Q Is for Quarry

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