by Sue Grafton
"You read my medical records?"
"Sure. The chart was in the slot on your door. I knew you'd lie about things."
I leaned forward, resting my arms on the front seat between them. "Guys, if you two are going to bicker, I'll get out and walk."
All three of us were silent while they thought about that.
" Finally, Dolan said, "Oh, all right. This is making my blood pressure go up." At the Quorum Inn over dinner, Dolan's mood improved and the tension between them eased. Dolan made a pious display of ordering broiled fish with lemon, steamed vegetables, a plain green salad, and a glass of red wine, which he swore he was allowed. After our day of junk food, Stacey and I both ate broiled chicken, salad, and the same steamed vegetables. We all pretended to enjoy the dinner more than we did. By the time our decaf coffee arrived, it was clear we'd run out of conversation. In the morning, Stacey would drive Dolan back to Santa Teresa in the rental car, leaving Dolan's for me. The car sailed into one of those inevitable calms. We were waiting for work, waiting for test results, waiting for comparison prints; in waiting for a break that might never come. I probably should have headed home at the same time they did. I'd certainly join them in day or two, if nothing further developed.
I said, "In the meantime, what's left? I don't want to sit here Dolan said, "Just don't get in trouble."
"How could I do that? There's nothing going on."
Tuesday morning, I saw them off at 8:00, giving a final wave as turned out of the parking lot. I went back to my room, feeling, depression mixed with relief at being on my own again. I usually experienced a similar reaction after Robert Dietz had been with n finally hit the road. It's hard to be the one left behind. If I were I'd clean house, but in the confines of the motel, I couldn't even do that. I gathered my wee pile of laundry, rooted in the bottom of r for loose change, and walked to the Laundromat half a block There's no activity more profoundly boring than sitting in a Laundromat, waiting for the washer and dryer to click through their from beginning to end. If you dared leave your clothes, thinking return later when the load was done, someone would steal them out of the machines and leave them in a heap. I sat and did surveillance on my own underwear. It beat doing a records search, but not by much.
Chapter 24
* * *
I hadn't been back from the Laundromat for more than ten minutes when I heard a knock on my door. I peered through the fisheye and saw Felicia Clifton standing outside, staring off across the parking lot. I opened the door. The face she turned to me was pale and undefined, free of makeup. Her eyes, without the black liner and false lashes, were actually prettier, though not nearly as large or as vivid. She wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and running shoes without socks, as though she'd dressed in haste. Her red hair was pulled back in a jumbled ponytail.
"This is a pleasant surprise. Come in."
She stepped in, reaching out a hand to steady herself. At first I thought she was drunk, but I realized within seconds, she was shaken and upset. "Felicia, what's wrong? Is it Pudgie?"
She nodded mutely. I moved her to one side and closed the door after, saying, "Hey, you're safe. You're fine. Take your time.
She sank onto the desk chair, putting her head between her knees as though on the verge of passing out.
So far, I didn't like the way the conversation was shaping up. I went J into the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth. I rung it out with cold water and carried back to her. She took it and pressed it to her face. She made a sound that was half-sigh and half-moan.
I sat down at the foot of the king-size bed, almost knee to knee with her. "Is he all right?" From the way she was behaving, I suspected he was dead, but I was unwilling to voice that possibility until she did.
"They called at seven. They think it's him. They need someone to look, but I can't."
"What happened?"
"I don't know. They told me to come in."
"Where, the Sheriffs Department downtown?" She nodded. "This is bad. He's been gone for days. If he was hurt, they wouldn't ask me to come in, would they? They'd tell me where he was."
"You don't know that for sure. Did they call you at work?"
"I was still at home. I don't start until eight. I was having a cup of coffee in my robe when the phone rang. I don't even know how I got here. I remember getting in the car, but I don't remember the drive."
"We'll go. Leave your car where it is and we'll take mine. Just let me grab my things. In the meantime, breathe."
I breathed in and out for her, demonstrating the process. I knew her anxiety was such that she'd end up holding her breath. Jacket and bag in hand, I ushered her out and pulled the door shut behind us. She didn't have a purse and her hands were shaking so badly the car keys she carried jingled like a length of chain. I put a hand out to still them. She looked at me in surprise and then stared down at the keys as though she'd never seen them before. She tucked them in her jeans. I opened the passenger door for her, then circled the car and slipped in under the wheel. Once I started the car, I turned the heat on full blast.
The day wasn't cold, but she was so tense I knew she'd be feeling chilled. She sat, shoulders hunched, pressing her hands between her knees, while she shook like a dog on the way to the vet's.
The Police Department and Sheriffs Department were housed together in a two-story brick building, which, like everything else in Quorum, was hardly more than seven blocks away. I found parking on I the street and went around to the passenger door to help her out. Once she was on her feet, she regained some of her composure. I knew she was still rattled, but something about being in motion helped her assume control. So far, she really hadn't heard any bad news. It was the anticipation that was crushing her.
We went into the station. I had Felicia take a seat on a wooden bench in the corridor while I went into the office. This was strictly no-fuss decor: a counter, plain beige floor tile, gray metal desks, rolling swivel chairs, and government-issue gray filing cabinets. Cables and connecting wires ran in a tangle from the backs of the computers and down behind the desks. A cork bulletin board was littered with memos, notices, and official communications I couldn't read from where I stood. There were also framed color photographs of the Riverside County sheriff, the governor of California, and the president of the United States.
I told the uniformed deputy at the desk who Felicia was and why we were there. He referred me in turn to a Detective Lassiter, who emerged from the inner office to have a chat with me. He was in his forties, clean-shaven, trim, and prematurely gray. He was dressed in civilian clothes, gun and holster visible under his dark gray sport coat. He kept his voice low while he detailed the information he'd received.
"We got a call from a woman who lives out on Highway 78, four miles this side of Hazelwood Springs. Are you familiar with the area?"
"I know the section of the road you mean."
"There are coyotes in the hills near her property, so she leaves her dog inside unless she can be in the yard to keep an eye on him. Yesterday, the trash haulers left the gate open and the dog escaped. He was gone all night and when he came back this morning he was dragging a bone. Actually, an arm. The deputy remembered Felicia's call about Cedric. Most of us know him, but we want someone else to take a look."
"I really only met him once and I'm not sure I'd recognize his arm. Unless it's the one with all the tattoos," I added. I had a quick vision of his left arm from the one and only time I'd seen him at the Santa Teresa county jail. On it, he'd had a tattoo of a big-breasted woman with long, flowing black hair. In addition, he had a spiderweb, the sombrero-clad skull, and a pornographic sex act he would have been well advised to have tattooed on his butt.
"We had a warrant out on him for a traffic-related felony –this was 1981. Along with his mug shot we have a description of his tattoos that seems to match."
"Can't you use the hand to roll a set of prints?"
"Most of the fingers have been chewed, but we'll try that as soon as the coroner's done whatever he need
s to do."
"Where's the rest of him?"
"That's just it. We don't know."
I stared at him, blinking, startled by the notion that had just popped into my head. "I might."
Intuition is odd. After one of those gut-level leaps, you can sometimes go back and trace the trajectory-how this thought or observation and yet another idea have somehow fused at the bottom of your brain to form the insight that suddenly rockets into view. On other occasions, intuition was just that – a flash of information that reaches us without any conscious reasoning. What I remembered was the sound of plastic being flapped by the wind, and a coyote leisurely stripping flesh from what I'd assumed at the time was a recent kill. "I think he's at the Tuley-Belle. The scavengers have been dining on him for days."
Felicia and I sat in the car for an hour on the upwind side of the abandoned complex. By now, the odor of putrefying flesh was unmistakable, as easily identified as the smell of skunk. We waited while the coroner examined the remains. The coyotes must have picked up on the scent of blood within hours, and many of Pudgie's facial features had apparently been ravaged. It was that aspect of his death that seemed to offend even the most cynical of the officers present. Pudgie's troubles with the law had occurred with a frequency that had created something of a bond with many of the deputies. Granted, he was a screwup, but he was never vicious or depraved. He was simply one of those guys for whom crime came more easily than righteous effort.
Eventually, Detective Lassiter came over to the car and asked Felicia if she wanted to see the body. "He's not in good shape, but you're entitled to see him. I don't want you left with any doubts about this."
She glanced at me. "You go. I won't look if it's that bad." It was.
Pudgie's body had been covered with a length of opaque plastic sheeting, weighted with rocks, and left in a shallow depression out behind the very building I'd toured. Even as I approached the area with Detective Lassiter, I could hear the wind pick up a corner of the plastic and flap it like a rag.
I said, "Where'd the plastic come from?"
"It was tacked across a doorway at the rear of this wing. You can still see the remnants where it was torn from the door frame."
The glimpse I had of the body was sufficient to confirm that it was Pudgie. No surprise on that score. The cause of death was blunt-force trauma: repeated blows to the head that had fractured his skull and left a lot of brain matter exposed.
"What about the murder weapon?"
"We're looking for that now."
There was no immediate estimate as to time of death. That would wait until the coroner did the postmortem. Felicia had last seen him Friday night between 9:30 and 10:00 when she'd turned off the TV and had gone to bed. He might well have been killed that night, though it was unclear how he got to the Tuley-Belle. Odds were someone had picked him up in Creosote and had driven him out here – probably someone he trusted, or he wouldn't have agreed to go. I wondered how long it had taken the coyotes to arrive, their knives and forks at the ready, bibs tucked under their little hairy chins. The hawks and crows, foxes and bobcats would have waited their turns. Nature is generous. Pudgie, in death, was a veritable feast.
The area had been secured. Anyone not directly involved was kept at a distance to preclude contamination of the scene. The coroner's van was parked close by. Detective Lassiter had organized the deputies and they'd started a grid search, looking for additional bones and body parts as well as the murder weapon and any evidence the killer might have left behind. Deputy Chilton, whom I'd met at the McPhees', was one of the men combing the surrounding area. Felicia and I sat in Dolan's car. Technically, she wasn't required to be there at all, and I suspect the detective would have preferred that I ferry her home. At the station, while we'd waited, they'd sent a unit out to the Tuley-Belle to check my guess. The deputy had spotted Pudgie's body and called in the report. Felicia had been given a vague accounting, enough to know it was her brother and the condition of his body poor. She'd insisted on coming. He was far beyond rescue, but she kept her vigil nonetheless.
I watched the crime scene activity as if it were a movie I'd already seen. The details sometimes varied, but the plot was always the same. I felt sick at heart. I avoided thinking about the coyotes and the sounds I'd heard on the two occasions I'd been at the Tuley-Belle. There was no doubt in my mind that he was dead by then. I couldn't have saved him, but I might have prevented some of the mauling that came later. The fact that Pudgie was killed here lent support to my suspicion that Charisse had been killed at this location as well.
At 2:00, Detective Lassiter crossed the wide unpaved parking area and again headed in our direction. I got out of the car and went to meet him midway. "They're getting ready to transport the body. You might have Felicia call the mortuary in Quorum. Once the autopsy's done, we'll release the body to them unless she's made other arrangements. You might ask if she has a pastor she wants us to notify."
"Sure. I'll see what she says."
"You're down here with Stacey Oliphant?"
"Right. He and Lieutenant Dolan are on their way back to Santa Teresa. I was scheduled to follow, but under the circumstances, I'll stay."
"We'll operate on the assumption the two murders are related unless we find out otherwise. I imagine Santa Teresa will want to send down a couple of their guys."
"Most certainly," I said. I gave him my summary of what had brought us to Quorum and what we'd learned. Since Stacey had relayed much of the same information, I skimmed across events, only filling in details when I came to something he hadn't heard, Frankie Miracle being prime. I said, "Lieutenant Dolan and I dropped in on his ex-wife in Peaches as we were heading down to the desert. Her name's Iona Mathis."
"We're familiar with her," he said. "She and my niece belong to the same church, or at least they did."
"Yeah, well her mom says she drove to Santa Teresa to see Frankie as soon as we left. I thought he drove back with her, but I'm not sure. She claims he was at work Friday night in Santa Teresa."
"Easy enough to check. You know the company?"
"I don't, but I'm sure Stacey or Dolan will know. You might want to talk to Iona as well. She called Pudgie Thursday night and was really pissed off from what Felicia said." I made a verbal detour, telling him about Iona's belief that Pudgie'd made a deal for himself at Frankie's expense. "Felicia doesn't know if Pudgie went out late Friday night or first thing Saturday morning. She told me a call came in before Iona's, but she has no idea who it was. He answered that one himself."
"I'll talk to Iona soon... maybe later today. Where will you be?" I told him where I was staying. "I'll call the guys as soon as I get back to the motel. This business with Pudgie will be a blow. I'm sure Stacey told you they found his prints on the Mustang. We all assumed he either killed her himself or else knew who did. Now it looks like someone killed him to shut him up."
"The downside of being an accessory," Lassiter said. "Meanwhile, if anything comes up, let us know."
I drove Felicia back to the motel. She was quiet, leaning her head against the seat with her eyes half-closed. She had a tissue in one hand, and I could see her dab at her eyes occasionally. Her lids were swollen and her face was splotchy, her red hair lusterless as though dulled by grief. Whatever weeping she did was silent. Now that she knew the worst, there was something passive in her response, a resignation she must have harbored for years, waiting for the blow.
Finally, I said, "If it's any consolation, people did care about him." She turned and smiled wanly. "You think? I hope you're right about that. He had a sorry life; in jail more times than he was out. Makes you wonder what it means."
"I've given up trying to figure that out. Just don't blame yourself."
"I do in some ways. I'll always think I could have done a better job with him. Trouble is, I don't know if I was too tough on him or not' tough enough."
"Pudgie made his choices. It's not your responsibility."
"You know something? I don't care
what he did. He was decent to 1 me. He might have sponged, but he never ripped me off, you know? He's my baby brother and I loved him."
"I know. You belong to a church? I'd be happy to make some calls."
"In a town this size, the word's already out. The minister will probably already be there by the time I get home. I just hope I don't fall apart. This is hard enough."
At the motel, I parked near her car and the two of us got out. I gave her a hug. She clung to me briefly. Then she pulled back, eyes brimming, and wiped her nose on a tissue. "Don't be too nice. It only makes it worse," she said.
"You're okay to drive?"
"I'll be fine."
"I'll call you tomorrow."
"Thanks. I'd appreciate that."
I let myself into my room. The maid had come and gone, so my towels were fresh and my bed had been neatly made. I stretched out, reaching for the phone next to my book on the bed table. Stacey's number was a disconnect. I had to smile at that. Since he'd been convinced he was dying, he probably hadn't worried much about utility bills. I called Dolan's number and left a message, asking one or the other of them to give me a call as soon as they rolled in. It was 3:00 by then and even if they'd stopped for lunch, they should arrive in Santa Teresa within the hour. I didn't dare leave the room, for fear I'd miss their call. I tried reading, but I found myself, not surprisingly, brooding about Pudgie's death. I thought about my conversation with Iona Mathis, wondering how she'd come up with that cockamamie notion that I'd made a deal with Pudgie to get him out of jail. I hoped her misconceptions hadn't contributed to his death. If so, then I bore a certain responsibility for what had happened to him. The thought made me ill.
I took my shoes off and slid under the covers, pulling the spread over me. I picked up my book and read for a while, hoping to distract myself. I was warm. The room was quiet. I found myself dipping into sleep so that when the phone finally rang, I jumped, snatching up the handset while my heart thumped. The surge of adrenaline peaked and receded. It was Dolan.