Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone 17)

On our way across town, Dolan told me he’d gone through the murder book again. Early reports had made reference to three stolen vehicles, one of which was the red 1967 Chevrolet in which Frankie’d been stopped. Melvin Galloway had been asked to follow up on the other two, but gauging from the paperwork, it was impossible to tell what he’d actually done. Miracle was a fugitive and his arrest was a feather in Galloway’s cap. Given his reputation for laziness, the routine aspects of the investigation probably didn’t have much appeal. It was possible he’d simply claimed he’d handled the query when he’d let the matter slide. The red convertible C. K. Vogel had seen turned out to be a 1966 Ford Mustang, owned by a man named Gant in Mesquite, Arizona, just across the California line. Stacey had asked Joe Mandel to run the VIN and license plate to see where the vehicle was now. If Mandel could determine the current whereabouts, it might be worthwhile to track it down and take a look.

The room Frankie rented was located in the rear of a frame house on Guardia Street. We picked our way down the drive, avoiding a cornucopia of spilled garbage from an overturned can. Surrounding orange and red hibiscus shrubs had grown so tall that the narrow wooden porch was cold with shade. Dolan knocked on the door while I stood to one side, as though worried I’d be fired on through the lath-and-plaster wall. Dolan waited a decent interval and knocked again. We were on the verge of departing when Frankie opened the door.

At forty-four, he was baby-faced and clean-shaven. He wore a T-shirt and loose shorts, with a sleep mask pushed up on the top of his head. His feet were bare. He said, “What.”

“Mr. Miracle?”

“That’s right.”

Dolan moved his windbreaker aside, exposing the badge on his belt. “Lieutenant Dolan, Santa Teresa Police Department. This is Kinsey Millhone.”

“Okay.” Frankie had mild brown wavy hair and brown eyes. His gaze was direct and tainted with annoyance. I was surprised to see he had no visible tattoos. He’d been in prison for the past seventeen years and I expected him to look as though he’d been rolling naked and wet across the Sunday funnies. He wasn’t overweight by any means, but he looked soft, which was another surprise. I picture prison inmates all bulked up from lifting weights. His eyes caught mine. “I suit you okay?”

I declined a response.

Dolan said, “You have a late night? You seem cross.”

“I work nights, if it’s any of your business.”

“Doing what?”

“Janitorial. The Granger Building on the graveyard shift. I’d give you my boss’s name, but you already have that.”

Dolan smiled slightly. “Matter of fact I do. Your parole officer gave it to me when I talked to him.”

“What’s this about?”

“May we come in?”

Frankie glanced back across his shoulder. “Sure, why not?”

He stepped away from the door and we crossed the threshold. His entire living quarters consisted of one room with a linoleum floor, a hot plate, an ancient refrigerator, an iron bed-stead, and little else. In lieu of a closet, he had a rack made of cast iron pipe on which he’d draped his clothes, both dirty and clean. I could see a cramped bathroom through a door that opened off the rear wall. In addition to an ashtray full of butts, there was a tumble of paperback books on the floor by his bed, a mix of mystery and science fiction. The room smelled of ripe sheets and stale cigarette smoke. I’d have killed myself if I were forced to live in a place like this. On the other hand, Frankie was used to prison, so this was probably an improvement.

There was no place to sit so the two of us stood while Frankie crawled back in bed and pulled the sheet across his lap. The ensuing conversation seemed bizarre, like a visit with Stacey in his hospital room. I’d never seen anyone other than the chronically ill opt to be interviewed prone. It suggested a wary sort of self-confidence. He straightened the sheet and folded the top over once. “You can skip the small talk. I’m working again tonight and I need my sleep.”

“We’d like to ask you about the time you spent in Lompoc before you got picked up.”

“What about it?”

“How you got there, what you were doing before your arrest?”

“Don’t remember. I was stoned. I had shit for brains back then.”

“When the officers pulled you over, you were six miles from the spot where a young girl’s body was found.”

“Wonderful. And where was that?”

“Near Grayson Quarry. You know the place?”