Alone in the house. Rifling through personal spaces is a favorite specialty of mine. The trick is to simply  ignore  the places where people have carefully tried to thwart snooping. . Don’t touch them. Look for the chaos. The trash, the junk drawer, the stacks of books and papers; there is treasure.

Hamish was the majordomo of the massive estate and was surprisingly helpful in my interrogations.  One thing is always certain, no matter what the fancy title, a servant is a servant and a servant is easily told what to do… with a certain liberal application of persuasion. In this case, violence.

The shooter was local. He received a fed ex package the morning I arrived. That meant that someone knew I was leaving LA, before I actually got onto the road. I went by his house. A remote place, but not a unibomber kind of place. I’m looking for clues.

I knew a guy. He used to be a Navy Seal, he moved up here to a tiny cabin in the woods after the Iraqi payout. Somehow, this dude knows just about everything that happens up here. He thinks of himself as a white hat. He had answers for me.

The gunman came to the tiny cabin late that night. Quiet. Murderous.  I’ve slept with a pistol at my side since the bad times in LA back in ’12. A dead thug in your cabin draws local law enforcement attention. He came up from LA, as well. Curiouser and curiouser. 

The job took me North. The wilds up there are beautiful. I’m hunting the errant husband of… Turns out her name was Virginia. Five hundo a day plus expenses, so I’ll go wherever. A pittance compared to the money she’ll get from her inheritance. I’m going to have fun here.

This is a complicated case,  obviously. Six different mugs all shaking people down all over town for some dumb McGuffin.  I’m getting sick of liberating heaters from young goons with geriatric reflexes who feel compelled to point them at me.  The double-crosses, also getting old.  Glad I have it.

I found myself  alone in the house. Poking around among personal things is a particular specialty of mine, I like to do it. The trick is to look for the the things people have placed on purpose.  Then look for the things that are in chaos. There will be your treasure.