Q Is for Quarry

to say, walking my fingers through the telephone book. My job was to verify reports about the young hippie girl, hitching rides in the period between July 29 and August 1. Con was going to hit the phones and track down the whereabouts of Frankie Miracle's former cellmates, while Stacey searched out his legal skirmishes in previous years. We agreed to meet that night at CC's to share what we'd learned.
    I had a prior address for Roxanne Faught, but nothing for Cloris Bargo. As it turned out, luck was on my side and starting with the obvious paid off for once. A check of the white pages revealed one Bargo, not Cloris, but a sister who didn't even bother to quiz my purposes before she gave me the current phone number and the Colgate address. Shame on her. I could have been a stalker or a bill collector.
    I checked my city map and drew a bead on my destination – a tract of middle-class homes just beyond the Fair Isle off-ramp, where Cloris Bargo had seen the girl. I locked the office, fired up the VW, and took Capillo Avenue as far as the 101.
    The day was mild and hazy, the landscape muted, as though washed with skim milk. I rolled down my car windows and let the speed-generated wind blow my hair to a fare-thee-well. Traffic was light and the trip to Colgate took less than six minutes.
    I took the off-ramp at Fair Isle and headed toward the mountains, counting the requisite number of streets before I turned left on York.
    The house I was looking for was halfway down on the left side of the street. This was a neighborhood of "starter" homes, but most had undergone major renovation since the sixties when the area had been developed. Garages had become family rooms; porches had been enclosed; second stories had been added; and the storage sheds in the rear had been enlarged and attached. The lawns were well established and the trees had matured to the point where the sidewalks buckled in places where the roots were breaking through. The children, mere toddlers when their parents had moved in, were grown and gone now, coming back to the neighborhood with children of their own.
    I pulled up in front of a two-story white stucco house with a frame addition on the left and an elaborate new entrance affixed to the front that involved arches, a rustic wooden gate, climbing roses, and a profusion of hollyhocks, hydrangeas, and phlox. I let myself through the gate and climbed the porch steps. The front door stood open and the screen was on the latch. From the depths, I could smell something simmering; fruit and sugar. The radio in the kitchen was tuned to a call-in show, and I could hear the host berating someone in argumentative tones. I placed a hand on the screen, shading my eyes so I could see the interior. The front door was lined up exactly with the back door so my view extended all the way to the rear fence that separated two yards. I called, "Hullo?"
    A woman hollered, "I'm out here! Come around back!" I left the porch and trotted along the walkway that skirted the house on the right. As I passed the kitchen window, I glanced up and saw her standing at the open window. She must have been near the sink because she leaned forward and turned off the tap as she peered down at me. Through the screen, she looked thirty-five, a guess I upgraded by ten years once I saw her up close.
    I paused. "Hi. Are you Cloris Bargo?"
    "Was before I got married. Can I help you with something?" She turned on the water again and her gaze dropped to whatever dish or utensil she was scrubbing.
    "I need some information. I shouldn't take more than five or ten minutes of your time." It was weird having a conversation with someone whose face was two feet higher. I could nearly see up her nose.
    "I hope you're not selling anything door-to-door."
    "Not at all. My name's Kinsey Millhone. I'm a private detective. Your name came up in connection with a case I'm working for the Sheriffs Department."
    She focused on me fully, her gaze sharpening. "That's a first. I never heard of the Sheriffs Department hiring outside help."
    "This guy's a retired north county detective reactivating an old murder case-that young girl stabbed to death back in 1969."
    She put something in the dish rack, dried her hands on a towel, and then reached for the radio and turned it off. When she made no other comment, I said. "Mind if I come in?"
    She didn't extend an invitation, but she made a gesture that I interpreted as consent. I continued down the walkway to the rear of the