Ice and Stone

Sunday, January 13

8:10 a.m.

I sat at Jane’s kitchen table poring over a sectional aviation chart for northern California and southern Oregon. Sectionals — an informal term derived from their propensity to fall apart along their fold lines — are fascinating documents. Among other things, they tell you terrain elevations; airports; landmarks such as buildings, lakes, and rivers; navigation routes; and airspace restrictions. Flight computers are standard now, but for those of us who enjoy maps, a sectional is a thing of joy.

I moved my finger along slowly, tracing small ranch roads and larger arteries, noting peaks and valleys. The territory I was interested in showed no restricted areas for military installations, no sensitive areas for nesting birds. Small strips abounded, but the chart showed most were not open to the public, as was the case with the one I was looking for: SupremeCourt, a play on the name Harcourt. Elevation 2,701.

Now I scanned the land around it. There was a high mass marked “Peak” and a lower land rise not far from the strip to the west, elevation 2,902, in a section marked “Ranch.” The Harcourt property. The land rise would provide an excellent vantage point for keeping track of what was going on at SupremeCourt, if I could get to it.

A main road — Highway 9, where Sally Bee had been dumped — passed about a mile below the peak. Another road intersected with the highway and meandered up to the high mass; in between was open, hilly land. The highway was at 1,912 feet. Could I climb up across the area between the road and the peak lugging the equipment I needed to take? I doubted it.

I called Jane at her shop and described what I was looking at.

“Your map doesn’t accurately reflect the other side of Sheik’s Peak,” she said. “There’re hiking trails, but you have to know the territory to find them. We used to hike all around there when we were kids.”

“Sheik’s Peak. Odd name.”

“It’s been called that for a century or more. Nobody around here seems to know why.”

“Do any of the trails extend onto the Harcourt property?”

“I’m not sure, but that’s posted land if so. No trespassing.”

“Who would know for sure?”

“Jake Blue. Nobody knows that country better than Jake.”

9:02 a.m.

I continued to study the sectional, then finally picked up my felt-tip and drew a circle around the land rise overlooking the Harcourts’ airstrip, some two hundred feet higher and two miles away.

My next move, I decided, was to make a reconnaissance flight over the Harcourts’ property and airstrip. I drove to the airport, and within an hour I was airborne in my Cessna, through a light fog that dissipated as I gained altitude.

Aspendale looked tidy from high above, buildings arranged on a grid that ended abruptly at flat, winter-brown pasture where cows grazed. I spotted part of the silvery Little White River snaking through forestland to the east, and to the north the rugged peaks of the Meruk Range, jutting up dark and threatening. There was a reservoir, its ripples winking in the pale sunlight, and beyond it a flat bluff and the buildings of the Harcourt cattle ranch.

I made a descending turn and flew toward the bluff.

The main ranch house was a sprawling white stucco structure with satellite dishes on the roof. There were galvanized iron barns and outbuildings and a hangar at the airstrip, all the roofs painted rust red. The airstrip had a well-paved runway — 9/27 — taxiways, gas pumps, and a small terminal. A few single-engine planes and one small jet were tied down near the terminal. There were no people out and about in the area that I could see.

I picked up my microphone and tried to get through to a UNICOM. Nothing. Why not, with all the other conveniences?

Jake Blue had told me the ranch was maybe forty-five thousand acres; scattered herds of cattle grazed on the long stretches of open pastureland below the bluff, but not as many head as I would’ve expected. Maybe the cattle were a hobby — or a cover.

I ascended and circled over the land again. Besides cattle graze, some of it was covered in forest, mostly pines. To the north a massive stone formation, some hundreds of feet tall and wide, dominated the high ground, a remainder from when volcanic activity had spewed such masses upward into the deserts. This was Sheik’s Peak, as I remembered from my sectional.

1:20 p.m.

When I got back, I asked Hal for directions to Roblar Road and Hogwash Farm. It was a short distance outside Aspendale to the southwest, and I found it easily enough.

The ranch house was clapboard that had long ago turned gray. A dilapidated swing with many of its slats missing rocked on the porch in the faint breeze. I knocked at the door, and after a few moments a series of thumping noises came from within. The door opened with a creak, and an old man with a long white beard looked out at me. His face was sculpted by the wrinkles that come from long exposure to the sun, and his freckled head was entirely bald, as if all of his body’s energy had gone into creating the beard. When he spoke his voice was gravelly.

“You must be looking for the kids,” he said.

“The kids?”

“Them down at the barn.” He gestured to my right.

“Sasha Whitehorse and...?”

“Yeah, them. Sasha and Whitney and Gloria and Daniel. They run the farm for me, and I let them have the barn in exchange.”

“Oh, right. Jane Ramone told me about your arrangement. Is that the barn over there?” I pointed to a structure even more dilapidated and graying than the house.

“Nah, that’s an old wreck. Where they live is a prefab they put together themselves. What you do is go through those pines and you’ll find it in the clearing.”

I thanked him and went through the dense trees, batting away branches. The wide space beyond was full of dead weeds flattened by the rain and snow. A bright-red barn sat on its far side, smoke coming from a stovepipe chimney. I braved the weeds, occasionally slipping into the mud beneath them.

A tall, skinny man with long blond hair answered my knock. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Whitney.” Two other shapes appeared in the dim light behind him. “And this is Daniel and Gloria. Come in.”

I wasn’t used to just showing up and being asked in — not in my line of work, where my appearance wasn’t always greeted cordially. “Did the man at the farmhouse phone you?”

“Right,” Whitney replied. “He always alerts us to visitors.”

Why was that necessary? I wondered. Probably they were growing dope or cooking meth.

I entered, studying the three people in front of me. Daniel was medium height and stocky, with thick black-rimmed glasses. Gloria was short and overweight, with a cascade of blond curls.

“Have you heard from Sasha?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Whitney said, “but she’ll show up.”

“Which one of you is her boyfriend?”

Whitney silently raised his hand.

I sat down on the oversize pillow he offered me, drawing my legs up like the others. There were no furnishings in the room, except for the cushions and a blue hearth rug in front of the blazing woodstove.

Gloria asked, “Would you like some tea? It’s brambleberry, infused with nutmeg. Our special blend.”

“Oh, no, thank you. I can’t stay long. You don’t seem particularly worried about Sasha. Did she say when she’d be back?”

“She doesn’t have to,” Whitney said, “we’re all free to come and go as we please.”

“Sounds like a very comfortable way to live.”

Daniel smiled. “The world outside — it’s too hung up on time. Watches, appointment calendars, date reminders on the computer screen. We left all that when we came here.”

“There’s not a clock in the house,” Gloria said.

“So you have no idea when Sasha left?”

Headshakes. Whitney said, “Our world is come and go. No one keeps track of anyone.”

I suddenly felt as if I’d slipped into some time warp to the sixties, to days of freedom and peace and love and — from this vantage point — a fair amount of bullshit.

I asked, “How did Sasha seem before she left?”

“Seem?” Daniel looked surprised.

“As in her emotional and mental state?”

“Oh, that,” Gloria said. “She was just like always.”

“Not really.” Whitney shook his head. “Sasha was worried about something. She’s very reserved, and she wouldn’t say about what. Besides, when the four of us moved in here, we decided we wouldn’t let negative energy invade our home.”

“So if something was bothering you, you wouldn’t mention it?”

“Not if it brought distress to the others.”

“Wouldn’t the others wonder what it might be?”

He shrugged. “Only if I’d given an indication that I wanted them to ask.”

And they wouldn’t ask because they don’t want to disturb the group’s carefully constructed paradise.

I said, “So you don’t know when Sasha left, where she went, or when — or if — she’ll come back.”

“That’s about it.” Whitney spread his hands.

“Are any of you concerned about her?”

The three exchanged looks. Whitney said, “We wish her well.”

I got up and stared at them, taking in their indifference. Finally I said, “What I’d like to know is who programs people like you?”

They looked bewildered.

I left.

3:01 p.m.

It occurred to me on the drive back to the village that one line of inquiry I’d failed to follow up on concerned Dorothy Lagomarsino, Dierdra Two Shoes’s mother. The woman had secrets, had hinted to me that she was blackmailing someone. Whatever it was had to do with her daughter and was apparently serious enough that one or more of the county’s affluent men were willing to pay for her silence. How to pry the information out of her?

Take her a bottle.

It was a solution I’d heard voiced in a couple of movies I’d seen, and, given the accumulation of Southern Comfort bottles I’d noticed in Dorothy’s home, it was a good one. It had worked in the movies. Why not in real life?

3:32 p.m.

I wasn’t sure what Miss Manners would say about the appropriate time for getting an old lady drunk, but I suspected Dorothy got started early. As I approached her trailer clutching the bottle of Southern Comfort, I heard strains of music. Perry Como’s “For the Good Times.” Dierdra’s mother must be in a mellow mood.

I knocked at the door, and Dorothy called for me to come in. I entered, holding out the bottle. She was seated in her lounger, wearing another wildly patterned muumuu.

“For me?” she asked in childlike tones, motioning at the bottle.

“For you.”

She reached for it eagerly, then heaved her bulk up and hurried to the small kitchen, switching off the old-fashioned record player on the way. “You want to share?” she called. The question was voiced reluctantly.

“No, thanks. I’ll take a soda if you’ve got one.”

“Pepsi okay? I don’t like Coke.”

“Pepsi’s fine.”

I heard her opening the liquor bottle and pouring into a glass. She swallowed deeply, then poured again. On her way past the couch where I’d seated myself, she handed me an unopened can of Pepsi.

“You know how to treat a girl,” she said, settling into her lounger. “It’s a bribe, isn’t it?”

“Right.”

She drank and belched loudly. “’Scuse me. I guess you brought me the booze because you want me to tell you about Dierdra and her men.”

“Only if you want to.”

“Only if you want to,” she mocked me. “Why would I do that, and give away the best free ride I’ve ever had?”

I shrugged, drank some Pepsi.

“I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Never thought you were.”

“So what’ll we talk about?” she asked, snuggling into the chair.

“Dierdra.”

“Why? What’s the use?” By now Dorothy was getting deep into the Southern Comfort.

“Why not? From what I’ve heard, she was a good person.”

“You know, she wasn’t a bad girl. She just liked to go out and kick up her heels like her ma.”

Leave it to Southern Comfort to bring out her maternal feelings.

“She had a lot of friends, then?”

“Oh, she did — men and women too.”

“Who, for instance?”

Dorothy waggled a thick finger at me. “We’re not naming names.”

“You said ‘kick up her heels.’ Did she like to dance?”

“That girl would’ve liked to do nothing but dance. And she was good. I was too, in my day. There’s this tavern over near Bluefork, called the Other Place, they welcome Natives. The Wolf’s Den at the truck stop, that’s another. She’d go out to one or the other with her friend Kelley and they’d dance till closing.”

Kelley.

“What kind of dances did they like?”

“All kinds, but usually peppy ones. I don’t remember what they’re called any more. My Dierdra, she could sure shake a leg.”

“Anyplace else she and this Kelley liked to go?”

“Well, not the Indian casino. It’s no fun. You know, honey, you look like you wouldn’t be a half-bad dancer.”

“Maybe, in high school. But it’s been a long time.”

“Oh, honey, you’re not that old. Now I’m that old, for sure.”

She frowned, at the point in her drinking where she was headed for a pity party, so I steered her in another direction. “Nonsense, you look fit and healthy.”

“Really? I try to eat right, but I could use more exercise.” She smoothed the voluminous muumuu over her heavy body and smiled.

“Exercise is always good.”

“I guess. But you know what — I hate it.”

“Me too. About those other places Dierdra and Kelley liked to dance, maybe I’ve been to them.”

“I’m sure you have. There’s a bar someplace over in Modoc County, I think it’s called the Raven. Once they went all the way to Reno. I don’t recollect—” She broke into a wide yawn.

I decided I’d better move the conversation along quickly. “Kelley must miss her a whole lot.”

“Who?”

“Kelley, her dancing partner. What’s her last name?”

She yawned again. “Oh, I don’t know. They were only close because they were looking for men, and I guess they found them. Dierdra was like me — one man wasn’t enough. I told her, grab yourself one of those rich guys you’re seeing, get set up for life. And she’d say, ‘No, Momma, I’m not ready to settle down to smiling at the other ladies and pouring tea. They wouldn’t accept me anyway.’”

“Who were these other ladies?”

“Huh?” Dorothy shook her head.

“The other ladies who Dierdra thought wouldn’t accept her?”

“Oh, snooty bitches. Like Emily Hope. Whoops — she’s dead. Don’t speak bad of the dead. Emily’s dead, you know.”

“So are you still in touch with Kelley?”

“Yeah, sometimes. She’s still out there kickin’ up her heels, I guess.”

“You seen her recently?”

“No. She used to come around, bring me some flowers and treats. But she’s gone away.” Dorothy’s eyelids were drooping now. “Far, far away. They’s always far, far away when you need ’em.”

“Where can I find Kelley?”

“Who?”

“Dierdra’s friend. What’s her last name?”

“I don’t unnerstand.”

“Kelley, who liked to go dancing with Dierdra.”

But it was Dorothy who was now far, far away. And snoring.

4:22 p.m.

When I got back to Jane’s A-frame, there was a note to call Jake in the middle of the kitchen table. He answered immediately.

“Sasha’s still missing,” he said.

“I know. I just talked to the kids at Hogwash.”

“Those idiots didn’t even ask around about her or call the law! I finally nagged one of Arneson’s deputies to check it out. He went to the graveyard, found the flowers, but no sign of her.”

“And what did he do then?”

“Nothing. Another case of ‘just a Native’ disappearing.”

The graveyard was not far from Jane’s house, Jake told me, behind the Catholic church. I went there to have a look around. The church was small and so was the cemetery, containing no more than fifty monuments, most of them old and weathered and chipped. I walked slowly along the dirt path, past mournful angels and wooden markers with the names worn off and rusted iron fences enclosing individual plots. The sky was gray with approaching dusk, and the pines swayed in the cold wind. Their odor was sharp and tangy, intermixed with other smells that I couldn’t identify.

I found the Whitehorse plot toward the rear, up a small rise, tucked away in perpetual shadow. John and Amelia, no birth or death dates on the small stones. A poor memorial, yet their daughter had cared enough to leave flowers.

They were tulips, garishly pink and waxy, spilled on the ground. There was a receptacle for such offerings, but apparently Sasha hadn’t gotten close enough to set them in it. It interested me that the deputy hadn’t collected them as evidence. I stepped back and studied the marks in the dirt. There was a wide, shallow rut, as if something had been dragged down the rise. Something or someone? If it had been a human body, the person wasn’t very heavy — probably as slight as Sasha.

Had the sheriff’s department examined the rut? Taken photos and soil samples? I bet not, given the law’s carelessness and disinterest in the plight of Indigenous women.

A sudden, heavy wind rattled through the pines, nearly bending them double. I looked up at the sky: black clouds moving in. Rain clouds. But then they veered off and continued to the south. A respite, I was sure, but maybe only a brief one.

6:40 p.m.

I still hadn’t heard from Ike Blessing when Jane returned. There was nothing to be gained in sitting around waiting, so I asked her if she might know Dierdra’s dancing friend, Kelley.

“Sure,” she said. “Kelley Windsong. She’s a dancer, has a studio here in town and also teaches classes on the rez.”

“I’d like to talk with her, maybe get her to take me dancing.”

“You mean tonight?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Let me see if she’s free and willing.” She got on her phone and held a short conversation. “No problem. Kelley will come over here about eight.”

8:05 p.m.

Kelley Windsong was tall, with her long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a woven parka that could only have been designed by Jane, who confirmed that by patting it and saying, “One of mine.”

“So,” Kelley said, “you’re the famous P.I. who’s been giving Sheriff Arneson fits.”

“Maybe not famous, but I certainly hope I’m giving him fits.”

“Good for you. Jane tells me you want to go dancing. Why?”

“Because Dierdra used to go with you, and it might give me a lead to her killer.”

She hesitated. “You think he’s somebody she met in the bars?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But somebody out there’s got to know something.”

“Okay, then. Let’s go see what we can find out.”

8:22 p.m.

The Wolf’s Den’s sign proclaimed that it was howling, and even though this was a Sunday night and still early, it was packed with customers. Kelley snagged us a booth and went to the bar for drinks. A DJ played records, most of them way out of date — try “Earth Angel” and “I Fall to Pieces.” I watched the people on the tiny dance floor. They were a mixed group of all ages: mostly white, but a fair number of Native, Asian, and Black people too. Meruk County’s melting pot.

Kelley returned with our wine, trailed by a woman in a red dress. “This is Jeannie Powell,” she said, “an old friend of Dierdra’s from high school.”

Jeannie Powell looked as if she might be years older than Dierdra had been: her hair was sparse and dry, her face lined with wrinkles of discontent, and she was heavy — no, obese. When I asked her to join us, she refused, saying, “I gotta get back to my old man.”

“What can you tell me about Dierdra Two Shoes?” I asked.

“Not much. I mean, we was buddies in high school, but Dee, she always was the pretty one. Had lots of boys, but grown men too. She told me she was aiming for something big.”

“She say what that was?”

“Dee was secretive. I just thought she’d been watching too much on YouTube.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, she drank too much — but then her mother does too. She was a good drunk, though. Never told secrets.”

“What kind of secrets would she have had?”

Jeannie put her finger to her lips. “Secrets are secrets.” She moved away, weaving slightly, to the bar.

I asked Kelley, “You know what that means?”

“Maybe she was talking about Dierdra’s scams.”

“What kind of scams?”

“Any kind — in person, on the phone, by e-mail. She described some of them to me: she’d call someone from a mailing list and say she was from the IRS and that somebody was trying to steal their Social Security number. They’d give it to her, and then she could get hold of almost any kind of information about them — bank accounts, credit cards, all of it. And there was the one where she’d claim to be a friend of their grandson and needed money to make his bail on a trumped-up charge. Nine times out of ten, they’d wire it to her. A lot of the scams involved elderly people. The scammers think they’re too addled and dumb to realize they’re being conned.”

I thought of Mamie Louise. I doubted she — or a lot of other older people I knew — would have fallen for such scams. Although, she’d seemed too accepting of the Harcourts.

“These lists,” I said, “where did Dee get them?”

“The dark web, probably. Almost anything circulates there.”

“Did she work with a particular person or group?”

“She might have, but I don’t know.”

“Could one of the people she scammed have killed her?”

Kelley considered. “I’d say no. Dee said she used a lot of safeguards. Plus she had something else going for her. I wish I knew what it was.” She looked up. “Uh-oh. Here comes Robbie, the village idiot.”

Robbie was short and pear shaped, with dark hair that stuck up in an unruly cowlick. He leaned on our table, looked at me, and said, “You the P.I. wants to know about the dead girls?”

“I am. You have something to tell me?”

“What’s it worth to you?”

“If your information leads to an arrest and conviction, there’ll be a reward.”

“How much?”

“I can’t say at this point.”

“Well, I got information.” He leaned closer. His breath smelled like garlic.

“Then show me.”

He reached into the pocket of his windbreaker, pulled out a green scarf. “Here. This is the killer’s. I found it up to the old monastery yesterday.”

There had been no green scarf when I’d been up there before. I examined it. “What’s your last name, Robbie?”

“Givens.”

“So your monogram would be R.G.”

“Sure.”

“Then this is your scarf.” I showed him the letters. “Are you claiming to be the killer?”

Alarmed, he snatched the scarf from me and retreated. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

No, I think you’re stupid.

Kelley said, “Let’s get out of here and check out the Other Place.”

9:40 p.m.

The Other Place was nearly dead. One of its big front windows had been broken and covered in plywood. Someone in turn had covered the plywood with graffiti.

“The impending demise of another business in Meruk,” Kelley said. “You want to go in?”

“Sure, why not?”

We went inside. The bar was small, the dance floor smaller, and the music came from a jukebox: the Outlaws — Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Johnny Cash.

The booth we chose had ragged slashes in its leatherette upholstery; the plastic cover on the table was cracked and peeling. A middle-aged waitress who looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but here came to take our order.

Kelley looked around at the handful of other customers, then signaled to a lone man at the bar. He came over and slid into the booth beside her.

“Sharon, this is Jim Grimes. He and I have talked a lot about the murdered women. He called me tonight, just before I left my house, and asked if he could meet you.”

Grimes was Indigenous, with intense eyes and dark hair down to his collarbones. He shook my hand with a strong grip across the table.

He said, “When I talked with Kelley earlier, I knew I had to meet you. I’ve hesitated a long time about speaking up, but after talking with others in the area — Jake Blue, Hal Bascomb, the folks at Hogwash — I decided you ought to know. There’s a connection between those murders and a guy I’ve talked to.”

“What kind of connection?”

He flicked a nervous glance at Kelley. She nodded, urging him on.

“The guy is from here, and he runs a church in a town called Allium south of Bluefork. It’s called the Church of the Native Apostles. It’s not really a church, but a recruitment center. He drags people in off the streets — not always Natives, more like Hispanics — signs them up with a worker’s contract, then ships them off to jobs in remote parts of the state.”

“And takes his fee out of their wages.”

“You got it.”

“D’you have any contact information for him?”

“No, but the church is in an old warehouse from back in the days when the railroad still moved through there.”

“And this guy’s name is...?”

“Carey Foote.”

“And how do I get to this church?”

“I’ll draw you a map.” He scribbled on a paper napkin, held it out to me.

“Thanks,” I said, “I’ll look into it.”

“Is there a reward?”

“If anything comes of it, you bet.”

After Grimes left, Kelley asked, “Did that help?”

“I think it may.”

“Anyplace else you want to go? We could try the bar at the truck stop, but the woman who owns it runs an illegal poker game in the back room. She’s very suspicious that strangers might turn her in, but maybe—”

“I think this tour has given me enough leads; let’s call it a night. And thank you.”

10:45 p.m.

The information about the Church of the Native Apostles was too seductive to resist. I set off south in the Jeep. The moon was full and cast eerie light upon the barren landscape when it came out from behind wind-driven clouds. I felt as if I were driving across an alien planet, one devoid of all life.

I wasn’t familiar with the village of Allium — Latin for onion — but the pungent fragrance of the bulbs in the surrounding fields told me I’d arrived at the right place. There were few lights on in the town and no pedestrians on the street; a cold wind swept litter along the ancient rails. The buildings were mainly old frame, paint flaking off; most of the display windows of the stores on the main street had been smashed and boarded up. Something — probably a door — slapped back and forth. The noise startled me, and I whirled and looked around, then laughed at my jumpiness.

The church was located in a pea-green, falling-down structure near the old train yards. I parked the Jeep in the shelter of a huge juniper tree and walked back to a break in the church’s rusted black iron fence. A path of broken stones led up to a weathered wooden door, which was unlocked and opened on rusty hinges. Inside, the place smelled of mildew and other unpleasant things.

I hesitated inside the door, turned my flash on low. The room in front of me was more of a warehouse than a church. A pair of forklifts and three dollies stood beside a roll-up door that looked as if it might lead to a loading dock; crushed cardboard cartons and disposal bins full of wrappings lined the opposite wall.

At the far end of the space, a truck of the type that delivery services use was parked. I waited, listening for any sounds, then moved forward. The truck was brown, but the logos had been painted over — a retired UPS carrier. I climbed up into the cab and searched the side pockets and bins.

No registration papers. Nothing except, stuffed into the space behind the seats, a map of Meruk County. I turned my light onto it; there were felt-tip markings describing the route I’d just taken from Bluefork. Allium was located at the far northeastern side of the state, only miles from the Nevada border.

So the Native Apostles was a bogus church recruiting and exploiting cheap labor. The surrounding agricultural acres made it a good place to pick up undocumented workers; most would be afraid of being turned in to the immigration authorities and easy to convince to do what the boss man said.

Suddenly I heard a noise nearby. I ducked down in the cab, waited. The door to the loading dock began rolling up, clanging violently. Heavy footsteps sounded against the concrete floor. Then two voices clashed, one angry and raised above the other.

“You stupid bastard, you left the place unlocked!”

“I said I was sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it. Anybody could’ve walked in here and made off with anything.”

“But there’s hardly nothing here. The next shipment isn’t due—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You and your excuses.”

“Look, Carey—”

Carey Foote, leader of the congregation. He didn’t sound so holy to me.

“You want this job?” he went on. “You wanna keep on feeding your family?”

“Of course—”

“Then let’s get going. I guess nothing’s coming through tonight.”

“So you dragged me outta bed for that?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Footsteps crossed the floor, and then the loading dock door rolled down. Outside I heard an engine start — a heavy-duty one, probably an ATV or one of those awful Hummers. Then there was silence.

I waited. A gust of wind swept against the closed door, making the metallic panels groan. There were no more sounds of traffic from outside. I waited some more, then crawled out of the van, shone my flash around, and moved about the warehouse, shining the light into corners and checking the labels on the broken-up cartons.

“Firestarter.”

The Harcourt company.

I tore one of the labels off, then scanned the labels for what the boxes had contained: cameras, video equipment, computer parts. Things that could easily be hijacked and resold at a large profit.

I’d have to learn more about Firestarter.