Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone 17)

Stacey added that to the list and then said, “Is that it?”

I raised my hand. “She wore nail polish. Silver.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

“Not that I remember.”

Dolan got to his feet. “In that case, if you’ll excuse me. I gotta have me a smoke.”

At lunchtime, I volunteered to make a trip to the nearest market and pick up the makings for sandwiches, but they’d apparently gotten wind of my peanut-butter-and-pickle fetish and voted to go out for Chinese. We took Con’s car and made the crosstown trip to the Great Wall, with its pagoda facade and a gilded statue of the Buddha sitting over the front door. In the parking lot, I waited while Stacey and Con tucked their guns in the trunk of Con’s car. The three of us went in.

The interior walls were painted the requisite Chinese red with red Naugahyde banquettes and round white paper lanterns strung like moons around the perimeter. Stacey didn’t have much appetite, but Con seemed more than willing to make up for it. I was starving as usual. We ordered pot stickers and spring rolls, which we dunked in that pale Chinese mustard that cleans out your sinuses. We moved on to Moo Shu Pork, Kung Pao Chicken, and Beef with Orange Peel along with a dome of white rice. Con and I drank beer. Stacey had iced tea.

While we ate, the guys speculated about the killer, a matter in which I deferred to them: I have no formal training in homicide investigation, though I’ve encountered a few bodies in the course of my career. Given the nature of the murder, they theorized that the perpetrator was most likely male, in part because women tend to be repelled by close-contact blood-and-gore killings. In addition, the multiple stab wounds suggested a brutality more commonly associated with men.

“Hey, these days, women can be brutes,” Con said.

“Yeah, but I can’t see a woman hefting that body into the car trunk and hauling it out again. A hundred twenty-five pounds is a lot of dead weight.”

“As it were,” Dolan said. “You think this was planned?”

“If it was, you’d think he’d’ve worked out a plan for disposing of the body. This guy was in a hurry, at least enough of one that he didn’t stop to dig a grave.” He was making notes on a napkin and the pen made occasional rips in the paper while the ink tended to spread.

Con opened his packet of chopsticks and pried the two wooden sections apart, rubbing one on the other to smooth away any tiny wooden hairs. He doused both his chicken and his beef with enough soy sauce to form a shallow brown lake in which his rice grains swam like minnows. “I’m surprised he didn’t pick a dump site more remote.”

“That stretch of road looks isolated if you don’t know any better. No houses in sight. He probably didn’t have a clue about the quarry traffic running up and back.”

“I’m with you on that. Forensics says the wire he used to bind her wrists was torn off something else so he must have grabbed whatever came to hand. Guy was making shit up as he went along.” I watched as Dolan formed a pincer with his chopsticks and tried picking up a chunk of chicken, which he couldn’t get as far as his mouth.

“Question is, did he target that girl in particular, or was he trolling for a victim and it was just her bad luck?”

Con said, “I think it was a fishing expedition. He might’ve tried five or six gals and finally one said yes.” He shifted to a scooping technique, using his chopsticks like a little shelf onto which he pushed the bite of chicken. He got the hunk as far as his lower lip. Nope. I saw him shake his head. “I don’t think we’re dealing serial. This feels like a one-off.” He tried again, this time lunging, his lips extended like an anteater’s as he lifted his chopsticks. He captured a snippet of orange peel before the rest fell back onto his plate.

I grabbed a fork from the next table and handed it to him.

Stacey made a doodle on the napkin, which by now was completely tattered. “Hang on. Let’s back up a second. Age-wise, it seems to me like she’s bound to be closer to the high end—sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and up, instead of the twelve, thirteen end of the spread. Young girl like that, somebody’s going to report she’s gone, regardless of whether she leaves voluntarily or stomps out in a huff. You’re a parent, you might shrug and not think too much about it, but when she doesn’t come home, you’re going to worry. You call around and find out her friends haven’t seen her either and you’re going to call the cops. If she’s twenty and disappears, it might not raise any flags at all.”

“Right. She could’ve had a history of taking off. This might have been one more in a long string of disappearances.”