"What are you doing?" he said. He sounded outraged, as if he couldn't believe this was happening. His Mohawk was beginning to grow out and the wind was making it lean slightly to the left like a field of tall grass in one of those old commercials for Kotex. He had on a black leather motorcycle jacket and a rhinestone earring. His boots were knee-high and made of plastic scored to resemble cobra skin only looking more like psoriasis. It was hard to take this lad seriously, but in some odd way I did. I closed the shed door and snapped the padlock into place. What could he prove?

"I got curious about what you were doing back here so I thought I'd take a peek."

"You mean you just broke in?" he said. His voice had that adolescent crack left over from puberty and his cheeks were hot pink. "You can't do that!"

"Mike, sweetie, I just did," I said. "You're in big trouble."

He stared at me for a moment, his expression blank. "You gonna call the cops?"

"Shit yes!"

"But what you did is just as much against the law as this," he said. I could tell he was one of those bright boys accustomed to arguing righteously with adults.

"Oh crap," I said, "wise up. I'm not going to stand out here and argue the California penal code with you. You're dealing drugs. The cops aren't going to care what I was up to. Maybe I was passing by and thought you were breaking in yourself. You're out of business, kiddo."

His eyes took on a shrewd look and he changed his tack. "Well now, wait a minute. Don't go so fast. Why can't we talk about this?"

"Sure, why not? What's to say?"

I could practically see his brain cells scurry around forming a new thought. He was no fool, but he still surprised me with the line he took. "Are you looking into Aunt Marty's death? Is that why you're here?"

Aunt Marty. Nice touch, I thought. I smiled briefly.

"Not quite, but that's close enough."

He glanced off toward the street, then down at the toe of his cobra boot. "Because I got something... you know, like some information about that."

"What kind of information?"