Q is for QUARRY Read online

  We passed a Liquor Mart that sold gas, tires, beer, and sandwiches. There were two cafes, one saloon, and no motels that I could see. There was a cluster of six single-wide trailers surrounded by chain-link fence and two real estate offices in double-wides with empty asphalt parking lots out front. What possessed people to move to Peaches in the first place? It seemed mysterious to me. What dream were they pursuing that made Peaches, California, the answer to their prayers?

  Dolan did a U-turn, using the wide apron of gravel beside a service station, its gas pumps missing and its plate glass windows boarded up. The ground glittered with broken glass. Forlorn tatters of plastic wrap were caught in the bushes along the road. He backtracked as far as the enclave of mismatched trailers, which had the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F on small painted signs in front. A sign announced PEACH GROVE MOBILE HOME PARK, which was actually not a “park” so much as two rows of trailers with space remaining in the event a seventh trailer decided to pull in. Dolan nosed his car into a graveled area near a row of battered mailboxes and the two of us got out. I waited while he went through the ritual of tucking his gun in the trunk. “Looks like F’s down that way,” he said.

  I followed him along the rutted two-lane dirt drive. “Wonder what she’s doing up here?”

  “We’ll have to ask.”

  The door to F stood open, with a flimsy sliding screen across the frame to allow fresh air to circulate. A small handmade plaque said NAILS BY IONA with a telephone number too small to read in passing. A faded width of awning formed a covered porch, complete with bright green indoor-outdoor carpeting underfoot. The trailer was old and small. Two women were seated in the kitchenette, one on a banquette and the other on a chrome dinette chair pulled close to a hinged table that was supported by one leg. Both turned to look at us. The younger of the two continued to paint the older woman’s nails. Dolan said, “Is one of you Iona Mathis?”

  The younger said, “That’s me.” She went back to brushing dark carmine polish on the thumbnail of the other woman’s left hand. On the table between them, I could see an orange stick, emery boards, a bottle of cuticle remover, cotton balls, a nail brush, and a plastic half-moon bowl filled with soapy water. To the right of the older woman, there was a pack of Winstons, with a book of paper matches tucked under the cellophane. The ashtray was filled with butts.

  The older woman smiled and said, “I’m Iona’s mom, Annette.”

  “Lieutenant Dolan with the Santa Teresa Police Department. This is Miss Millhone. She’s a private detective.”

  Iona slid a look at us before she started work on her mother’s index finger. If she was sixteen when she married Frankie, she’d be close to thirty-five now, roughly my age. Oh, hey, I was a little older, but who, was keeping track? I tried to put myself in her place, wondering what might persuade me to live here and make my living nipping someone else’s cuticles and massaging their toes. She was just shy of pretty. I watched her with interest through the softening haze of the screen door, trying to figure out where her looks fell short. Her hair was a lustrous brown, wavy, shoulder-length, and in need of a trim. She kept it parted in the center, which made her face look too long. She had full lips, a strong nose, brown eyes, and dark brows that were a shade too thick. She had a mole on her upper lip and one on her left cheek. In many ways, she still looked sixteen-lanky and round-shouldered. Her feet were bare, and she wore faded knee-ripped jeans and an India-print tunic in shades of rust and brown.

  Annette leaned toward her daughter and said, “Baby, if you’re not going to ask the man I will.” When Iona made no response, she looked back at Dolan. “Hon, I wish you’d tell us why you’re here because you’re scaring me to death.” Iona’s mother, surely in her fifties, looked closer to thirty-five than Iona did. She had the same strong nose, but she’d had hers surgically reduced to something thinner and more sunken. Her hair, which she wore pulled up in a pony tail, was the same shade of brown, but of a uniformly intense hue that suggested she was dyeing it to cover gray. A sleeveless white knit top emphasized her big boobs, cantilevered over a thick waist and slightly rounded tummy. She wore red shorts and red canvas wedgies. Her toenails had been polished in the same red Iona was using on her fingernails. I thought she’d have been wise to cover more of herself than she had.

  Dolan said, “We have a few questions about Iona’s ex. You mind if we come in?”

  “Door’s open,” Annette said.

  Dolan slid open the screen door and stepped into the trailer, then sidestepped to his left so I’d have room to enter. Once inside, I moved f to the right and perched on the near end of the blue plastic-padded bench where Annette was sitting. There was a long padded cushion across the back of the bench, and I was guessing at the presence of a mechanism that would allow the couch to level out into a double bed once the hinged table had been flattened against the wall. Did the two women share the trailer, or did Mom have her own? Dolan and I had agreed that he’d conduct the interview as it was confusing to have questions lobbed from two directions at once. I was there primarily to observe and to take mental notes.

  Beyond the kitchenette, I could see a sliding door on the right that I assumed was the bathroom. Dead ahead, I saw the double bed that filled the only bedroom. I’m a sucker for small spaces, and I wouldn’t have minded living in a place like this, though I’d have held out for something clean. I did love the diminutive sink and the half-size oven, the four-burner cooktop, and the wee refrigerator tucked under the counter. It was like a playhouse, designed for dollies, tea parties, and other games of make-believe. I focused my attention on Iona, whose bad posture was probably a side effect of hunching over her table all day.

  Annette said, “You haven’t said which ex, but if you’re a police lieutenant, you must be talking about Frank. Her second husband, Lars, never broke the law in his life. He wouldn’t even cross the street without a crosswalk. He drove Iona crazy. Here, she went out and found a fellow as different from Frank as you could possibly get and then it turns out he’s worse. He suffered from that obsessive-compulsive syndrome? Shoot. Everything he did, he had to repeat six more times before he’d allow himself to move on. Getting anything accomplished took hours. I about went insane.” She peered closely at her pinkie. “Baby, I think you got outside the line there. You see that?”

  “Sorry.” Iona used her thumb nail to eradicate the line of red that had encroached on Annette’s cuticle.

  Dolan said, “Mind if I smoke?”

  Annette’s eyes flicked briefly to Lieutenant Dolan’s left hand. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and it must have occurred to her that he might be a bachelor. “Only if you light one for me,” she said. “Iona has a fit if I mess up a nail before she’s done with all ten.”

  Dolan reached over and picked up Annette’s pack of Winstons. He shook one free and placed it between her lips. She rested her hand seductively on his while he lit her cigarette. He then extracted and lit one from his own pack, apparently scorning her brand.

  Annette inhaled deeply, blew a stream of smoke upward, and then removed the cigarette and placed it on the ashtray, being careful with her fingertips. “Lord, that tastes good. It just bores me to tears people get so tense about smoking these days. What’s the big whoop-dee-do? It’s no skin off their nose.” Her eyes slid to me. “You smoke?”

  “I did once upon a time,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound quite as pious as I felt.

  To Dolan, she said, “What’s Frank up to? We haven’t heard from him in years, have we, baby?”

  Iona ignored her mother and concentrated on her work. Dolan said, “You know he’s out on parole.”

  Annette made a face as though afflicted by a mildly spasming bowel. “I guess it was bound to happen. I never did care for the man myself. I hope you’re not going to tell us he knows where she is.”

  “We talked to him yesterday and he didn’t mention her.”

  “Well, thank god for that.”

  “Are you worried he’ll make contact?”


  “I wouldn’t say ‘worried,’ but I don’t like the idea.”

  Dolan focused on Iona. “When did you see him last? Do you remember the date?”

  Annette stared at her daughter and when Iona failed to speak up, she said, “Iona, answer the man. What’s the matter with you? I didn’t raise you like that.”

  Iona shot a dark look at her mother. “You want me to mess these up or not?”

  Annette smiled at Dolan. “She felt sorry for him. Frank’s parents disowned him. His father’s an oral surgeon, makes big bucks cutting on people’s gums, but he’s a stickin-the-mud. His mother isn’t much better. They had three other boys who did well, so naturally Frank lost out by comparison. Not that he wasn’t a little shit from birth. Iona always said he was sweet, but you couldn’t prove it by me. I thought he was kind of clinging, if you want to know the truth. He certainly became possessive toward the end of their marriage. Six months.”

  “Why’d the two of you break up?”

  “I don’t have to answer that,” Iona said.

  “He ever knock you around?”

  This time when Iona declined to answer, Annette seemed happy to fill in. “Only twice that I know of. He was stoned all the time back then –”

  “Most of the time, not all, Mom. Don’t exaggerate.”

  “Oh, pardon. I stand corrected. He was stoned most of the time and when he was, he got mean. She told him if he didn’t straighten up his act she’d kick his butt out the door. They were living in Venice then, right on one of the canals down there. All these little baby ducks. Didn’t smell so nice, but they were cute as it could be. Frank kept on drinking and he refused to budge, so I sent her the money to get out.”

  “Is that when he connected with Cathy Lee Pearse?”

  “Oh, that was awful, wasn’t it?” Annette said. “I still get the shivers when I stop and think of it. He’d only known her a week before the incident.”

  “Is that what you call it, an incident?” Dolan asked. I could tell he was trying to suppress the outrage in his voice.

  Iona put the brush back in the polish bottle and screwed the top shut.

  “You don’t have to take that tone. For your information, Cathy Lee came onto him. She was a gold digger, pure and simple. All moody and temperamental. Frankie said she was violent, especially when she drank, which she’d been doing that night. She turned on him just like that.” Iona snapped her fingers. “Came at him with a pair of scissors, so what was he supposed to do, let her jam the blades through his throat?”

  Dolan’s expression was bland. “He could have grabbed her wrist. It seems somewhat excessive to stab her fourteen times. You’d think once or twice would have done the job.”

  Iona began to tidy up her work space. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Did you know Cathy Lee yourself?” Dolan was clearly working to maintain the contact now that she’d decided to talk.

  “Sure. Frankie’d picked up a job painting this house for a friend of his so we’d moved in next door to her the week before. She was a tease, hanging out in her bikini, shaking her tits at him when he was out in the yard. Frankie felt terrible about what happened. He said he wished he could undo it, but by then it was too late.”

  “I heard you went back to him when the case went to trial. What was that about?”

  “He needed me, that’s what. Everybody else turned their backs on him.”

  “Iona’s just like me. Can’t resist a wounded bird. Lars was the pits. Had to count everything. He was great for chopping onions-one, two, three, four, five…”

  “Is that it, Iona? You see Frankie as a wounded bird?”

  “He’s a good person when he’s sober and off drugs.”

  “Did he ever talk to you about what happened after Cathy Lee was killed?”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m wondering what he did between the time he killed Cathy Lee and the time the cops picked him up. There’s a two-day gap when we don’t know where he was.”

  Iona shrugged. “Beats me. Frankie and I were busted up by then.” Annette said, “Shortest marriage on record. Divorce took six times longer, didn’t it?”

  Iona declined a response, speaking to Dolan instead. “I don’t know what he did or where he went after I moved out.”

  “Baby, I thought you said he ended up at your place. ‘Member that? You’d moved into that studio apartment in Santa Teresa…”

  “Mom.”

  “Well, why can’t you tell him that if it’s the truth? Believe me, Lieutenant, Iona knows better than to aid and abet. She fed him a meal and let him stay the night and then said he had to hit the road. I begged her to call the sheriff, but it was no, no, no. She was scared if she turned him in, he’d come back and retaliate.”

  “Mother, is there any way you could just shut the fuck up?”

  “I’m trying to be helpful. You might think about that yourself. Now what’s this about, Lieutenant?”

  “We think he had contact with a young girl hitchhiking in the Lompoc area. It’s possible he picked her up on his way to see his dad.”

  “Oh my lord. You don’t mean to tell me he killed someone else?”

  “That remains to be seen. Her body was dumped in a quarry on the outskirts of town. Right now, we’re trying to find out who she is.”

  Iona stared at him. I thought she was on the verge of volunteering information, but she seemed to catch herself. “Why didn’t you ask him, if you saw him yesterday?”

  Dolan smiled. “He said he couldn’t remember. We thought he might’ve said something about her to you.”

  Iona focused her attention on her mother’s nails. “First I’ve heard.” When it was clear she wasn’t going to say more, Dolan glanced at Annette. “I’m curious how the two of you ended up in Peaches.”

  She took another drag of her cigarette. “Originally, we’re from a little town out near Blythe. Iona’s grandparents – I’m talking now about my mom and dad – invested in sixty acres; must have been 1946. What we’re sitting on right now is the only parcel left. I was the one had the idea for a trailer park after they passed on. It seemed like a smart move since we already owned the land. We each have our own place and the four other tenants pay rent. I work part-time over at the cafe; Iona has this business, so the two of us get by.”

  “What town?” I asked.

  She looked at me with surprise, as though she’d forgotten I was there. “Come again?”

  “What town are you from?”

  “Oh. Little burg called Creosote. You probably never heard of it. Two miles this side of the Arizona line.”

  “You’re kidding. I met someone else from Creosote just two days ago. A guy named Pudgie Clifton.”

  Iona’s dark gaze strayed to mine.

  Annette perked right up. “Oh, Iona’s known Pudgie since elementary school. Isn’t he the fella you dated before Frank?”

  “We didn’t date, Mom. We hung out. There’s a big difference.”

  “Looked like dating to me. You went off and stayed weekends with him if memory serves.” When Annette reached for her cigarette again, her hand brushed against the edge of the ashtray, dinging her freshly painted nail. “Oh, shit. Now look it what I’ve done.”

  She held her hand out to Iona, who studied the smudge. She wet her index finger and rubbed it lightly on the smear of red polish, effectively smoothing it out.

  Dolan said, “You must have known Pudgie well.”

  “He mostly messed around with kids from somewhere else.”

  “Except for weekends when he went off with you,” he said.

  She looked up sharply. “We took some road trips, okay? He liked driving my car. Doesn’t mean I screwed him. We were friends.”

  “Did he and Frankie know each other back then?”

  “How would I know? I’m not in charge of either one of them.”

  There was a tap at the door. “Iona, honey? Sorry to interrupt.” A woman stood on the porchlet, peering in at
us.

  Iona said, “My next appointment. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. We’ll wait and talk to you when you get off work.” Annette scooted over from behind the table, her bare thighs creating fart sounds against the plastic seat. I stood up to make room for her while Dolan stepped outside. Annette was already chatting with Iona’s client, wagging her fingers in the air. “Hey, sugar, take a look. This is called Cherries Jubilee. The shade would look gorgeous with your coloring.”

  The other woman, in her forties, didn’t seem that excited by the prospect, as her coloring was blah.

  Annette clomped down the trailer step on her canvas wedgies and tucked her hand through Lieutenant Dolan’s arm. “Iona won’t be long. I’m working lunch today. Why don’t you walk me over to the Moonlight and have a bite to eat. It’s on me.”

  I said, “Great. Let’s do that. What hours do you work?”

  She said, “Usually lunchtime on. We’re open from five in the morning until ten at night. The only other restaurant is the Mountain View so people go back and forth, depending on their mood.”

  The three of us walked down the rutted driveway and across the two-lane, road. Once in the cafe, we had our pick of the empty tables. Annette said, “It’s mostly drinks and cold sandwiches. I can fry up some burgers if you want something hot.”

  “Sounds good to me. How about you, Kinsey?”

  “Fine.”