Detective Murray exchanged a glance with the other officer, and when he spoke again his tone was much more formal. “Yes, ma’am, that’s right. No one was aware of the damage until this morning. On Friday night, we had no indication that there were additional youths in the area, and we had no reason to suspect there was anything going on at your house.”

He sounded defensive, Maja thought. They were getting off on the wrong foot, and that was the last thing she needed. She sighed. “So, where do we go from here?”

“First one of my officers is going to need to speak with your contractor and get his statement. The guy who called it in?”

“That’s John. He’s in the house,” Maja said. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to help you.” The officer nodded and went inside.

“And I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Go ahead. I’m not sure how much I can help, though. I just got here.”

Detective Murray flipped open his book and took out a little gold pen. Maja found it comforting that he was taking actual notes.

“How would you describe your relationship with your contractor?” he asked. “Any problems come up during the construction?”

“No, nothing. Everything’s gone really well. I mean, there’s always a few things that don’t go as planned in this sort of process, and everything costs twice as much as you think it will, but John’s been really on top of everything.”

“Oh? What hasn’t gone as planned?”

“Just, you know, it took awhile to get the building permits and then we had some scheduling issues. And somehow the wrong tile was ordered for the kitchen. But we got everything cleared up and worked out. There’s no way he had anything to do with this.”

“Okay. Now, I have to ask, is there anyone around here that might have a grudge against you or your husband, or who you would consider an enemy?”

“An enemy?” Maja asked in surprise. “No, we don’t have any enemies here. We only know a few people here, actually.” She paused. “It feels like someone here must hate us, though.”

The detective nodded sympathetically. “Like I said, I had to ask. But this doesn’t look like anything personal. Just kids getting out of control. This is a really nice town. Good people.”

She didn’t love the way he said that. It sounded dismissive, like he was excusing what happened. “My house—my home—has been destroyed,” she said. “I don’t give a shit if it was just kids. And I can’t imagine they’re good people.”