“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me why you’re so sure it’s there. And if I hear the word ‘soul’ one more time I’m going to throw up.”

Shawn sighed and turned around. “We could save an awful lot of time if you’d just watch my eyes when I’m observing. Then you could see what I see. Pretty soon you could think like I think.”

“And right after that I could commit myself,” Gus said. “How did you know about the field trip?”

“She had a strange rash-four short stripes on top of her hand and one across the heel of her palm,” Shawn said. “At least it was strange until you knew what it was. It was the shape of four little fingers and one thumb clutching her hand.”

“She’s allergic to children?”

“Only if they’ve been picking a bouquet of pretty green and red leaves,” Shawn said.

“The kid got poison oak on his hand and then grabbed Ellen Svaco’s?”

“Exactly.

“But poison oak grows all over Southern California. How did you know this happened at Descanso Gardens?”

“I didn’t know,” Shawn admitted. “But I did read the Santa Barbara Times today.”

Shawn refolded the newspaper and handed it to Gus. On the bottom of the page was a small article about a group of parents who were furious because their children had gone on a field trip to Descanso Gardens and come back covered in poison oak. A couple of them had even been sent to the hospital.

“Maybe she should have been watching her kids a little more closely instead of worrying about her necklace,” Gus said.

“I think she was watching the kids,” Shawn said. “In fact, I think that’s how she lost the necklace. There’s a scratch on her neck that looks like it was made by a chain-that’s how I figured out she had lost the necklace. I’d guess she saw one of her students playing in poison oak, she rushed over to pull him out, and her necklace chain caught on a tree branch and snapped off. Now all we have to do is locate that patch of poison oak, find the nearby tree, and the necklace will be waiting for us there.”