I learned a few facts DV Zapper hadn’t reported: The name of Leonora Bright’s salon had been Stylish Lady. She’d been thirty-three at the time of her death. Vicki Tranh, a recent arrival from Anaheim, had been only nineteen. No disruption of the store, other than two dead bodies and lots of blood. Both women were left with jewelry on their persons, and a day’s worth of cash remained in the register, ruling out robbery.

Salmey’s spelling was better than the kid’s, but not by much.

George Cardenas said, “That’s all there is.”

He brushed imaginary dust from his trousers. “When I took the job, all of Sheriff Salmey’s files were in boxes in a storage facility in Los Alamos. I started going through them, trying to get a feel for the town. Mostly, he dealt with small stuff — apples stripped from a tree, lost dog, once in a while a domestic. He was in favor of diplomacy rather than enforcement.”

“Going easy on the locals?”

Cardenas’s thumb hooked at the jail cell. “Folks tell me about the only time that got used was if a transient needed to sleep off a drunk. Sheriff’s wife died eleven years ago, then his son a year after, traffic accident on the 101 near Buellton. Sheriff pretty much curled up after that.”

“Ten years ago is right before the murders,” I said. “You’re thinking he wasn’t in high gear.”

Cardenas sat back and crossed his legs. “I don’t want to talk ill of the dead, everyone says Sheriff was a great guy. But Ojo Negro since the highway moved is pretty much an oil painting. I don’t mind, but it’s not for everyone.”

“You like the quiet.”

“Sometimes I do get a little antsy and call my sister, ask her to drop in for a spell — we’re twins, she’s a nurse at Cottage Hospital in S.B., gets good vacation time. But mostly I’m working, so the quiet’s perfect.”

“Working on cases?”

He eyed his computer. “This is gonna sound stupid, but I write. Or at least try to.”

“Fiction?”

Averting his face, he talked to a fire alert poster. “Started with short stories then I read in some writer’s magazine that there’s no market for them, so I’m trying a novel. Haven’t started yet, still working on finding what they call my point of view.”

“Police novel?”