I returned to the front door and noticed for the first time an alarm company decal saying ARMED RESPONSE pasted to one corner of the glass. The warning was probably more form than content. It seemed unlikely that anyone would pay for security services when the house stood empty. I was assuming the property was on the market, but there was no realtor’s lockbox and no stack of brochures detailing the floor plan, the square footage, or the number of rooms. For Sale signs were prohibited by the home owners’ association. For all I knew, every house in Horton Ravine was up for grabs. I rang the bell with no expectation of a response.

I left the porch, intending to circle the premises. Sutton must have been clued in to the fact that the house was vacant because he emerged from the Mustang and crossed the road as I had. I waited while he climbed the drive and then the two of us traced a path around the house to the rear. Below, on a wide concrete apron, there was a swimming pool and cabana surrounded on two sides by a plain concrete wall with an outdoor fireplace and built-in barbecue pit. Sutton turned and looked at the rear elevation. From this vantage point, the two-story construction was evident. The house had been tucked in against the steep hill and a series of windows looked out on the view. Beyond the patio, the property sloped down again sharply and thick railroad ties had been cut into the hillside to form a crude staircase. The neighbors’ rooftops floated like rafts on a lake of dark green treetops.

“Look familiar?”

“I guess. I thought the house was much bigger.”

“A lot of things look bigger when you’re six.”

“There wasn’t a swimming pool. I’d have remembered it.”

“I’ve done the research and this is where you were. The pool and barbecue could have been added later,” I said. “Let’s take a walk down the hill. If you wandered, that would have been your only choice.”

The brush had been cleared within a twenty-foot radius along the slope, probably by order of the fire department. Sutton followed me reluctantly as I crossed the grass and made my descent. There was no handrail and the steps themselves were deep, with ten-inch risers that forced us to descend the stairs like toddlers, putting both feet on every step before moving to the next. This portion of the lot was useless to all intents and purposes. A series of terraces had been carved out of the hill. The first level was planted with dwarf fruit trees. The second offered shelter in a weathered wood pagoda lined with benches and bleached by the elements to a soft silver gray. The third was given over to rose beds that, at this point, were sadly neglected.

After that, the land fell away gradually. The bottom of the hill butted into a grove of trees that stretched out on either side, in varying degrees of density. I counted three large oaks and six mature black acacias. Clusters of pittosporum and eucalyptus were intermingled with saplings. I wouldn’t have called this “the woods,” but to Sutton, at the age of six, it might have looked like one. Where the undergrowth was thin, I could see sections of a paved road that must have been Via Juliana, one of the primary arteries through Horton Ravine. If I’d been searching for a secluded location to serve as a grave site, I wouldn’t have picked this. From above, the hillside was open to view. Given the staggered pattern of trees below, the area would have been visible from the road as well.