Kerry read to the final entry, sighed, and looked at the time in the upper corner of the screen. Already 1:30; she’d better hustle over to the de Young before it got any later.
She started to close the file so she could shut down. And stopped herself, frowning, staring at the screen. The final entry stared back at her.
Time. Date and time.
September 9, 10:05 P.M.
WHY ADHERE?
Something there that didn’t seem quite right…
Yes, it did. Now it did.
Of course!
Excited, she picked up the phone and called Bill’s cell.
23
JAKE RUNYON
Stander was a nowhere place.
Not a village or a hamlet-an old, disused railroad siding. If it had ever been anything more, the only evidence left standing were a gutted stone building between the two-lane blacktop and the main rail line, the remains of a water tank, and the fenced-in compound that had once been RipeOlive Processors. Nearest signs of life were a farmhouse some distance back, a combination country store and junk dealer a quarter of a mile before that. Anybody’s guess who or what Stander had been, or why the siding had a name at all.
Olive groves stretched out on both sides of the road here, flanking the compound to the east, hiding Highway 5 to the west. Some of the gnarled trees looked as though they were still being harvested; others seemed as dead as the RipeOlive buildings. The plant was set back a hundred yards or so from the blacktop, the chain-link fence around it and the entrance gates capped by slanted strands of barbed wire. The main rail line was still in service-the condition of the rails and ties told you that-but the spur that branched off to the plant, weed choked, broken up, rusty, hadn’t been used in years.
Runyon turned off onto a potholed ribbon of pavement that bent up across the right-of-way. The paved portion of the road looped around to the front gates; a once-graveled, now mostly dirt track intersected it near the fence corner, led around to the olive groves at the rear. On a pole next to the gates stood a metal sign, bullet pocked where somebody had used it for target practice, the green and black lettering on it beginning to fade:
RipeOlive Brand
“From Our Trees to Your Table”
Two buildings, both of unpainted wood with sheet-metal roofs, were visible inside the fence from here-a long, low warehouse and a shorter structure that formed a detached ell on the north side. Coming in, he’d seen a third building at the rear, some kind of long shed stretched out parallel to the warehouse. The yard was paved, the pavement cracking and sprouting weeds and dry grass. Heat shimmered over everything, gave the buildings an insubstantial, two-dimensional look.
Just what he’d expected to find.
Nowhere place, abandoned place.
He got out to examine the gates. Double padlocked, the locks showing rust and free of key scrapes. No signs of life in the compound, or that anybody had been in there recently-not from this vantage point. Another entrance?
Back in the car, he U-turned to the dirt road and followed it along the side fence. Thin plumes of dust rose up behind, seemed to hang in the sultry air before they began to settle. The fence, as far as he could tell, hadn’t been breached anywhere on this side or at the rear.
The road split again back there, one branch veering in among the trees, the other continuing parallel to the fence. Two-thirds of the way along the latter he came on another, smaller set of gates. Rear entrance for trucks coming in from the groves. He stopped there and went over for a look. Padlocked, like the main entrance, but when he tugged on the lock it came open: the shackle had been set into the case, so that it seemed secure at a glance, but it hadn’t been pressed down to engage the locking mechanism. On the underside, around the keyhole, were faint, recent scratches.
He let the lock hang, stood peering through the wire mesh. Dead still inside. A crow came swooping down overhead, cawing, and disappeared into the olive grove. Stillness again.
Call Joe Rinniak in Red Bluff? Not yet, not without some idea of what there was to find here.
Criminal trespass, like it or not.
Rinniak wouldn’t care if it helped catch his firebug. Kelso might, but Kelso didn’t have to know about it until later. A long time later, and word given to him by somebody else. Runyon didn’t want anything more to do with the deputy if it could be avoided.
He fetched his flashlight and the Magnum in its carry holster. Clipped the holster to his belt, shoved the torch into a pants pocket to keep his hands free. Then he unhooked the padlock, eased himself through the opening, and closed the gates again behind him.
Out on the frontage road an approaching vehicle made a low-pitched rumbling noise. Sounded like a pickup truck, heading from the south in the direction of Gray’s Landing. He stood still, waiting. The noise held steady as the truck passed by the compound; faded, and was gone.
The nearest of the buildings, the long shed, was off to his left. He went there first, fast-walking, the sun burning the back of his neck. Equipment and storage shed, probably. Two sets of doors, one on either end. The first set was locked. The second wasn’t. One door half-creaked loudly when he pulled it open; the sound froze him again for a drag of seconds. He readied the flashlight in his left hand, wedged his body inside.
Thick gloom, stifling with trapped heat, rank with a mix of smells-oil, dust, heat, dry rot, rodent droppings. When he switched on the flashlight, the beam sent something small scurrying across the floor into darkness. One cavernous room, an area along one side that had once been a workshop, all of it empty now except for the car parked straight ahead of him at the back wall.
Dark blue ’57 Impala with chrome rims, tuck-and-roll upholstery.
Both of its doors were locked. Runyon walked around it, shining the light inside through the windows. Empty.
He was running sweat when he stepped outside again. The heavy, breathless silence remained unbroken. He kept the flash in his left hand, his right on the butt of the Magnum, as he crossed to the shortish ell. A platform dock with two loading bays extended across two-thirds of the front. The one-third at the near end had once been the plant office. Two windows there, the panes all broken now, a couple starred with holes-probably the same sharpshooter who’d plinked the sign at the front entrance. Runyon poked the flash through one of the openings, switched it on. Debris, broken glass, an abandoned chair. Nobody had been here in a long time.
He climbed up onto the dock. Both metal doors secure. He found another door at the far end, this one a wooden single, and it was secure, too. Alongside it was a single window, the panes intact because they were protected from target practice by the back side of the warehouse building. A thick coating of grime wouldn’t let the flashlight ray penetrate the glass. He tried the sash, but the latch was either locked down tight or frozen shut. Forget it. Nobody here, either.
Another dock with loading bays ran across the rear of the warehouse building, the concrete cracked and chipped from age. Runyon crossed the yard, went up, and tried the metal doors there. Both locked tight. Down again, around to a single door set into the sidewall.
That was the one he was hunting for.
Shut but not secured. Opened inward a few inches as soon as he put pressure on it.
He stayed put for the better part of a minute, listening with his ear close to the opening. Silence inside. He drew his weapon, held it down along his side, and stepped into the gloomy interior.