John shook his head. “Just my crew. Once or twice a neighbor would get close enough to get a look—the neighbors are always curious when a new house goes up. A few times I noticed some beer cans down by the riverfront on a Monday morning.”

“That didn’t concern you?”

“It’s a construction site.” John shrugged. “The owners can put up security cameras if they want to.”

“What about your crew?” Murray asked. It had occurred to him that a lot of guys working construction jobs in the area were just out of high school themselves. “Can we get a list of who’s been at the site?”

“Sure,” John said. “But it wasn’t my guys. Most of them have been working for me for a few years, at least. They do their drinking in their own homes.”

“You didn’t seem very shocked when you called it in yesterday,” Murray said, changing tack.

John frowned. “I don’t like what you’re implying. But no, I wasn’t totally shocked. A house like that—it was a target. What do you expect when half the people around here live in mansions and half of them work landscaping jobs? But like I said, I build what the client wants. And I didn’t like seeing my work destroyed, whatever you might think. I had nothing to do with that.”

“Tell me about Friday afternoon,” Murray said.

“It was a normal day. We were sanding the floors and putting in some of the light fixtures. I stopped by around three-thirty. I looked over what had been done, and then told the guys to call it a day. We were out of there by four.”

“And the house was secure when you left?”

“It was.”

“How do you think the vandals got access to the house?”

John gave a dry laugh. “You saw the place. They coulda walked right in through any of those broken windows. The house was secure, but a brick through the window will change that real quick.”

“What about the garage door? I was told that the opener is missing.”

For the first time since they started talking, John’s face seemed to darken. “That damn garage door,” he muttered. And then, more clearly: “It could be anywhere. It’s a mess in there. Whoever broke in could have taken it with them.”

Murray picked up on the defensiveness in the contractor’s voice, but he kept his own tone even. “Did the garage door give you some trouble?” he asked.