Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone 17)

Stacey shaded his eyes, looking sideways at him. “Called a cab. They do that. Pay ’em money, those guys’ll take you anyplace you want.”

“I didn’t think you’d be released until they ran more tests.”

Stacey waved that notion aside. “Hell with ’em. I got tired of waiting for the doc to pull a thumb out. I packed my things and took a hike. I don’t have time for nonsense. It won’t change anything. Meantime, I got a call from Mandel and he says come on out. He’s pulled the Jane Doe evidence and we can take a look. Speaking of which, what’d our friend Frankie have to say for himself?”

“Don’t change the subject. How’d the biopsy go?”

“Piece of cake. They’ve stuck me so often, it’s like a bug bite.”

“How soon do you get the results?”

Stacey’s hand was so small he managed to ease his bracelet off without breaking it. “Day or so. Who cares? We got work to do. Now give me a hand here. My age, you get down, you can’t get up again. Tell me about Frankie.”

“He’s completely innocent.”

“Of course. We should have known.”

Dolan extended a hand and pulled Stacey to his feet. He seemed to totter fleetingly and then he regained his balance. Dolan and I exchanged one of those looks, which Stacey caught.

“Quit that. I’m fine. I’m tired is all. I’ve been in bed too long.”

The Santa Teresa County Sheriff’s Department is located near Colgate off El Solano Road in the same general vicinity as the county dump. I guess land out there is cheap and there’s room to expand. Behind the building, I could see rows of black-and-whites, county cars, and assorted personal vehicles belonging to the Sheriff’s Department personnel. The one-story structure is a creamy beige and white stucco, with a series of arches across the front. The main jail is just across the road. We parked and went in the front entrance, letting Stacey lead the way. I could tell he missed working. Just the sight of the facility seemed to give him strength.

To the left, in the tiny lobby, was a counter with a glass partition, probably bulletproof, though it was impossible to tell. The civilian clerk, a woman, looked up when we came in. Stacey said, “We’re here to see Sergeant Detective Joe Mandel.”

She pushed a clipboard across the counter. “He said he’d be right out.”

All three of us signed in and she gave us each a visitor’s badge, which we fastened onto our shirts. There were three chairs available, but we elected to stand. Through the locked glass door, I could already see someone approaching from the far end of the corridor. He pushed the door open from his side and let us in. There were the usual introductions and a round of handshakes. From the flicker in his eyes, I could tell he recognized me from our meeting in his kitchen, but if he thought it odd, he never let on. He knew Stacey well, but I gathered he hadn’t seen Dolan for many years. They exchanged pleasantries as he held the door open and let us into the corridor.

We turned left and followed him down a long hallway, a dogrun of beige carpeting and beige walls, with offices opening up on either side. Joe introduced us to Sergeant Steve Rhineberger, in the Sheriff’s forensics unit. He unlocked a door and showed us into a room that looked like a tract-housing kitchen without the stove. There were counters on three sides and some sort of ventilation apparatus at the rear. A large battered-looking brown paper bag sat on the table in the center of the room.

Sergeant Rhineberger opened a lower cabinet door, tore off a length of white paper from a wide roll inside, and took out a pair of disposable latex gloves. “I asked the coroner’s office to send over the mandible and maxilla. I thought you might want to look at those, too.”

He placed the sheet of protective paper on the table, pulled on the gloves, and then broke the seal on the evidence bag. He removed the folded tarp and various articles of clothing, which he spread on the paper. Mandel removed a handful of disposable gloves from the cardboard dispenser on the counter. He passed a pair to Stacey, a pair to Dolan, and a pair to me. The guys had been chatting about department business, but we all fell into a respectful silence. Eighteen years after the violence of her death, there was only the crackle of white paper and the snap of gloves.

It was strange to look at items I’d only seen before in faded photographs. The shirt and daisy-print pants had been cut from the body and the garments seemed sprawling and misshapenlaid out across the tabletop. The fabric was soiled and moist, as though permeated with damp sand. The bloodstains resembled nothing so much as smudges of rust. Her sandals were leather, decorated with brass buckles linked with leather bands. A narrow thong would have separated her big toe from the remaining toes on each foot. The sandals looked new except for faint stains on the sole where her heel and the ball of her bare foot had left indelible marks.