Mendez had brought coffee and started the workday by telling Dixon about Lauren Lawton, Roland Ballencoa, and his illuminating evening in Santa Barbara with Danni Tanner.

“I’ve got a call in to the San Luis PD,” he said. “They should be keeping tabs on Ballencoa.”

“Who has never been charged with anything.”

“No. Santa Barbara didn’t have enough to hold him.”

“They didn’t have anything,” Dixon corrected him.

“They had enough to suspect him. He’s still a person of interest,” Mendez said. “They’re hanging on to some blood evidence, waiting for the DNA technology to advance a little more. The sample is too small to test at this point in time.”

He had been reading about the development of techniques to multiply DNA samples so that a small piece of evidence would be able to yield much more information. But those techniques were still tantalizingly out of reach for law enforcement.

Dixon frowned, silver brows slashing down over blue eyes. Mendez always felt like Dixon’s laser gaze could probably cut steel if he put his mind to it.

“He was a person of interest four years ago in another jurisdiction,” he said. “As far as we know, if he is here, he hasn’t done a damn thing wrong.”

“As far as we know,” Mendez agreed. “But I don’t like coincidences. If the Lawton woman is here and Ballencoa is here too . . . That makes me uncomfortable. Lawton accused him of stalking her in Santa Barbara.”

“But the detective there said they had no proof of anything,” Dixon pointed out.

“Maybe he’s really good at it,” Mendez suggested. “Lawton and her daughter moved here a month ago. If Ballencoa showed up after that . . . You have to wonder.”

“If,” Dixon said. He leaned his forearms on his immaculate blotter and sighed. Mendez could see the wheels turning as he weighed the pros and cons. “You have actual crimes to investigate.”

Mendez scratched his head and gave a little shrug. “I’m capable of multitasking. We’re nowhere on those B and Es. We’ve got no prints, no witnesses, and nothing of value was taken at any of the three scenes. They’re like the crimes that never were.”

“Breaking and entering is a crime all by itself,” Dixon reminded him.

“I know, but these feel more like kid pranks than serious crimes.”

“Until somebody confronts a perp and one of them has a knife or a gun. Then suddenly we’ve got an assault or a homicide on our hands.”