Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone 17)

Dolan said, “Is one of you Iona Mathis?”

The younger said, “That’s me.” She went back to brushing dark carmine polish on the thumbnail of the other woman’s left hand. On the table between them, I could see an orange stick, emery boards, a bottle of cuticle remover, cotton balls, a nail brush, and a plastic halfmoon bowl filled with soapy water. To the right of the older woman, there was a pack of Winstons, with a book of paper matches tucked under the cellophane. The ashtray was filled with butts.

The older woman smiled and said, “I’m Iona’s mom, Annette.”

“Lieutenant Dolan with the Santa Teresa Police Department. This is Miss Millhone. She’s a private detective.”

Iona slid a look at us before she started work on her mother’s index finger. If she was sixteen when she married Frankie, she’d be close to thirty-five now, roughly my age. Oh, hey, I was a little older, but who was keeping track? I tried to put myself in her place, wondering what might persuade me to live here and make my living nipping someone else’s cuticles and massaging their toes. She was just shy of pretty. I watched her with interest through the softening haze of the screen door, trying to figure out where her looks fell short. Her hair was a lustrous brown, wavy, shoulder-length, and in need of a trim. She kept it parted in the center, which made her face look too long. She had full lips, a strong nose, brown eyes, and dark brows that were a shade too thick. She had a mole on her upper lip and one on her left cheek. In many ways, she still looked sixteen—lanky and round-shouldered. Her feet were bare, and she wore faded knee-ripped jeans and an India-print tunic in shades of rust and brown.

Annette leaned toward her daughter and said, “Baby, if you’re not going to ask the man I will.” When Iona made no response, she looked back at Dolan. “Hon, I wish you’d tell us why you’re here because you’re scaring me to death.” Iona’s mother, surely in her fifties, looked closer to thirty-five than Iona did. She had the same strong nose, but she’d had hers surgically reduced to something thinner and more sunken. Her hair, which she wore pulled up in a ponytail, was the same shade of brown, but of a uniformly intense hue that suggested she was dyeing it to cover gray. A sleeveless white knit top emphasized her big boobs, cantilevered over a thick waist and slightly rounded tummy. She wore red shorts and red canvas wedgies. Her toenails had been polished in the same red Iona was using on her fingernails. I thought she’d have been wise to cover more of herself than she had.

Dolan said, “We have a few questions about Iona’s ex. You mind if we come in?”

“Door’s open,” Annette said.

Dolan slid open the screen door and stepped into the trailer, then sidestepped to his left so I’d have room to enter. Once inside, I moved to the right and perched on the near end of the blue plastic-padded bench where Annette was sitting. There was a long padded cushion across the back of the bench, and I was guessing at the presence of a mechanism that would allow the couch to level out into a double bed once the hinged table had been flattened against the wall. Did the two women share the trailer, or did Mom have her own? Dolan and I had agreed that he’d conduct the interview as it was confusing to have questions lobbed from two directions at once. I was there primarily to observe and to take mental notes.

Beyond the kitchenette, I could see a sliding door on the right that I assumed was the bathroom. Dead ahead, I saw the double bed that filled the only bedroom. I’m a sucker for small spaces, and I wouldn’t have minded living in a place like this, though I’d have held out for something clean. I did love the diminutive sink and the half-size oven, the four-burner cooktop, and the wee refrigerator tucked under the counter. It was like a playhouse, designed for dollies, tea parties, and other games of make-believe. I focused my attention on Iona, whose bad posture was probably a side effect of hunching over her table all day.

Annette said, “You haven’t said which ex, but if you’re a police lieutenant, you must be talking about Frank. Her second husband, Lars, never broke the law in his life. He wouldn’t even cross the street without a crosswalk. He drove Iona crazy. Here, she went out and found a fellow as different from Frank as you could possibly get and then it turns out he’s worse. He suffered from that obsessive-compulsive syndrome? Shoot. Everything he did, he had to repeat six more times before he’d allow himself to move on. Getting anything accomplished took hours. I about went insane.” She peered closely at her pinkie. “Baby, I think you got outside the line there. You see that?”