Stone peered at the screen. “Front door open,” he said.

“Before, it would have said ‘Upstairs bathroom window open.’ And the alarm won’t arm if there’s something open. The house has to be sealed tight.”

Dino came back downstairs. “All right, everything’s closed.”

“I’m going outside again,” Rhinehart said. “Arm the alarm.”

Stone did so, then returned to the study with Dino. They had finished their drinks when the front doorbell rang. He went and let Rhinehart in. “Will you have a drink now?”

“Yes, thanks. Scotch, if you have it.”

Stone poured them all another one, and they sat down in front of the fireplace.

“I couldn’t get in,” Rhinehart said. “Not without taking a chain saw to a wall, anyway. This is the most secure family home I’ve ever been in, and I’ve been in a lot of them. The front door is steel, sheathed in mahogany; the windows are steel and the glass armored; and there are no gaps in the installation—every door and window is alarmed.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Stone said.

“What the hell was Dick expecting?” Rhinehart asked. “He must have spent fifty thousand dollars on security.”

“Dick worked for the State Department,” Stone said. “I think they had the work done.”

“State Department? More like the CIA or NSA,” Rhinehart said. “I doubt if the Secretary of State has this much hard-wired security.”

Stone shrugged.

“The problem, though, is the same as with any two-thousand-dollar installation: You leave a window cracked or just forget to arm the system, and all this security is useless.”

Stone nodded. “You have a point.”

“Is that what happened? Did Dick screw up and not arm the system?”

“Either that, or he let somebody in,” Stone said.

“The locks are something special, too. They’re Swedish, and they use a key that has magnetic points built into it as well as tumblers. I couldn’t pick one of them, and I’m pretty good.”

“I’ll bet you are,” Dino said.

“Hal,” Stone said, “do you have any theories about how or why Dick died?”

“Was anything taken from the house?”

“No.”

“You mean, nothing that you knew about was gone, but then, had you ever set foot in the place before Dick was killed?”

“No, and I wouldn’t have known what he had here. The caretaker and his wife would have known, though, especially the wife, since she cleans the place every day. The only thing she noticed amiss was that a vacuum cleaner was left by that door over there.” He pointed at the door to the terrace.

“So the killer cleaned up after himself.”

“It appears so, and he took the vacuum bag with him.”

“Did the alarm go off?”

“No.”

“Then it wasn’t armed, unless the killer had the code. What time of night did it happen?”

“Some time after midnight, according to the state police.”

“Anybody see anybody come or go?”