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forty, sixty day laborers in illegal campsites. Fiona was along to record whatever was found, and because for the past several days she’d come out of her cocoon to repeatedly badger Walt about finding and removing whatever— whoever —was living in the woods near the Engletons’.
    Walt extended his arm, stopping the others, and dropped to one knee, focusing on the brown pine straw that covered the barely discernible trail.
    “Brandon! A stick,” he said, reaching back with an open palm.
    Tommy Brandon found a fallen limb, cracked off a dry branch, and delivered it to Walt like a nurse to a surgeon. Walt reduced it further.
    “Photo, please.”
    Fiona sneaked forward and made several pictures of the area in front of Walt. “It might help,” she said, “if I knew what I was photographing.”
    “Right here,” he said, using the tip of the stick to gently lift the edge of a fallen leaf. He pushed the leaf away, pinched it, and tossed it behind him. “Another photo,” he said.
    “What is that?” she asked. She zoomed in on the pine straw and for the first time saw through the lens that half a dozen of the brown needles were cracked and broken. “You couldn’t have seen that,” she mumbled.
    “Here,” he said, using the stick to point out a small frown of discoloration. “It’s a toe impression,” he said. “A boot or Vibram sole—something stiff and inflexible. Not a running shoe.” He looked down at his own boot. “Size ten or eleven. We’re lucky it hasn’t rained in the past couple of weeks.” He looked up the trail and whistled for Beatrice to stop. Once the dog was looking at him, Walt made a hand gesture and she sat on the side of the trail. “We don’t want her disturbing things. It’s a man.” He looked behind him. Then he took hold of Fiona’s hiking boot and lifted it up and moved it. “He’s over a hundred and . . .” He sized up Fiona, “twenty pounds, and less than one-eighty.”
    “Jesus,” she gasped, amazed he nailed her weight.
    “Six feet or a little more.”
    Fiona glanced back at Brandon, who nodded as if to reassure her that the sheriff was for real.
    “Beatrice,” Fiona stated. “You saw a change in Beatrice as she passed by here.”
    “Very good, Ms. Kenshaw,” Walt said.
    “Her nose? Her tail? What?”
    “Both,” Walt answered. “She’s my Geiger counter. She’s the one in charge at the moment, and she knows it. Look at her up there.”
    The dog sat proudly on the side of the trail, with an expression that seemed to ask what was keeping them.
    “You ever seen anything cuter than that?” Walt said. “She’s impatient with us!”
    “Truthfully, I’m a little freaked out,” Fiona said.
    “It’s what I do,” Walt said. “What Bea and I do. No big deal.”
    “Unless you happen to see it in action,” Fiona said. “The height? How do you get that?”
    Brandon answered. “Shoe size combined with weight. Big feet, not very heavy. Tall and thin.”
    “Not Hispanic,” Menquez said. “Not very likely if he’s over six feet.”
    “No, Gilly,” Walt said. “How do you feel about going off trail?”
    “Point the way,” Menquez said.
    Brandon, reading a topo map, said, “There’s a half-acre bench ahead, maybe two hundred yards.”
    “Water source?” Walt said.
    “An intermittent stream, spring fed on the backside of the bench.”
    Walt looked up into the trees. “Running northwest to southeast,” he said.
    “Exactly,” Brandon answered.
    “You are showing off, aren’t you?” Fiona said to Walt. “You’ve been here before.”
    “Doubtful,” said Brandon before Walt could answer.
    Walt silenced her with a look. “We go in silent,” he said, addressing them all. “Brandon, you’ll go upstream from this side.” He pointed. “Gilly, we’ll give you a headstart. You’re to the north and I want you to come up over the lip and onto the bench the same time as I do. We’ll use channel six. I’ll give you two clicks. If you’re