“We don’t need one,” Mendez said. “You’re the landlord. You have the right to enter the property. We aren’t searching for anything other than evidence of whether or not Mr. Ballencoa is still using the house as his primary residence.”

Eddard scowled. “I’m a busy man.”

“We won’t take more than twenty minutes of your time, Mr. Eddard. And we won’t have to bother you again. It’s important that we establish whether or not Mr. Ballencoa has left town. If he has, then we’ll take our business elsewhere.”

The old man growled and grumbled, phlegm rattling in his throat. He wrung his hands in the greasy rag, then threw it at the lawn mower in disgust. “Oh, all right.”

Mendez and Hicks waited in their car for Carl Eddard to retrieve his house keys.

“Are you out of your mind?” Hicks asked as soon as they had closed their car doors.

Mendez pretended ignorance. “For what?”

“If Detective Neri gets wind of this, he’ll bellyache to his boss, who will bellyache to our boss. You’ll get both our asses in a sling.”

“For what?” Mendez asked again. “We’re not doing anything but having a look around. It’s not an illegal search because we’re not searching for anything. We won’t touch anything. We won’t take anything.”

“You’d better hope he hasn’t written a murder confession on the bathroom wall.”

“We came all the way up here to find this clown,” Mendez said. “I want to know if he’s packed his bags and gone. If all his shirts are still hanging in the closet, then he probably hasn’t moved to Oak Knoll and we don’t have to worry about it.

“If he’s gone out of that house lock, stock, and barrel with no notice to anybody . . . I’m not going to like that, are you?” he asked.

“I’m still not convinced there’s a lot of reason for us to care one way or the other,” Hicks said. “The guy’s got no wants, no warrants. The only person who claims to have seen him in Oak Knoll is arguably unstable.”

“Tell me this,” Mendez said. “Who sets up house one place, gets his mail someplace else, doesn’t keep a bank account, doesn’t have a telephone, leaves town in the dead of night without telling anybody . . . ?”

“A criminal,” Hicks conceded.

“A criminal that might be in our sandbox now. Maybe Mr. Eddard here doesn’t care about a convicted child predator living across the street from the high school. I do. You should. You’re the one with daughters.”

“I don’t want him in my backyard,” Hicks admitted, giving in as Carl Eddard made his way down the sidewalk to his red 1978 El Dorado.