Q is for QUARRY Read online

  Victim: Jane Doe

  Found: Sunday, August 3,1969

  Location: Grayson Quarry, Highway 1, Lompoc

  Under “Investigating Officers,” there were four names listed, one of them Stacey Oliphant’s.

  Dolan leaned forward. “You can see he was one of the original investigating officers. Stace and me were the ones who found the body. We’d taken a Jeep up there and parked off the side of the road to go deer hunting that day. I guess there’s a gate across the road now, but the property was open back then. The minute we got out, we picked up the smell. We both knew what it was – something dead for days. Didn’t take us long to find out exactly what it was. She’d been flung down a short embankment like a sack of trash. This is the case he was working when he got sick. It’s always bugged him they never figured out who she was, let alone who killed her.”

  I felt a dim stirring of memory. “I remember this. Wasn’t she stabbed and then dumped?”

  “Right.”

  “Seems odd they never managed to identify her.”

  “He thought so, too. It’s one of those cases really stuck in his craw. He kept thinking there was something he’d overlooked. He’d go back to it when he could, but he never made much progress.”

  “And you’re thinking what, to have another go at it?”

  “If I can talk him into it. I think it’d make a world of difference in his attitude.”

  I leafed through the photocopies, watching the progression of dates and events. “Looks like just about everything.”

  “Including black-and-white prints of the crime scene photographs. He had another couple of files but this is the one caught my eye.” He paused to wipe his mouth and then pushed his plate aside. “It’d give him a lift to get back into this and see about developing some information. He can act as lead detective while we do the legwork.”

  I found myself staring. “You and me.”

  “Sure, why not? We can pay for your time. For now, all I’m suggesting is the three of us sit down and talk. If he likes the idea, we’ll go ahead. If not, I guess I’ll come up with something else.”

  I tapped the file. “Not to state the obvious, but this is eighteen years old.”

  “I know, but aside from Stacey’s interest, there hasn’t been a push on this since 1970 or so. What if we could crack it? Think what that’d do for him. It could make all the difference.” It was the first time I’d seen any animation in his face.

  I pretended to ponder but there wasn’t much debate. I was sick of doing paperwork. Enough already with the file searches and the background checks. “Stacey still has access to the department?”

  “Sure. A lot of folks out there think the world of him. We can probably get anything we need-within reason, of course.”

  “Let me take this home and read it.”

  Dolan sat back, trying not to look too pleased. “I’ll be over at CC’s from six until midnight. Show up by eight and we can swing over to St. Terry’s and bring Stacey up to speed.”

  I found myself smiling in response.

  Chapter 2

  *

  I spent the early part of the afternoon in my new office digs, hammering away on my portable Smith-Corona. I typed up two overdue reports, did my filing, prepared invoices, and cleaned off my desk. I started in on the bills at 3:00 and by 3:35 I was writing out the final check, which I tore from my checkbook. I tucked it in the return envelope, then licked the flap so carelessly I nearly paper-cut my tongue. That done, I went into the outer office and moved all the unpacked boxes back into the closet. Nothing like a little motivation to get the lead out of your butt.

  My supper that night consisted of a peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich, accompanied by Diet Pepsi over ice. I ate in my minuscule living room, curled up on the sofa tucked into the window bay. In lieu of dinnerware, I used a fold of paper toweling that doubled as a dainty lip wipe when I’d finished my meal. With spring on the move, it was not quite dark out. The air was still chilly, especially once the sun went down. Through the partially opened window, I could hear a distant lawn mower and the occasional fragment of conversation as assorted people walked by. I live a block from the beach on a side street that provides overflow parking when Cabana Boulevard gets jammed.

  I slid down comfortably on my spine, my sock feet on the coffee table, while I settled in to work. I went through the file quickly at first, just to get the lay of the land. A detective named Brad Crouse was lead investigator on the case. The other investigating officers, aside from Stacey Oliphant, were Detective Keith Baldwin, Sergeant Oscar Wallen, Sergeant Melvin Galloway, and Deputy Joe Mandel. A lot of manpower. Crouse had typed the bulk of the reports, using multiple carbons, which Stacey had apparently then photocopied from the old murder book. Judging from the number of strikeovers, I had to guess Detective Crouse had not been first in his class in secretarial school. I fancied if I put my ear to the page, I’d pick up the churlish echoes of his long-ago curses embedded in the lines of print.

  It’s odd going through an old file, like reading a mystery novel where you spoil the ending for yourself by peeking ahead to the very last page. The final document, a letter from a soils expert in San Pedro, California, was dated September 28,1971, and indicated that the sample submitted by the Santa Teresa County Sheriffs Department would be impossible to distinguish from samples taken from similar deposits across the state. Sincerely. So sorry. End of the line for you, before I went back to the beginning and started reading again, this time taking notes.

  According to the first officer at the scene, the girl’s body had been rolled over the edge of an embankment, coming to rest about fifteen feet down, some fifty feet from the highway. Con Dolan and Stacey Oliphant had spotted her at approximately 5:00 P.M. on that Sunday – 1700 hours if you’re talking military time, as this report did. She was lying on her left side on a crumpled canvas tarp, her hands bound in front of her with a length of white plastic-coated wire. She was wearing a dark blue Dacron blouse, white cotton pants with a print of dark blue daisies with a dot of red in each center. There was a leather sandal on her right foot; the matching sandal was found in the brush a short distance away. Marks in the dirt suggested she’d been dragged across the grass near the road. Even from the top of the slope, Dolan and Oliphant could see numerous stab wounds in her chest. It was also apparent her throat had been slashed.

  Oliphant had made immediate CB contact with the Lompoc PD. Because the location was in the county, two on-duty sheriffs deputies were dispatched to the scene. Deputy Joe Mandel and Sergeant Melvin Galloway arrived twenty minutes after the initial call. Photographs were taken of the decedent and of the surrounding area. The body was then removed to a Lompoc mortuary, pending arrival of the coroner. Meanwhile, the deputies searched the vicinity, took soil samples, bagged the tarpaulin along with a nearby broken shrub and two pieces of shrub stem that appeared to be stained with blood.

  On Tuesday, August 5,1969, Mandel and Galloway returned to the crime scene to take measurements-the distance from the highway to the spot where the body had been found, the width of the blacktop, the location of the stray sandal. Sergeant Galloway took additional photos of the various areas, showing the embankment, damaged shrubs, and drag marks. There were no crime scene sketches, but perhaps they’d become separated from the rest of the file in the intervening years.

  I took a minute to sort through the photographs, which were few in number and remarkably uninformative: eight black-and-white prints, including one of the roadway, one of an officer pointing at a broken shrub, one of the embankment where the body was found, and four of the body from a distance of fifteen feet. There were no close-ups of Jane Doe’s face, no views of her wounds or the knotted wire with which her hands had been bound. The tarp was visible beneath her, but it was difficult to judge how much of the body, if any, had been covered. Times have changed. Current practice would have dictated fifty such photographs along with a video and a detailed crime scene sketch. In the same envelope, I found
an additional five photographs in faded color showing the girl’s sandals, pants, shirt, bra, and panties laid out on what looked like a sheet of white paper.

  The autopsy had been performed on August 4, 1969, at 10:30 A.M. I squinted, inferred, surmised, and otherwise faked my way through the report, deciphering enough of the technical talk to figure out what was being said. Because her body was in a state of advanced decomposition, the measurements were estimates. The girl’s height was calculated at 63 to 65 inches, her weight at 120 to 125 pounds. Her eyes were blue, her hair dyed a reddish blond that showed dark roots. In the left earlobe she wore a thin gold-wire circle with a horseshoe configuration. In her right earlobe she wore a similar gold-wire loop with a bent clip in its lower end. Her facial characteristics were indistinguishable due, to skin slippage, gas crepitation, and decomposition. Examination of the body showed eight deep stab wounds in the middle of the back below the shoulder blade area: two stab wounds at the base of the neck on either side; five stab wounds between her breasts; and a large stab wound under the left breast, which had penetrated the heart. There was considerable maggot activity. Because of decomposition, the pathologist was unable to ascertain the presence of any scars or identifying marks. There were no skeletal fractures or deformities, no visible injuries to the external genitalia. Her fallopian tubes and ovaries were unremarkable and her uterine cavity was empty. Cause of death was listed as multiple stab wounds of the neck, chest, heart, and lungs.

  At the conclusion of his exam, the pathologist removed Jane Doe’s fingers, the nails of which she had painted with silver polish. These were tagged by an officer and turned over for shipping to the FBI Identification Division in Washington, D.C. Films taken of her upper and lower jaws showed multiple metallic restorations. She also suffered from what is commonly referred to as buckteeth, with one crooked eyetooth on the left side. A dentist, consulted later, suggested that the extensive dental work had probably been done in the two years before her death – that being 1967 through 1968. He judged her to be in her late teens to early twenties. A forensic odontist, examining the maxilla and mandible at a later date, narrowed the girl’s age to fifteen years, plus or minus thirty-six months, noting that she probably died before she reached the legal age of eighteen.

  On Wednesday, August 6, Sergeant Galloway submitted the following clothing and evidence to the deputy in charge of the property room:

  1. One navy blue, full-length, puffed-sleeve blouse of Dacron-voile material-make unknown-blood-stained.

  2. One pair home-sewn female white pants with blue flowers with red centers-size unknown.

  3. One pair bikini panties, pink-size medium, Penney’s label

  4. One black bra, size 38A, Lady Suzanne label.

  5. One pair female brown leather sandals-buckle type, with I four brass links on leather straps. Size 71h. With gold letters “MADE IN ITALY” on inner sole.

  6. One soiled canvas tarpaulin with blood and miscellaneous stains.

  The dead girl’s earrings, a clipping of her hair, and the plastic-coated wire taken from her wrists were also booked into evidence.

  The Sheriffs Department must have sent the essential information about the deceased to other law enforcement agencies, because a series of follow-up reports over the next several weeks covered all manner of missing persons believed to match the description of Jane Doe. Three stolen automobiles were recovered in the area, one containing assorted articles of women’s clothing in the rear seat. This turned out to be unrelated, according to handwritten notes entered at a later date. The second vehicle, a 1966 red Mustang convertible with Arizona plates, reported stolen from an auto upholstery shop in Quorum, California, was subsequently returned to its rightful owner. The third stolen vehicle, a red 1967 Chevrolet, was tied to a homicide in Venice, California. The driver was subsequently arrested and later convicted of that crime.

  A vagrant was picked up for questioning but released. There was also a report of a twenty-five-year-old employee who’d absconded with $46.35 in currency and change stolen from a service station owner outside the town of Seagate. The caretaker at a nearby state beach park was contacted and questioned about any persons he might have seen in the area. He reported nothing unusual. In three separate incidents, hitchhikers were picked up for questioning, but none of them were held. This was the summer of 1969 and there was a steady stream of hippies migrating north along this route. Hippies were generally regarded with suspicion, assumed to be high on drugs, which was probably the case.

  At 10:30 A.M. on August 6, 1969, Detective Crouse interviewed a clerk named Roxanne Faught, who worked at a minimart on Highway 101. She’d contacted the Sheriffs Department after reading about the murder in the papers and reported that on Friday, August 1, she’d seen a young girl who matched the description of Jane Doe. Miss Faught stated that the girl had helped herself to coffee and a doughnut, which she was unable to pay for. Faught paid for them herself, which is why the incident stuck in her mind. Earlier she’d noticed this same girl hitchhiking north, however she was gone when Faught left work at 3:00 P.M. The girl in the minimart carried no luggage and had no wallet or purse. Several other people contacted the department with leads, but none of these panned out.

  As the days went on, calls came in reporting vehicles of various makes, models, and descriptions that had been seen near the quarry both before and after the body was discovered. As with any investigation, delving into the one crime seemed to bring a number of peripheral crimes into focus: loitering, trespassing, public drunkenness, petty theft – all of which turned out to be immaterial to the case. It was clear that many local citizens were busy remembering odd and freakish incidents that had occurred in the weeks prior to the homicide. For all anyone knew, one of these reports might hold a vital clue about the girl who’d been murdered or the person, or persons, who’d killed her.

  Every phone call, every out-of-state inquiry, and every rumor was dutifully tracked down. At the end of each report, there was a list appended, giving the names, addresses, and phone numbers of those who’d been interviewed. The managers of the JCPenney stores in Lompoc and Santa Teresa were contacted with regard to the article of clothing that bore the Penney’s label, but it was learned that the item was available at any store in the chain. In the end, the girl remained unidentified, and as autumn rolled into winter, new leads diminished. The stained canvas tarp bore no identifying labels. The plastic-coated wire was submitted to the crime lab for analysis. The lab determined that wiring of that nature “would most probably be utilized in low-voltage-amperage conditions where little or no tension would be exerted on its length and where maximum protection from abrasion and moisture was required, perhaps an auto light system, or small low-voltage lighting equipment.” By December of 1970, the intervals between reports had lengthened and new information had dwindled.

  Stacey had worked the case at various times during the following years. He’d consolidated the list of witnesses, and it looked as though he’d arranged them in order of their importance, at least from his perspective. Many had been eliminated because the information they’d provided was too vague or their suggestions too far-fetched. In some cases, it was clear from later file entries that their questions and concerns were not relevant to the investigation. He’d followed up on every call in which a missing girl had been reported. In one instance, dental records were not a match for Jane Doe’s. In another, the police advised the Sheriffs Department that the girl in question was a chronic runaway and had returned home within days. In a third case, the mother of the subject called and informed investigating officers her daughter was alive and well. Stacey had even tried using telephone numbers listed in the reports in hopes of contacting persons whose information seemed pertinent, but many numbers were out of service or had been reassigned to other parties. Having reached the last of the reports, I went through again, consigning the pertinent dates to a stack of blank index cards, converting the facts from their narrative form to disconnected bits of information th
at I’d analyze later.

  When I finally closed the file and looked at my watch, it was only 7:15 – still early enough to catch up with Dolan at CC’s. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed my jacket and shoulder bag, and headed out to my car.

  The Caliente Café – or CC’s, as it’s known – is a neighborhood bar that offers an extensive menu of American dishes with Spanish surnames. The food was probably the management’s attempt to keep the patrons sufficiently sober to drive home without incurring any DUI’s. The surrounding property had undergone a transformation since my last visit two years before. The restaurant is housed in an abandoned service station. The gasoline pumps and below-ground storage tanks had been removed at the time of the conversion, but the contaminated soil had simply been black-topped over and the resulting quarter acre of tarmac was used to provide patron parking. As time went on, the neighbors had begun to complain about the virulent seepage coming up from the ground – a chemical molasses fierce enough to darken the soles of your shoes. In the thick of summer heat, the asphalt became viscous and smelled like oolong tea – which is to say, smoldering tires. In winter, the surface seized up, buckling and cracking to reveal a mealy substance so caustic it generated nosebleeds. Stray cats were subject to wracking coughs on contact. Wandering dogs would suddenly stagger in circles as though in the grip of neurological dismay. Naturally, the owner of the property wasn’t interested in paying the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to excavate this hellishly befouled soil, but the EPA had finally stepped in, and now the parking lot had been uprooted in an effort to remove all the contaminated dirt. In the process, numerous Chumash Indian artifacts had been uncovered, and the site was suddenly embroiled in a dispute among several parties: the tribe, the landowner, the city, and the archaeologists. So complex was this litigation that it was impossible to tell who was siding with whom.