Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone 17)

“What about the other guys in the cell that night? You remember anything about them?”

“Nope. Sorry. I was eighteen years old, drunk and stoned the night they picked me up. My second or third blackout, I forget which. Third, I think. I could’ve been in with Charlie Manson and you couldn’t prove it by me.”

I tried priming the pump, claiming we had a witness who was there at the same time and said Frankie’d bragged about a killing. This generated no response. I handed him the packet of photographs, which he shuffled through carelessly. He shook his head and handed them back. “Look like a bunch of thugs.”

I tucked the photos in my bag. “I know this is none of my business, but what’d you do to warrant a prison sentence?”

His fingers became still and then he pulled at a thatch of beard growing under his chin. “What makes you ask?”

“No reason. I’m just curious.”

“I don’t really care to say.”

“Ah. My fault. Sorry. It’s your business, of course. I didn’t mean to step on your toes.” I gave him my card, offering the standard line. “Thanks for your time. If you think of anything, will you let us know?”

“Sure.”

“Can I ask one more thing? You think you’re out for good?”

He considered my question and then smiled to himself. “I doubt it.”

I stopped off at the hospital on my way into town. Stacey was back on 6 Central, in another private room located down the hall from the room he’d had before. When I glanced in, his bed was empty. Beside it, a wide window looked out on a view of the ocean, maybe two miles away, across the shaggy treetops. An occasional glimpse of a red-tile roof punctuated the thick expanse of green. The room was airy; spacious enough to accommodate a forty-eight-inch round table and four captain’s chairs, where I found Dolan sitting with a tattered copy of Road & Track.

“Oh, hi. Where’s Stace?”

“In X-ray. He should be back in a bit.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Don’t know yet. What’d Rickman say?”

“Regrettably, not much.” I filled him in on my conversation. “I think we can safely write him off. Probably Pudgie as well. He’s cagey, but dumb, and I don’t trust the combination. So now what?”

Dolan set his magazine aside. He wore a dark blue windbreaker and a Dodgers baseball cap. “Stacey never got a chance to call Joe Mandel to see if he can lay hands on Jane Doe’s effects. Soon as he’s got a minute, he’s going to do that. Meantime, we thought you might have a phone chat with this C. K. Vogel fellow that Arne was talking about. You might try Directory Assistance—”

“Dolan, this is what I do for a living.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

“I’ll go down to the lobby and find a public phone. You want anything while I’m there?”

“I don’t suppose they sell Camels in the gift shop.”

“I don’t suppose they do.” When I got to the door, I hesitated. “What was Rickman in prison for?”

Lieutenant Dolan picked up his magazine and wet his index finger. He turned the page, paying close attention to a full-page ad for a fuel additive that required the presence of a blonde in a bathing suit. “Well, let’s see. Molestation, sodomy, oral copulation, lewd and lascivious acts with a child. I’m surprised he wasn’t killed in prison. As a rule, inmates don’t have a lot of tolerance for guys like that.”

Geez, I’d been picturing a bit of B&E.

I took the elevator down and made my way through the maze of corridors to the lobby. I found a bank of public phone kiosks outside the front entrance, sheltered by a marquee that extended from the lobby door to the passenger loading ramp. While I looked on, a young nurse’s aide helped a new mother out of a wheelchair and into a waiting van. I couldn’t see the baby’s face, but the bundle wasn’t much bigger than a loaf of bread. I scrounged around in the bottom of my bag and came up with a handful of coins. Lompoc was in the same area code as Santa Teresa, so I knew it wasn’t going to require much. I dialed Directory Assistance while the young husband loaded flower arrangements into the back of the van, along with a cluster of bobbing pink and silver helium balloons.

I got C. K. Vogel’s number and made a note of it before I dialed. When he picked up on his end, I identified myself. Judging from the sound of his voice, he was in his eighties and possibly in the midst of an afternoon nap. I said, “Sorry to disturb you.”