Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone 17)

Dolan said, “What happened to the car?”

“Someone pushed it down a ravine is what I heard.”

“I mean, where is it now?”

“Oh. It’s setting right out back. Cornell and I intend to do the restoration as soon as we have time. I guess you met him. He’s married with three girls, and Justine lays claim to any spare time he has. We’ll get to it in due course.”

“Justine’s his wife?”

“Going on fifteen years. She’s difficult to get along with. Edna has more patience with the situation than I do.”

“You have any idea who might have stolen the car?”

“If I did, I’d’ve told the police back then. Joyriders is my guess. Town this size, it’s what the kids do for fun. That and throw paint balloons out the back of their trucks. Not like when I was young. My dad would’ve pounded me bloody and that’d’ve been the end of that.”

“You ever had a car stolen from the shop before?”

“Not before and not since. I put up a fence with concertina wire and that took care of it.” He turned his attention from the TV. “What’s your interest?

Dolan’s expression was bland. “We’re cleaning out our files, doing follow-up on old crime reports. Most of it’s administrative work.”

“I see.” Ruel stepped on his cigarette and then placed the flattened butt in a Miracle Whip jar that was nearly filled to the brim. He held the jar out to Dolan who stepped on his cigarette and added it to the collection. Ruel was saying, “I’m not allowed to smoke inside, especially when the granddaughters visit. Justine thinks it’s bad for their lungs so Edna makes me come out here. Justine can be moody if she doesn’t get her way.”

“Why’d you hang on to the car?”

Ruel drew back and made a face as though Dolan were dense. “That Mustang’s a classic. 1966.”

“Couldn’t have been a classic then. The car was only three years old.”

“I told you I got the car for free,” he said. “Once we finish the restoration, it’ll be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of fourteen thousand dollars. Now I’d call that a profit, wouldn’t you?”

“Mind if we take a look?”

“Help yourself. I got five of them back there; one sweet little GT Coupe, silver frost with the black vinyl top torn up. Doesn’t run yet and the body needs work, but if you’re interested, we could talk money and maybe make a deal.”

“My car’s fine, thanks.”

Dolan lit another cigarette as the two of us trooped through high grass to a rutted dirt lane overgrown with weeds that led to the second of Ruel McPhee’s garages. The entire area had been undercut by gopher tunnels, and my foot occasionally sank into a softly crumbling hole. The garage was positioned so that its backside was to us, its double doors facing a flat field beyond. We could see the faintly defined path where the lane had originally been laid out, possibly in anticipation of a second house on the property. Three additional vehicles were visible in the area immediately in front of us. We checked those cars first, lifting their respective car covers like a series of ladies’ skirts. The two I peeked at were in poor shape, and I didn’t think they’d ever amount to more than yard ornaments. While we made our inspection, I said, “You think someone used the vehicle to drive the body to Lompoc?”

“Hard to say. She could have been alive when she left, assuming she was ever in Quorum at all. Just as likely someone stole the car and picked her up along the way.”

“But what if she was killed here? Why drive the body all the way up there to dump? Seems like it’d be easier to go out in the desert and dig a hole.”

Dolan shrugged. “You might want to put some distance between the body and the crime scene. It’d make sense to take off and go as far as you could. Then you’d have to find a place to pull off and unload, which’s not as easy as you’d think. If the body was in the trunk much more than a day, it’d start to decompose and then you’d have a big problem on your hands. You’d have to figure the car’d been reported stolen, which means you couldn’t risk a traffic stop in case the officer became curious about what you had back there. At least Lompoc’s off the main highway and if you found an isolated spot, you’d dump her while you had the chance.”

“What about the original owner? How do we know he didn’t have a hand in it?”

“It’s always possible,” he said, “though Gant’s been dead the last ten years. Ruptured abdominal aneurysm, according to the information I received.”