Once Pudgie reappeared in Quorum with news that the investigation had been reactivated, Justine had been forced to eliminate him. She’d enlisted Cornell’s aid in disposing of Pudgie’s body as she’d once enlisted Pudgie’s aid in disposing of Charisse. His was certainly too unwieldy a corpse for her to manage on her own. The day I’d startled her in the laundry, it was his blood and brains she was washing from her clothes. It dawned on me later that the business with Medora’s doors standing open was Justine’s doing as well, affording her the opportunity to pump me for information about the progress I’d made.
For once in his life, Frankie Miracle was innocent of any complicity in these crimes, a fact that went some way toward brightening his outlook.
With the trial date approaching, Justine’s attorney is insisting on a change of venue, maintaining she’ll never get a fair trial in Riverside County after the media circus generated by her arrest. I love it when killers want to argue about what’s fair.
On a more homely note, Stacey’s still living with Dolan, an arrangement that suits them surprisingly well. Both are currently in good health, limiting their consumption of tobacco and junk food, and continually grousing about each other, as good friends are sometimes inclined to do. As for me, I’m back in my office in Santa Teresa, unpacking my moving boxes while I wait to see what else life has to bring.
Respectfully submitted,
Kinsey Millhone
Author’s Note
About this novel . . .
There is one additional, quite lengthy note about the writing of this novel. Q is for Quarry is based on an unsolved homicide that occurred in Santa Barbara County in August 1969. The catalyst for the book was a conversation I had with Dr. Robert Failing during a dinner party at the home of our friends Susan and Gary Gulbransen in early September of 2000. Dr. Failing is a forensic pathologist who worked, under contract, for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department from 1961 until 1996. I had just completed and submitted the manuscript of P is for Peril, and the dinner conversation turned, not surprisingly, to what I might do next. Bob mentioned the Jane Doe victim, whose body had been dumped near a quarry in Lompoc, California, about an hour north of Santa Barbara. He had performed the autopsy, and, in passing, he remarked that the Coroner’s Office had retained her maxilla and mandible. It was his feeling that Jane Doe’s distinctive dental features should have sparked public recognition. Unfortunately, at the time, she was either never reported missingor the missing-persons report somehow failed to reach the detectives working this case. Despite months of tireless effort, they were never able to identify Jane Doe, and her killer was never caught. To this day, no one knows who she is, where she came from, or who murdered her.
As a novelist, I’ve been offered countless plot ideas, stories, personal anecdotes, “real life” events, and “true” murders— experiences that were important to those who suggested them, but which, for one reason or another, didn’t stimulate or excite me. This idea took root. I expressed an immediate interest, knowing full well that the survival of an idea is unpredictable. I’d met the coroner’s investigator, Larry Gillespie, retired now, on previous occasions while researching earlier books in the series. Bob offered to speak to Larry about rounding up the jaw bones. He also offered to introduce me to some of the Sheriff’s Department detectives he’d worked with during his association with this law-enforcement agency.
I keep a journal during the writing of these books, a ritual I began in rudimentary form with A is for Alibi and have continued, with ever increasing breadth and depth, through the seventeen novels in the series to this point. The early portions of the journal for any given novel are usually a record of my fumbling attempts to find a workable story line. I ruminate, I chat with myself, I fret, I experiment. Oddly enough, from my perspective, the first journal note on the subject of Jane Doe didn’t appear until November 8, 2000, some two months after my initial conversation with Bob Failing. I had, at that point, already accepted the subject matter as the basis for this book, though it took me many more months to work out the details. I loved the word “quarry” because its meaning, particularly in this instance, could do double-duty, referring to the place where the body was found and to the search for the killer.
On January 11, 2001, Bob Failing and I met with Sergeant Detective Bill Turner and then Commander Bruce Correll of the Criminal Investigations Division, Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department, and the four of us drove to Lompoc to see the quarry. I met with Bruce Correll and Bill Turner again on January 19, 2001. At that time, in a gesture of incredible generosity, they gave me a copy of the murder book for the Jane Doe case. It contained case notes, investigative reports, and both color and black-and-white photographs of the body and the area where she was found. I was also given photographs of her effects, including her leather sandals and the home-sewn pants with the daisy-print, dark blue with a dot of red on a white background.
Over the ensuing year, with the blessings of then-sheriff Jim Thomas, I met with these two detectives on numerous occasions. Bill Turner, in particular, became an invaluable resource, providing information about procedural issues, technicalities, and the myriad nuts and bolts of his work. He answered my many (sometimes stupid) questions with unfailing patience and enthusiasm, responding with the sort of detailed replies that make a writer’s job a joy. Any errors, herein, by the way, are either the result of my faulty understanding or license I took in the interest of the story.
My fascination with the case rekindled the interest of the department, and the possibility arose of an exhumation of the body so that a facial reconstruction might be done, in hopes that Jane Doe might be identified. I wasn’t privy to the discussions that must have gone on behind the scenes. In Santa Barbara County exhumations are uncommon, and budget considerations became an issue, not only because of the cost of the exhumation itself but for the expense of hiring a forensic sculptor, who would use Jane Doe’s skull and jaw bones to re-create her likeness. There was also the matter of the reinterment, to accord Jane Doe the ultimate dignity of a proper burial, which we all considered essential. I offered to underwrite the plan because I, too, had become hopeful that something might come of it.
The exhumation was scheduled for July 17, 2001. On that day, we traveled again to Lompoc, this time to the cemetery where Jane Doe was buried thirty-three years earlier. Dr. Failing flew in from his vacation home in Colorado. My husband, Steve Humphrey, made the journey with us, as did Sergeant Detective Bill Turner. Also present were Detective Hugo Galante, his wife, Detective Kathryn Galante, and Detective Terry Flaa, of the North County Detective Unit of the Criminal Investigations Division; Detective David Danielson; Coroner’s Investigator Sergeant Darin Fotheringham; Sheriff’s dispatcher Joe Ayala; his wife, Erin Ayala; the coroner’s office secretary; Sheriff’s trainee Danielle Goldman; Lieutenant Ken Reinstadler of the Santa Maria station, Patrol Division; Commander Deborah Linden, of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department, South Coast Patrol Division; and Mr. Mark Powers, the graveyard superintendent. The procedure took the better part of the day. Once Jane Doe’s body was recovered, she was removed to the Santa Barbara County Coroner’s Office.
In anticipation of the exhumation, Bill Turner had contacted Betty Gatliff in Oklahoma, whose work as a forensic artist is internationally recognized. Betty Gatliff is a retired medical illustrator who not only practices forensic sculpture but teaches workshops and seminars across the country. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Forensics Sciences, an emeritus member of the Association of Medical Illustrators, and an associate member of the International Association for Identification. Jane Doe’s skull, maxilla, and mandible were sent to Ms. Gatliff, whose services had been engaged.
In the meantime, I had begun a re-creation of my own, constructing a wholly fictional account of a young girl whose fate was similar to Jane Doe’s. Where possible, I used details from the Jane Doe murder book, including fragments from the autopsy report, case notes, and the investigative repo
rts submitted by the detectives originally assigned to this case. There are two exceptions of note: (1) There was no tarp. I manufactured that detail to give my fictional detectives yet another means of pursuing their inquiries; and (2) there was, in fact, found at the scene a blood-soaked man’s Western-style blue denim shirt with white-covered snaps, size 14H neck. I omitted this detail in the interest of simplicity. That aside, I must assure the reader that every character in this novel is fictional. Every event is purely the product of my invention. Whatever the personality and nature of the “real” Jane Doe, my assertions are the figment of my imagination and are in no way purported to be real, true, or representative of her. I emphasize this point out of respect for her and out of consideration for those who must have loved her and wondered about her silence as the years have passed.
By mid-September of 2001, Betty Gatliff had reconstructed a likeness of Jane Doe and returned her skull with its mandible and maxilla. She also sent numerous color photographs of Jane Doe, four of which are reproduced here in black and white. Jane Doe was reinterred on Tuesday, February 26, 2002, with a uniformed Sheriff’s Department Honor Guard accompanying her from the coroner’s office to the cemetery, a sheriff’s chaplain conducting the service, flowers, and the heartfelt prayers of those of us who have been a small part of her life. It is our hope that someone reading this novel and seeing the photographs will recognize this young woman and step forward with information about her. Though both Bruce Correll and Bill Turner retired in the summer of 2002, Bill Turner will be available to respond to queries by mail at: Sheriff’s Department, County of Santa Barbara, 4434 Calle Real, P.O. Box 6427, Santa Barbara, CA 93160-6427, or through the Sheriff’s Department’s web-site, www.sbsheriff.org.
Respectfully submitted,
Sue Grafton
Jane Doe, Santa Barbara County, August 1969. Forensic Reconstruction by Betty Pat Gatliff, September 2001.
Sue Grafton, "Q" is for Quarry
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