by Sue Grafton
“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 café 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 lookit 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 café, 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.”
“What about something to drink? We have coffee, tea, Coke, and Sprite.”
Dolan said, “Coke, I guess.”
“Make that two.”
Annette took her place behind the counter. She turned on the gas burner under the griddle, removed two hamburger patties from the refrigerator, and slapped them on the grill. “It’ll just be a minute.”
Dolan said, “Things slow today?”
“Things are slow every day.”
She made a quick return trip with a dish of celery, carrot sticks, and green olives. She’d tucked a bottle of ketchup and a squeeze bottle of yellow mustard in her apron pocket and she placed those on the table as well. By the time she got back to the griddle, the patties were done and she assembled our plates. “I forgot to ask how you wanted these,” she said as she unloaded her tray.
“This is fine,” I said. I was busy doctoring my burger with mustard, ketchup, pickle, and onion. Not up to QP standards, but it would have to do.
Dolan said, “What are the chances she’s been in touch with Frank?”
“You think he might’ve had something to do with that young girl’s death?
“I have no idea. We were hoping Iona could help us fill in some blanks.”
Across the road at the trailer park, we could see a car pull onto the highway, turn left, and speed off with Iona at the wheel. Annette leaned toward the window, frowning slightly to herself. “Wonder what that’s about?”
Dolan bit into his burger. “Guess she doesn’t want to talk to us.”
13
We left the tiny town of Peaches at 2:00, when it finally became apparent Iona wouldn’t return. The ever-loquacious Annette had nattered away, answering every question we asked, though most of the information consisted of her own attitudes. It was clear she was no friend of Frankie’s, and I was reasonably certain she’d told us as much as she knew. Iona, on the other hand, had clearly left the vicinity to avoid being presse
d. Annette wanted to believe she was done with Frankie Miracle, but I wasn’t so sure.
From Highway 14, we took Highway 138 as far as the 15, then angled our way down to the eastbound 10, otherwise known as the San Bernardino Freeway. Despite Dolan’s worries about his heart, there is quite literally no other way to get to Blythe. This 175-mile stretch of highway extends from the eastern edges of Los Angeles and crosses the state line into Arizona at Blythe. For close to three hours, Dolan kept his foot pressed to the accelerator while the road disappeared beneath us. The scenery became monotonous, the typical urban sprawl of tract housing, billboards, industrial plants, shopping malls, and railroad tracks. The highway was lined with palms, evergreens, and eucalyptus trees. We passed recreational vehicle “estates,” an RV country club, and an RV resort and spa. This was a long stretch of land where no one intended to put down roots. We stopped once for gas in Orocopia and I picked up a copy of the Mobile Home Gazette; sixteen pages of coupons for discount dinners, cruise specials, golf lessons, custom dentures, and early-bird bingo.
After Palm Springs, the land flattened and the color faded from the landscape. For mile after mile, there was only sand and rock, chaparral, power lines, and passing cars. On either side of the road, at the horizon, the land rose to a fringe of foothills that confined the view. Everything was beige and gray and a pale dusty green. California deserts consist, in the main, of pale soils—fawn, cinnamon, sepia, and pink. We passed the state prison, its presence underlined by signs that advised us not to pick up hitchhikers. The speed limit was seventy, but the landscape was so vast that we scarcely seemed to move. Aside from the Salton Sea to the south of us, the map showed only dry lakes.
I said, “How does anything manage to grow out here?”
Dolan smiled. “The desert’s a marvel of adaptability. California desert has one rainy season where southern Arizona has two. The rest of the year, you have drought. If you had seeds that germinated right after the rains, the young plants wouldn’t survive the hard sun and heat. Lot of seeds are covered with wax that prevents them from absorbing water until a period of time has passed. Once the wax wears off, they germinate, and that’s where the food chain originates. Rabbits and desert rats turn the vegetation into animal flesh and that provides dinner for the predators. Snakes eat the rodents and then the bobcats eat snakes.”
“Very nice,” I said.
“Efficient. Like crime. Everybody’s busy eating someone else.”
He went on in this fashion, regaling me with the mating and egg-laying habits of various desert insects, including the black widow, the brown widow, and the tarantula hawk, until I sang, “I’m getting sick here.” That shut him up.
At Blythe, we turned south, taking the two-lane state road that ran twelve miles to the community of Quorum, population 12,676. On the map, the town was little more than a circle. Dolan slowed as the outlying residential properties began to appear. The houses were plain and the yards were flat. We reached the central business district less than a minute later on a main street six lanes wide. Buildings were low, as though by hugging the ground, the inhabitants could escape the penetrating desert sun. Palm trees seemed to flourish. There were numerous motels along the thoroughfare, most with wistful-sounding names, like the Bayside Motor Court and the Sea Shell Motel. Among the commercial establishments, many seemed travel-related: gas stations, car dealerships, tire sales, car washes, camper shells, and automotive repair. Occasionally, I’d catch sight of a locksmith or a beauty shop, but not much else. Here, as in Peaches, there were numerous boarded-up businesses; signs with the glass punched out, leaving only the frame. Jody’s Café, Rupert’s Auto Radiator, and a furniture store were among those that had failed. Glancing to my right, I could see that even the secondary streets tended to be four lanes wide. There was clearly nothing out here but space.
As we drove through town, we made a brief detour, stopping in at the Quorum Police Department and the Riverside County Sheriff’s substation, which were next door to each other on North Winter Street. I waited in the car while Dolan talked to detectives in both agencies, letting them know he was in the area and what he was working on. Technically, neither visit was required, but he didn’t want to step on any toes. It was smart to lay the groundwork in case we needed local assistance later. When he got back in the car and slammed the door, he said, “Probably a waste of time, but it’s worked in my favor often enough to make it worthwhile.”
It was close to 5:30 by then and the afternoon temperatures were dropping rapidly. Dolan’s plan was to find a motel and then cruise the town, looking for a place to eat. “We can have supper and turn in early, then scout out the auto upholstery shop first thing in the morning.”
“Fine with me.”
Most of the motels seemed equivalent, matching rates posted on gaudy neon signs. We settled on the Ocean View, which boasted a pool, a heated spa, and free TV. We checked in at the desk, and I waited while Dolan gave the clerk his credit card, picking up the tab on two rooms and a key for each of us. We hopped back in the car, driving the short distance so he could park in the slot directly in front of his room. Mine turned out to be right around the corner. We agreed to a brief recess during which we’d get settled.
I let myself into my room. The interior smelled like the Santa Teresa beach, which is to say, faintly of damp and less faintly of mildew. I placed my shoulder bag on the desktop and my duffel on the chair. I christened the facilities, shrugged into my windbreaker, and met Dolan at his door. Not surprisingly, his goal was to find a restaurant with a cocktail lounge attached. Failing that, he’d opt for a decent bar somewhere, after which we could eat pizza in our rooms. We stopped in the motel office, where the desk clerk recommended the Quorum Inn, two blocks down, on High Street. I’d miscalculated the chill in the desert air at night. I walked with my arms crossed, hunched against the brisk wind whipping down the wide streets. The town seemed exposed, laid open to the elements, low buildings the only hope of shelter from the desert winds.
The Quorum Inn was already packed when we arrived: the late-afternoon martini crowd firing up cigarettes, alternating bites of green olives with the mixed nuts on the bar. The walls were varnished pine and the booths were upholstered in red Naugahyde. The free-standing tables were covered with red-and-white checked cloths. Most of the menu choices were either steak or beef. The side dishes were french fries, fried onion rings, and batter-fried zucchini. You could also order a foil-wrapped baked potato smothered in butter, sour cream, bacon, and/or cheese.
We sat at the bar for the first hour while Dolan downed three Manhattans and I sipped at a puckery white wine that I diluted with ice. Once we retired to a table, he asked for a well-done twenty-two-ounce sirloin and I settled for an eight-ounce filet. By 8:00, we were back at the motel, where we parted company for the night. I read for a while and then slept the way you do with a tummy full of red meat and a shitload of cholesterol coursing through your veins.
At breakfast, I had my usual cereal while Dolan had bacon, eggs, pancakes, four cups of coffee, and five cigarettes. When he pulled out the sixth, I said, “Dolan, you have to quit this.”
He hesitated. “What?”
“The booze and cigarettes and fatty foods. You’ll trigger another heart attack and I’ll be stuck doing CPR. Haven’t you read the Surgeon General’s report?”
He gestured impatiently. “Nuts to that stuff! My granddaddy lived to ninety-six and he smoked hand-rolled cigarettes from the time he was twelve until the day he died.”
“Yeah, well I’ll bet he hadn’t had two heart attacks by the time he was your age. You keep ragging on Stacey and you’re worse than he is.”
“That’s different.”
“It is not. You want him alive and that’s exactly what I’m bugging you about.”
“If I’m interested in your opinion, I’ll be sure to ask. I don’t need a lecture from someone half my age.”
“I’m not half your age. How old are you?”
“I’m si
xty-one.”
“Well, I’m thirty-six.”
“The point is, I can do anything I want.”
“Nah, nah, nah. I’ll remind you of that next time Stacey threatens to blow his brains out.”
Dolan crushed out his cigarette butt in the ashtray. “I’m tired of jawing. Time to go to work.”
McPhee’s Auto Upholstery was located on Hill Street in the heart of town. We parked across from the shop and took a moment to get our bearings. The morning was filled with flat, clean sunlight. The air felt pleasant, but I was guessing that by afternoon the heat, while dry, would feel oppressive. By the time the sun went down, it’d be as cold as it had been the night before. Behind the shop, we could see a small lot where six cars had been parked, each shrouded in an automobile cover. That part of the property was enclosed by heavy chain-link fence topped with razor wire. The building itself was constructed of corrugated metal with three bays on one side, the doors rolled up to reveal the shop’s interior. It looked like a gas station, surrounded with the usual cracked asphalt. We could see two men at work.
“You really think the car we’re after is the one C. K. saw?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” he said. “We know it was stolen from here.”
“If it was parked near the quarry, then what?”
“Then we’ll see if we can establish a connection between the car and Jane Doe.”
We got out and crossed the street to the front entrance. Under the big plate glass window, a large concrete planter sat empty except for packed dirt. To the right of the shop there was a lumberyard; to the left, a long-distance hauling company with a lot full of tractor rigs and detached semitrailers. This was a commercial neighborhood made up of businesses that catered to customers in pickups and vans.
The showroom was an extension of the shop area out back. The floor was done in black-and-white vinyl tile. Behind a glass case filled with service manuals, there was a metal desk, metal file cabinets, and a Rolodex. The top surface of the glass case was piled high with sample books showing automobile and marine vinyls, “Performance-rated fabrics for heavy-duty application.” Rear and side camper windows in a variety of styles had been mounted on pegboard and hung on the wall. We picked our way through a cluster of bench and bucket car seats still exhibiting their torn upholstery. A display board was set up to show the leather/vinyl match for Ford, GM, Chrysler-Jeep Eagle, Honda, and Toyota interior upholstery. You could order any number of convertible tops, tonneau covers, floor mats, and glass or plastic window curtains.
