“If it’s determined to be a health hazard, Mr. Smith will be cited. If Mr. Smith doesn’t take care of it, I suggest you call the landlord or leasing agency.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”

“That’s all we can do. I’m sorry.”

Pike watched Hydeck and McIntosh head back to their radio car, then took out his phone and tried Dru again. His call went to voice mail, but this time he did not leave a message.

Beside him, Betsy Harmon said, “I don’t think they would leave it like this. I just don’t believe it.”

Pike didn’t believe it, either, thinking that anyone who would dump goat heads and blood in the man’s shop might not stop with vandalism. He put away his cell.

“You know where they live?”

Betsy Harmon brightened for the first time that morning.

“Yes, I do. They’re only a few blocks away.”

She had once helped Wilson and Dru bring home perishable food when the shop’s refrigerator failed. She didn’t remember the street address, but gave Pike directions and described a house on the Venice Canals. She also gave him the cell phone number she had for Wilson Smith.

When Pike turned to his Jeep, Betsy Harmon called after him.

“I saw you.”

Pike glanced back, and saw her smiling.

“You and Dru. I saw you kissing yesterday. She looked very happy.”

Pike nodded once, such a small nod she might not have seen, then climbed into his Jeep. Dru would have called. He didn’t understand why Dru hadn’t called.

Chapter 11

11

The Venice Canals were the dream of a man named Abbot Kinney, a tobacco millionaire from back East who developed the area as a beachside resort. The canals were originally dug to drain marshy land, but Kinney reasoned that one Venice was as good as another, so he decided to re-create Venice, Italy, complete with gondola rides. Sixteen miles of canals were dug, but over time they were filled or shortened. The remaining six were laid out in a perfect square with four canals running side by side and the fifth and sixth canals laid across their tops and bottoms, cutting the land between the canals into three identical, rectangular islands. What began as an amusement park became weekend getaway housing in 1905 that eventually devolved into run-down bungalows on tiny lots in the fifties and sixties occupied by hippies, beachside denizens, and artists. But proximity to the beach and rising property values eventually elevated the area, and the shabby bungalows were replaced by expensive homes.