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O’Shea replayed the bits and pieces he had gleaned from Tim’s voice mail. “At first he said he
heard
something, but then revised that to say he
saw
something. I’m not sure what he saw, but it sounded urgent. He said he was going to track you down. I’ve got to find him.”
    O’Shea didn’t wait for a command from his superior. He turned on his heel and strode to Tim’s truck. He crouched down and clicked on the flashlight application of his cell phone. Peering at the surrounding ground like a seasoned tracker, he pointed and said, “I see a boot print pointing this way.” He strode toward the cheese-making facility, about fifty yards from the main house, where Jordan’s staff made the farm’s specialty—Pace Hill Farm Double-cream Gouda.
    While Jordan’s house was designed in the American Western style of a working ranch, the cheese-making facility was state-of-the-art. The exterior was streamlined. It only had one long window near the top of the building to allow in light.
    O’Shea went to the front entrance, put his hand on the doorknob, and twisted. The door opened. He stepped inside.
    Jordan, Urso, and I crowded in behind him. No lights were on. A sense of gloom hung in the air.
    â€œUncle Tim, are you in here?”
    No response. I didn’t even hear the hum of machinery.
    â€œOut of my way, deputy.” Jordan hurried to a panel of switches and flipped on the overhead fluorescent lights.
    The facility was as cold as a morgue. The room wasn’t vast, measuring about forty-by-twenty feet. A large stainless steel vat, a third of the size of the room, stood in the middle of the linoleum floor. Long whisklike prongs were attached to a metal arm above the vat; the prongs, when swirling, assisted the cheese makers with the coagulation process. Paddles, ladles, skimmers, and sieves hung on hooks on the far wall.
    At the far end of the room—
    I looked at the vat. It was filled with milk, ready for cheese making. “Jordan!” I pointed. “Milk.”
    â€œOh no.” His hushed tone matched mine.
    Urso said, “What’s odd about that?”
    â€œThere’s not supposed to be any milk in there,” Jordan said.
    Urso shook his head. “I still don’t get it.”
    â€œIt’s too soon,” I explained. “The staff doesn’t release the day’s draw of milk from the refrigeration tanks until four A . M .”
    â€œHere’s how it works.” Jordan used his hands to describe the method. “The cheese maker pours the milk into the clean vat. Next, because we vat pasteurize the milk, we heat the milk to one hundred and forty-five degrees for thirty minutes, and then add starter culture to kick off the process. Then”—Jordan struggled to catch his breath—“rennet is added and so forth. The milk thickens. After a time, we separate the curds and whey, and . . .” He rolled his hand to signify the rest of the lengthy procedure.
    â€œBut the milk shouldn’t be there right now,” Urso said.
    â€œCorrect. This is wrong.”
    Urso squinted. “Are you suggesting—”
    â€œNo,” Jordan cut in.
    â€œCouldn’t be,” I chimed.
    â€œWait a sec,” O’Shea nearly shouted. “You don’t think my uncle tripped and fell in the vat, do you?”
    I wasn’t thinking that he tripped. The floor was flat; there was no way for Tim to have tripped. And the vat was filled with milk. I doubted Tim had filled it.
    â€œIf he’s in there, we’ve got to get him out!” O’Shea rushed toward the edge of the vat. “He must have come looking for you in here and—”
    â€œWhy would he have done that?” I said. “It’s obvious the party was in the house.”
    But O’Shea wasn’t listening to me. “Where’s the drain? There’s a drain, isn’t there?” He squatted and