“I remember now. You’re right. I knew I’d read the name, but I couldn’t think where.”
Dolan said, “Well, she couldn’t be Jane Doe unless she rose from the dead. You said she called in a week or so after the body was found.”
“The caller said she was Quinn’s mother. Might have been someone else,” Stacey said.
“I don’t guess those old phone records still exist,” I said.
“Probably not,” Dolan replied. “Too much time’s elapsed. All we can hope is the deputy took down her number when the call came in.”
Stacey said, “Let’s see what this dentist says. If the records match, then we know the victim’s Quinn and the call’s a fake.”
“Any word on the Mustang?” Dolan asked.
Stacey smiled, holding up three fingers. “Three blond hairs caught in the hinge of the trunk. Characteristics are similar to Jane Doe’s hair. Not conclusive, of course, but it shores up the theory she was stowed in the Mustang for transport. Someone made an effort to wipe the car clean, but the techs picked up a few latent fingerprints, including a partial palm print on the jack. The guy must have moved it when he was clearing space in the trunk.”
I said, “What about the stains, were those blood?”
“We sent the carpet to the DOJ lab in Colgate, but we won’t get results on that for weeks. We’re lucky we have the technology now we didn’t have back then. The blood might be all hers, or we might have some of the killer’s mixed in.”
“Seems like the other question is whether the stains in the trunk match the ones on the tarp. A bloody stabbing like that, she might have put up a fight,” I said.
Stacey’s tone was dubious. “Maybe so, but don’t forget, her hands were bound and the coroner’s report doesn’t make mention of defensive wounds.”
Dolan said, “Even so, the guy might have been nicked.” “Let’s hope. Problem is, we don’t have a suspect for comparison.”
“Correction. We don’t have a suspect yet.”
I raised my hand. “Could one of you ask Ruel about the tarp? I want to know if it was his.”
Dolan snorted. “Why should we ask? Why not you?”
“Come on. You know he’s going to yell at me. He’d never yell at the two of you.”
“Chickenheart.”
“What a wuss.”
I smiled. “I thought that’s what you tough guys were for. To do the dirty work.”
“I’ll tackle him,” Stacey said. “He won’t pick on a guy as sick as me.”
Dolan said, “Wait a minute, Stace. Don’t pull rank. You said you were well. I’m the sick one. Lookit where I am.”
“So you can ask him. Who cares? Point is, we ought to see if we can find out where the tarp came from.”
“How’re you going to do that? Damn thing doesn’t even have a tag with the manufacturer’s name. Besides which, I don’t see the relevance.”
I said, “The killer might have been a long-distance hauler. They sometimes use tarps to secure a load.” I stopped. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh, what?”
“I just had a flash.”
“Of what?”
“If the victim turns out to be Charisse and the body was transported in the Mustang, then your theory about Frankie Miracle is really screwed.”
Dolan frowned. “How you figure that?”
“We know Frankie stole Cathy Lee’s Chevy. So how could he have driven two cars, one from Quorum and one from Venice, and have both arrive in Lompoc at the same time?”
I could see him calculate. “He could have made two trips.”
“Oh, please. What’s he do—he kills Charisse, drives the Mustang to Lompoc, dumps the body, abandons the car, and then hitchhikes to Venice so he can stab someone else?”
“So he had an accomplice,” Dolan said.
“To do what? There’s no link between the two murders, unless I missed a beat somewhere.”
Stacey said, “Dolan hates the idea Frankie’s innocent.”
“I don’t hate the idea, it’s Frankie I hate,” Dolan said, irritably. “But what you say makes sense. How’d you come up with that?”
“I don’t know. It’s like one of those thought problems in high school math. The minute I’d see that sentence about the two trains, one leaving Chicago at sixty miles an hour, and the other blah, blah, blah, I’d start blacking out. I abandoned math the minute I was allowed.”