“Up to you,” he said.

He gave me his work address and said he’d be in the shop all of Tuesday and Wednesday. He had an installation on Thursday so he’d be gone Thursday and Friday. I told him Tuesday afternoon would be fine. Stacey had called that morning to tell me Grand’s private investigator was still in business, operating out of the same office he’d occupied at the time. My plan was to stop first in Lompoc and talk to Hale Brandenberg, then drive the additional fifty miles north to Belicia, covering both sources in one day.

Tuesday morning I gassed up my car and hit the northbound 101. I had the manila envelope of letters on the passenger seat, along with the invoices Brandenberg had submitted. I assumed there’d once been reports attached, but he might have agreed to convey his findings verbally to avoid written accounts. I’ve done the same thing myself when the issues are sensitive and a paper trail seems unwise. As long as the client is satisfied, I can work either way. I keep a set of notes for my own files, as a hedge against an investigation coming back to bite me in the butt, but the client doesn’t need to know.

The drive was uneventful. The day was gorgeous, temperatures in the low seventies with a light breeze coming off the ocean. I’d had the Mustang serviced the week before and the car was driving like a dream. We’d had intermittent rain in February and March, and the rolling hills on either side of the road had turned a lush green. Thirty-five miles later, I took the 132 off-ramp and drove west toward Vandenberg Air Force Base.

The town of Lompoc boasts a population of roughly thirty-six thousand, with single-family homes ranging in price from $225,000 to $250,000. There’s a small airport, a U.S. penitentiary, an attractive public library, pocket parks, good schools, and three percent more single men than single women, if you happen to be husband hunting. The surrounding area produces half the flower seeds grown in the world, which means that in May, thousands of acres of flowers are visible from the road. This was early in the season, but in another couple of months the fields would be sprouting the colors of a Persian carpet.

The business district was low-key, with wide streets and few structures over two stories high. Hale Brandenberg was on the second floor of a chunky office building. At ground level, to the right, there was a real estate company, its front windows papered with photographs of houses for sale; on the left, a title company. A glass-paneled door between the two opened onto a wide carpeted staircase. The directory posted on the wall showed his suite number as 204.

I went up the stairs, marveling at the proportions of the place. The windows in the upper hallway were huge and the ceilings were easily twenty feet high. A race of giants could have moved in and had headroom to spare. The corridor was dead quiet. I counted eight offices, each entrance marked by a transom above the door, the old-world equivalent of air-conditioning. I was taking a chance he’d be out, but when I tapped on his door and then opened it to stick my head in, he was sitting on the floor in the middle of his one-room suite, rubbing saddle soap into one of two worn leather-upholstered chairs.

His office was sparsely furnished—leather-top desk, the two leather chairs, and a bank of filing cabinets. His windows, like those in the corridor, were big and bare, spotlessly clean, revealing an uninterrupted expanse of blue sky. I caught sight of a patch of green across the street, trees just leafing out.

“Housekeeping chores,” he said, explaining his homely activity.

“So I see. Mind if I come in?”

He was a rangy-looking man somewhere in his sixties, with a thin face and a cleft in his chin. His fair hair, cropped short, was threaded with gray. He wore faded jeans and cowboy boots, a Western-cut shirt, and a string tie. He looked like he’d be happier outdoors, preferably on horseback. He’d finished conditioning one of the leather chairs and was working on the second. The sections he’d finished looked darker and more supple. “If you’re looking for Ned, he’s across the hall.”

“I’m looking for you, if you’re Hale Brandenberg.”

“You selling something?”

“No.”

“Serving papers?”

“I’m looking for information.”

“Come on in and have a seat. You can use my desk chair since it’s the only one available. You mind if I work while we talk?”

“Fine with me,” I said. Taking advantage of his offer, I circled his desk and sat. His swivel chair was upholstered where mine was not, but I felt at home anyway because the squeaks were similar. As I watched, I was struck by a sense of familiarity. “I know you. Don’t I know you?”