At 1:10 Schaefer drove up in his 1982 Toyota and pulled into Tannie’s drive with his metal-detecting pal. The two got out, car doors slamming in unison, and crossed to the porch. Schaefer carried a shovel and a long steel implement, like a walking stick with a point on one end. He introduced his friend, whose name was Ken Rice, adding a two-line bio so we’d know whom we were dealing with. Like Schaefer, he was a man in his early eighties, retired after thirty-eight years with the Santa Maria Police Department, working first as a motorcycle officer, then foot patrol, Narcotics, and later as the department’s first K-9 officer. For the past twenty years, his passion had been the location and recovery of buried relics, caches of coins, and other forms of treasure. We shook hands all around and then Rice turned on his de tector, which looked like the two halves of a toolbox, connected by a metal rod. “Let’s see what we got.”

The four of us trooped across the property to the side yard, me tagging behind Rice like a little kid. “How does that work?”

“System has a directional transmitter and directional receiver built into these interlocking cases. Powered up, it emits an electromagnetic field that penetrates the soil. This is the same equipment used by public-utility employees looking for pipes underground. When the search pattern encounters metal, the signal is interrupted and that generates an audio response.”

“How far down?”

“The Fisher’s capable of revealing a target as far down as twenty feet. Depending on soil mineralization and ground conditions, it’s possible to detect an object even deeper.”

When we reached the spot, the three of us watched as Rice swept the detector across the ground. He’d put on a headset, and I gathered the device made a continuous sound that grew louder when he made a find. On his first pass, I saw the needle on the gauge leap hard to the right and stay there as though glued. He pressed a hand to his ear, frowning to himself as he continued sweeping across the area. Having finished, he said, “You’ve got something the size of a boxcar down there.”

I laughed. “We do?”

“Schaefer tells me you’re looking for a car, but this might be something else.”

“Such as what?”

“A dumpster, underground storage tank, a chunk of sheet metal roof.”

“So now what?” I asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”