Mecca Ranch was on the west side of 33, announced by nailed-on iron letters in a pine slab, the sign bordered by cactus and some sort of wild grass. A left turn up a barely paved road lined with scraggly birds of paradise in poor flower, took us five hundred yards into low, gentle hills that topped off at a couple of acres of gravel-colored mesa. Off to the right was a corral fashioned from iron posts and wooden crossbeams, more than big enough for the five brown horses grazing. Sleek, well-nourished steeds. They paid us no attention. Directly behind the enclosure were several unhitched horse trailers and a bunk of paddocks. Up at road’s end, the birds of paradise were planted more closely together and better tended, and the orange-and-blue blossoms led the eye to a small, flat-roofed salmon-colored house with teal green wood trim. Parked in front were a ten-year-old brown Jeep Wagoneer and a Dodge pickup of the same color and vintage. A transitory shadow washed over the corral—a hawk orbiting so low I could see the surgical curve of its beak.

I turned off the engine, got out, filled my nose with the bite of pine and that curious maple syrup-and-rot tang of dried equine dung. Dead silence. I could see Pierce Schwinn thinking this would be heaven. But if he was like Milo and so many other people hooked on noise and evil, how long would that have lasted?

Milo slammed the passenger door hard, as if offering fair warning. But no one came out to greet us, and no face appeared in the house’s undraped front windows.

We walked to the front door. Milo’s bell-push set off fifteen seconds of chimes—some tune I couldn’t identify, but it brought back memories of Missouri department store elevators.

Now, sound from the corral: one horse whinnying. Still no human response. The hawk had flown off.

I studied the animals. Well-muscled mahogany creatures, two stallions, three mares, manes glossy and combed. Over the corral arced a semicircle of iron soldered with vaguely Moorish lettering. Mecca. A triangle of blue had broken through the cottony sky. The foothills ringing the ranch were green-topped, gentle, a nurturant border. It was hard to imagine the murder book emanating from this quiet place.

Milo rang again, and a female voice called out, “One minute!” Moments later the door opened.