by Sue Grafton
I said, “Oh, hi. Sorry to interrupt. How much longer will you be?”
She smiled broadly and nodded, saying, “Hokay. Sí. Una momento.”
“I’ll come back,” I said. I trotted across the parking lot to the office and went in.
The desk clerk was perched on her swivel stool, still chewing bubble gum, her skirt hiked up, swinging one foot while she read the inner pages of the National Enquirer.
“My message light’s blinking. Can you tell me who called?”
“How should I know? Pick up the phone and dial 6.”
“The maid’s in my room so I’m here to ask you.”
The look she gave me said she was feeling put-upon. “What room?”
“125.”
With exaggerated patience, she set the paper aside, swiveled her stool to face her computer, tapped on the keyboard, and read from the screen. She chewed her gum briefly and then her face brightened. “Oh, yeah. I remember now. You got a call from a dentist, Dr. Spears. What’s the problem with your teeth?”
“Did he leave a number?”
She blew a bubble and curled it back into her mouth on the end of her tongue, waiting to pop it after she’d closed her lips. “He did, but I didn’t bother to write it down. It’s in the book.”
“When you first took this job, did they train you?”
She stopped chewing. “To do what?”
“Simple clerical skills, phone etiquette, manners—anything like that?”
“Nah. Know what I’m paid? Minimum wage. Three dollars and thirty-five cents an hour. Besides, I don’t need manners. My uncle owns the place. My name’s Geraldine, in case you feel like filing a complaint.”
I let the matter drop.
I went out the office door and turned right, moving to the bank of pay phones I’d seen near the ice machine. I opened my bag and fished out the Quorum phone book and a handful of change. I looked up the dentist’s number and dialed, receiver tucked between my shoulder and my tilted head while I put the directory back in my bag.
When Mrs. Gary picked up, I said, “Hi, Mrs. Gary. Kinsey Millhone here. I can’t believe I caught you in the office on a Saturday.”
“I’m just catching up on insurance claims. This is about the only time I have.”
“Dr. Spears left me a message. Is he there by any chance?”
“He’s off playing golf, but I can tell you why he called. He found the chart you asked about. I’ve got it sitting on my desk.”
“Tell him I’m in love.”
“He’ll be thrilled to death,” she said.
I laughed. “Could you do me a favor? Could you slip it in a manila envelope and mail it to Sergeant Detective Joe Mandel at the Santa Teresa County Sheriff’s Department? He’ll talk to the forensic odontologist and they’ll handle it from there.” I gave her the address, adding my copious thanks to her and to Dr. Spears. I hung up the phone, offering up small, fervent prayers.
I had to believe that a comparison of his records with the Jane Doe maxilla and mandible would confirm Charisse Quinn’s identity. At the same time, I knew reliance on such records could prove inconclusive. A chart might contain errors, or it might be incomplete if details of previous or subsequent dental work had been omitted for some reason. A positive ID might take weeks, but once it was confirmed, the guys could chase down the paperwork on Charisse’s birth parents through Riverside County Social Services. In the meantime, I was feeling good. We seemed to be making progress in spite of the odds.
When I returned to my room, my door was closed and the maid’s cart was halfway down the corridor. I let myself in and tossed my purse and jacket on the bed. I retrieved my duffel from the closet and took it over to the desk, digging deep to the bottom, where I’d stashed my copy of the murder book. I sat and went through it page by page. I knew what I was looking for, but not where it was. Twenty pages in, I came across the report, dated August 1, 1969, detailing the arrest of Frankie Miracle, who’d given the deputy his home address in Blythe, California. No mention of Venice, where the murder had taken place. Under occupation, he’d classified himself as a handyman/helper. For his employer, he’d listed Lennie Root, R&R Painting, with an address and phone number in Hazelwood Springs. I turned down a corner of the page and moved on. I was curious about the purported call from Charisse’s mother that Stacey’d mentioned earlier.
Fifty pages further on, I found the follow-up report, dated 8-9-69/Approx. 1400 hrs., in which Deputy Joe Mandel had entered information about a call he received from the Riverside County Sheriff’s substation in Quorum. A Detective Orbison had contacted the Lompoc substation in response to the teletype regarding the Jane Doe homicide victim whose description matched that of a missing juvenile named Charisse Quinn. She’d left home on July 27. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department noted her DOB as 4-10-52; height: 5’3” weight: 120 lbs. Blond hair, blue eyes, pierced ears, and extensive dental work. Her foster mother was listed as Medora Sanders, at the address where I’d had my conversation with her. According to Orbison, she’d come in the morning of August 9, to file the missing-persons report.
After Orbison’s call, Mandel had made two attempts to contact Medora without success. Then on 8-11-69/Approx. 1855 hrs., RCSD phoned again, this time telling Mandel they’d received a call from a woman who stated she had a daughter named Charisse Quinn, whom she understood was believed to be a murder victim. She wanted to let them know the girl had come home and she was alive and well. She gave the Riverside County Sheriff’s deputy a phone number where she could be reached, and Orbison passed the number on to Mandel. In his typed account, Mandel indicated that he’d attempted contact, but the number was listed as out of service. If he’d tried tracing the party, there was no notation of the fact. I continued leafing through the book, but I found no other reference to Medora or Charisse. I made a few notes and then sat, playing idly with my index cards, laying them out randomly in rows.
It was odd to see how the pieces realigned. When Dolan had first given me my copy of the murder book, I’d read these same reports, many of them more than once. The entry about the missing girl had been only one of a number of items that had meant nothing outside the current context. The name itself didn’t seem significant until Stacey remembered it. It was the same with Frankie Miracle’s place of employment. In early readings, the note had seemed incidental. Now the information fairly leapt off the page.
Three things struck me: First, in filing the missing-persons report, Medora hadn’t been quite as prompt as she’d led me to believe. She’d implied she’d gone straight to the police, when she’d actually waited more than a week. I’d have to go back and ask her about the delay. Secondly, Charisse’s July 27 departure from Quorum would place her in easy range of Frankie Miracle’s road trip after the murder of Cathy Lee Pearse on July 29. I still couldn’t figure out how the Mustang ended up in Lompoc, unless Charisse had stolen it herself. Despite Medora’s claim that she had no license, she might have known how to drive. If so, she might have gone as far as Lompoc, abandoned the vehicle, and tried hitching a ride from there. And finally, I wondered who’d made the call pretending to be Charisse’s mother. If Frankie’d had anything to do with Charisse’s murder, Iona could have made the call to cover for him. By August 11, when that call came in, Charisse’s body had been discovered and attempts were under way to determine who she was. What better way to eliminate the link than to claim the missing girl was home? As nearly as I could tell, that call had effectively removed Charisse’s name from the loop.
I put the murder book and my index cards in the desk drawer and pulled out my trusty pint-sized phone book, which covered Quorum, Blythe, Mesa Verde, Hazelwood Springs, Palo Verde, Ripley, Creosote, and eight towns in Arizona. I flipped to the yellow pages and found the listing for paint contractors. There were only four in the area—two in Blythe, one in Palo Verde, and one in Hazelwood Springs. According to his boxed ad, Lennie Root of R&R Painting was a residential painting specialist who also did condomini
ums, apartments, and commercial accounts. He was insured, bonded, and state licensed, promising reasonable rates, prompt work, and free estimates. There was a phone number, but no street address, which probably meant he operated on an answering machine from his home. I checked the white pages under “Root” and, sure enough, there he was. I was becoming quite fond of these small towns for the ease of access to its citizens. Big-city paranoia with its unlisted phone numbers only made my job tougher. I had ways of acquiring the information, but not as readily as this. I picked up my bomber jacket and got in the car.
When I got to the Burger King it was 12:15 and Stacey’s rental car was already parked in the side lot. I went in, scanning the crowd until I spotted him at a table on the far side of the room. Even here, there were Easter decorations—big posterboard eggs and posterboard Easter bunnies. Stacey waved when he saw me.
I slid in across from him, saying, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Who said anything about waiting? I already had a Whopper and an order of fries.”
“Well, good for you. I hope you don’t mind sitting while I grab a bite myself.”
“Oh, I’ll be eating again. The Whopper was good, but it didn’t fill me up. I’ve been thinking we should do a study—purely scientific—a side-by-side tasting, a Whopper and a Big Mac, to see which we prefer. Or go vertical—McDonald’s hamburger, cheeseburger, a QP with cheese, and a Big Mac. What do you think?”
“You sit. I’ll go. You want a Coke with that Whopper?”
“I’d prefer a chocolate shake.”
Over lunch (my first, his second), I brought Stacey up to date on my visit to the canvas shop and my review of the murder book with its reference to Lennie Root. “How was your interview with George Baum?”
“What a pain,” he said. “He’s the consummate salesman—all capped teeth and phony charm. He tried talking me into a BMW, but I nixed that idea. Point is, when I asked him about Charisse, he sidestepped the whole subject. He thought he was being slick; like I never heard a guy equivocate. I’m guessing he diddled her, but now that he knows she was murdered, he’d like to distance himself. He nearly shit when I told him where I got his name. He’s maneuvering like crazy, doing anything he can to get me off his back, so he gives me some information I think you’ll find interesting. He tells me Charisse and Cornell’s sister were thick as thieves.”
“Well, that’s a new one.”
“Isn’t it? He says he used to see the two of them all over town. He swears Charisse had the hots for Cornell and sucked up to Adrianne to get close to him.”
“Kind of makes you wonder why Adrianne didn’t speak up. To hear Cornell tell it, he barely knew Charisse. Justine certainly gave me that impression.”
“It’s worth a chat with Adrianne if not the other two.”
“You want to do that while I talk to the painting contractor?”
“I’d rather you take care of both. My energy’s running low. I need a nap. As soon as you finish, stop by the motel. I should be up, and if not, feel free to wake me. We’ll go back to the hospital and let Dolan know what’s going on.”
Once Stacey and I parted company, I sat in my car debating which interview to do first. At the moment, I was more interested in hearing about Adrianne’s friendship with Charisse than I was in talking to Justine, Cornell, or the painting contractor. However, when I consulted the phone book, there were eight “Richards” listed, and Adrianne didn’t seem to be among them. I had no idea what her husband’s name was. Since it was Saturday, I knew she wouldn’t be at the school. Quelle bummeur. This brought the matter down to a toss-up between the painting contractor and the younger McPhees. Again, according to the phone book, I was only four blocks from Cornell and Justine’s, so they won by default.
Their house turned out to be a bright yellow board-and-batten, with white trim and diamond-paned windows flanked by dark green shutters. Pink geraniums grew in flower boxes across the front. The yard was enclosed by a white two-board fence. The two-car garage stood open, and I could see six-year-old Cissy and her two older sisters arranged in a cluster around Cornell’s workbench.
I parked in front and approached, moving up the driveway past a tangle of bikes. Cornell looked up, greeting me without interrupting his work. “Hey, how’re you?”
“I’m great. Is that a doghouse you’re building?”
“You bet, and I’m almost done as soon as I finish this roof. Girls are all set to paint it. You meet my daughters?”
“I met Cissy on Thursday. I saw all three of them at your parents’ house this morning.”
“Oh, that’s right. So you did. This is Amelia and Mary Francis.”
I said, “Hi.” I couldn’t tell which was Amelia and which was Mary Francis, but it probably didn’t matter. Most children seem interchangeable to me, anyway. “Is Justine at home?”
“Doing laundry. You can go in through there. Utility room’s just inside the door. Cissy, why don’t you show her where it is.”
I hesitated, tempted to ask him about Charisse before I broached the subject with Justine, but with his children present, it didn’t seem like a good idea. Cissy was tugging at my hand so I allowed her to lead me through the rear of the garage and into the utility room. She skipped back to her dad and his Saturday-morning project.
I found Justine in her sock feet, wearing an olive green sweatsuit. Her back was to me and she was cramming filthy blue jeans and work shirts into the washing machine. Beside her, the dryer was already in service, filling the room with a rich, damp heat while a garment with buckles clattered endlessly as it tumbled in the drum. I said, “I hope you don’t mind my dropping by without notice.”
She jumped and gave a yelp. “Shit, you scared me to death. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. Cornell suggested I come in this way. I guess he figured you’d never hear me if I rang the front bell.”
“What are you doing here?”
“The usual. I’m nosing around. Mind if we talk?”
“I’ve already told you everything I know.”
“Indulge me, okay?”
She stared at the floor, curbing her annoyance, but I could see her relent, albeit unhappily. “Let me finish this and we’ll go into the kitchen.”
She shoved in the last of the load of clothes, added liquid detergent and bleach, then closed the lid and set the program knob. She pushed the Start button. She washed her hands at the utility sink, drying them on a terry cloth towel she retrieved from the pile of soiled linens.
I followed her into the kitchen, which was immaculate, a far cry from her mother’s house with its grunginess and knickknacks. I don’t know how women with active kids manage to keep a house picked up. She offered me coffee, probably to atone for her snappishness. I accepted with an eye to stringing out the visit. She poured me a mug and popped it in the microwave to heat. She was not a pretty girl. There was something washed-out about her looks, as though vital blood supplies had been suppressed for years, leaving her pale and depleted. The green sweatsuit added more color to her eyes than I’d seen before, but it still wasn’t much. The microwave pinged and she removed the mug.
When she set it in front of me, a wave of coffee slopped over the rim. She handed me a paper napkin. “Did you want something in particular? We haven’t eaten lunch. I need to go to the market to pick up some bread.”
“This shouldn’t take long,” I said, busy cleaning the spill. I decided to take an indirect route getting to the subject of Adrianne and Charisse. “Did you have a chance to talk to Cornell?”
“About what?”
“You were worried he’d get mad at you if you talked to me.”
“He got over that. He said he saw you at his dad’s so I guess all’s forgiven. Lucky you,” she said. She brought sugar and half-and-half to the table and then sat down, tucking her hands under her thighs.
“That’s because Detective Oliphant was there. He and Ruel seemed to hit it off. Did you
meet Stacey?”
She shook her head. “I heard there was a second detective in town, but I haven’t met him yet. They must be going all-out.”
“They are. They’re very serious about this.”
“Well, good, though I don’t get why it matters after all these years.”
“Cops are funny that way. They never really give up. They just wait.”
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude about it, but I really have to scoot. The kids’ll get cranky.”
“Sorry. I’ll get down to it,” I said. “This morning, when Stacey spoke to Cornell, he mentioned a high school classmate of yours named George Baum.”
“Sure, I know George. Why was he talking about him?”
“Cornell seemed to think he was involved with Charisse.”
“Involved?”
“That’s a dainty way of saying he screwed her.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. He did not. George had a girlfriend, a cheerleader named Swoozie Franks. They went together for years, since junior high at least. They got married a month after graduation.”
“Swoozie?”
“It’s a nickname. I forget her real one.”
“Maybe Swoozie wouldn’t put out so George got relief from Charisse instead.”
Justine made a face. “That’s a tacky idea.”
“Why? You’ve all been saying what a slut she was.”
“Well, yes, but I can’t believe George would do something like that. Did he admit it?”
“Not as far as I know, but he did tell Stacey that Charisse and Adrianne were close. I was curious why no one mentioned that to us.”
“That’s not true at all. Why would he say that? He’s crazy.”
Dubiously, I said, “I don’t know, Justine. He says Charisse had a crush on Cornell and hung out with Adrianne to have access to him. You’d think Adrianne would’ve volunteered the information as soon as she heard Charisse was dead.”