Q Is for Quarry

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 needs 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