Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone 17)

“Nah, what a pisser. I felt bad about that.”

“Me, too. I just talked to the painting contractor, a guy named Lennie Root. He says Frankie and Pudgie both worked for him in early ’69. After six months, Frankie quit—this was approximately mid-June. Apparently, after that, he worked in Blythe for three weeks. That’s where he met and married Iona Mathis.”

“What about Pudgie? Where was he?”

“Don’t know, but I can go back and ask. I was focusing on Frankie.”

“So Root puts him in Quorum at the same time as Charisse?”

“Not Quorum, but Blythe, which is close enough,” I said. “By the end of July when she disappeared, Frankie’d moved to Venice, a five-hour drive. Here I was, just about to swing over to your view, thinking Frankie’s our guy, and now Pudgie surfaces, so there goes that.”

“Not necessarily. They could’ve been in it together. Pudgie told you they didn’t know each other, but that was clearly horseshit.”

“Yeah, right. Pudgie knew Iona, so why wouldn’t he know Frankie? She could have introduced them,” I said. “Or maybe it was the other way around and Pudgie was the one who introduced Iona to Frank.”

“Well, it doesn’t make much difference since the second set of prints wasn’t his. Personally, I hate to see him off the hook for this.”

“Well, someone was in the Mustang with Pudgie. Iona maybe?”

Stacey frowned, scratching at the underside of his chin. “Well now, wait a minute. Hold on. That’s a leap we can’t make. We’re putting Pudgie in the Mustang when the girl was killed, but the prints might have been sequential instead of simultaneous. Did Pudgie know the McPhees?”

“If he stole the car it wouldn’t matter if he knew them or not.”

“Problem is, if Pudgie knew Cornell or any one of them, he might’ve had legitimate access to the vehicle. The car came back in poor condition. Ruel might have asked him to move it into the shed or hose it down. Or he and Cornell might have gone out to the shed to sneak a smoke. There could be all kinds of explanations for his prints being there.”

I said, “Assuming they knew each other.”

“Right.”

I thought about that briefly. “Pudgie did grow up in Creosote, which is only sixteen miles south. I think it’s down below Hazelwood Springs.”

“That’s my point.”

“But even if they knew each other, it still could’ve been Pudgie who stole the Mustang. When he was arrested in Lompoc, he was thumbing a ride. He could have stolen the car, driven it to Lompoc, dumped the body, and pushed the car into that ravine.”

“Why don’t we ask him? You said his sister brought him down here after he got out of jail. You have an address for her?”

“No, but we can probably get one.”

We picked up Pudgie’s home address from the administrator at the Santa Teresa county jail. We decided to take the rental car since Dolan’s smelled like cigarette smoke. Driving south on Highway 78, I pointed out the Tuley-Belle, telling Stacey what I’d seen. As I’d predicted, he was interested in seeing it and we decided to stop off as soon as time allowed.

Creosote wasn’t as big as Quorum, but it was ten times larger than Hazelwood Springs, which we passed through en route. The sign said POP. 3,435, but the Chamber of Commerce might have been inflating the facts. Given its close proximity to the Arizona state line, the town had opted for a Western look and resembled nothing so much as a cheap movie set where, at any moment, a cowboy might be shot and sail, tumbling, from the roof of the saloon. The commercial properties on the narrow main street were all wood frame, two- and three-story structures built side by side, with tall, fake facades, steep outside wooden stairs, and plank walkways between buildings instead of the usual sidewalks. It might have been an actual mining town or it might be masquerading as a place with a more interesting history than it had.

Stacey’d donned his red knit watch cap, claiming his head was cold. I suspected he was suffering a rare moment of vanity, but I could have been wrong. Pudgie’s sister’s house was on A Street near the corner of Third, a small, square box set on a square patch of lawn. Three concrete steps led to a small porch. From inside, we could hear a vacuum cleaner droning away. Stacey rapped smartly to no particular effect. He knocked again, and this time we could hear the vacuum cleaner being turned off. A woman opened the door, barefoot, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with a dust rag hanging from a belt loop. She was a tall, big-boned redhead with a blue bandanna tied around her head, Cinderella-style. Her eye makeup was dramatic. Both her upper and lower lids were lined with kohl. A fringe of false lashes set off the blue of her eyes. “Yes?”