The Santa Ynez Valley lolls between two mountain ranges, soaking up sun and grace. Blessed with shirtsleeve temperatures and vine-coated slopes, the region’s been mistaken for Eden. Where grapes don’t grow, apples flourish. Hills are soft-focus and gentle and so is the ocean breeze that tempers the morning. Tourists flock to the valley for wine, food, antiques, horses, and fantasies of what could be if only.

Most of the towns that dot the region — Solvang, Buellton, Ballard, Los Olivos — flourish under the attention.

Then there’s Ojo Negro, named after a ragged-edged black eye of abandoned lime quarry.

Set on an inhospitable triangle of aquifer-neglected dirt just south of where the 101 aims for Los Alamos, Ojo Negro once served as a highway rest stop. Prosperity had its drawbacks: pedestrians pulverized by semis, the kind of mischief inspired by transience. But people made a living. When the highway was rerouted a few miles north, Ojo Negro died.

So had Wendell Salmey, the sheriff who’d investigated the Bright-Tranh murders nine years ago. Milo had found out by checking a law enforcement database. He’d also set up an eleven a.m. appointment for me with George Cardenas, the new sheriff.

“Don’t expect too much, Alex. Guy’s been on the job eighteen months. If you can nose around, great. Maybe you’ll find some lonely soul who craves conversation.”

Ojo Negro didn’t show up on any of my road maps so I turned to an online service. The route summary warned of an unmarked exit 4.3 miles past Baca Station Road.

At ten p.m., Milo called again. Sitting in his car, three hours into surveillance, watching nothing happen at Tony Mancusi’s apartment.

I said, “Craving conversation?”

“Craving my own pulse. I just got hold of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s detective who worked Bright-Tranh with Salmey. He told me the case was an unclosable whodunit from day one. But he’s retired and bored so he’ll do you a favor and meet with you. Donald Bragen, lives in Buellton. Used to be a sergeant, sounds like a guy who still digs the title. He’s flying up this afternoon to Seattle, catching a puddle-jumper to Alaska for a fishing trip. If you get to Santa Barbara by nine, he’ll have breakfast with you at Moby Dick on Stearn’s Wharf.”

“I’ll bring my harpoon.”

“Ciao. Back to my Red Bull and burrito.”

“You and Tony dig the same cuisine?”

“Not only that, the same greasy spoon,” he said.

“Empathy?”

“Cultured palates.”

I set out the following morning at seven a.m., endured the commuter crush from Encino to Thousand Oaks, got a little careless with speed limits when I cleared Camarillo, and was nearing Santa Barbara by eight forty. A few miles before the Cabrillo exit, Milo phoned to let me know Donald Bragen had caught an earlier flight and canceled breakfast.

I said, “No desire to talk about old failures?”