double-A P, they’re called. Tradition in this town. Parents go away, leave the kid home alone. Kid invites a few friends over, have a little party Saturday night. Word spreads, next thing you know, every kid in Warrenstown’s there. Usually ends up like this.”
    â€œLike this?” I said. “This place is destroyed.”
    â€œLike this. We get two or three a year, some not this bad, some worse. Two years ago they burned a house down.”
    â€œAnd this is what you call a tradition here?”
    He shrugged, looked in the window, back at me. “You try to get in?”
    â€œNo.”
    Sullivan’s eyebrows lifted. “PI,