Desert Cut by Betty Webb

week, I figured the chances of catching my elderly informant at the Geronimo Lounge were slim, but I stopped by the bar anyway. Since Dr. Lanphear had refused to tell me anything about Precious Doe’s autopsy, another run at the old guy was in order.
    I fought my way through the smoke and beer fumes to the long bar, ordered a Coke, and as soon as my eyes accustomed themselves to the dim light, looked around. He wasn’t there. Swallowing my disappointment, I called the bartender over and described the man I was searching for.
    “You must mean Clive Berklee,” the bartender said, a thin man whose bushy salt-and-pepper hair harkened back to the Afros of the Seventies. “Old guy, drinks Molson’s, always working a crossword puzzle? Usually comes in Sundays?”
    Thank God for bartenders. “That’s him. Do you know his nephew, by any chance, the one who’s the medical examiner’s assistant?”
    He shook his head. “All I know, his name’s Herschel and he’s some kinda lab tech or male nurse. Not a lot of the hospital crowd comes in here. Any drinking they do, they do at home.”
    At least now I had a name. Herschel. I already knew that the medical examiner’s assistant had a loose lip. Maybe, with the proper incentive, he would tell me more.
    Before hunting Herschel down, I drove by Geronimo’s Rest Mobile Home Community, where Duane Tucker and his mother lived. I’ve seen better trailer parks and I’ve seen worse. Near the entrance perched several rows of double-wides, most of them in fairly good shape. Some even boasted tiny, picket-fenced yards filled with flowers and whirligigs.
    As the lane wound its way through the park, however, the real estate degenerated into single-wides so battered they might have been plundered from salvage yards. At the end of a line of particularly damaged trailers was a deserted play area with a slide and creaky swing set. I saw no children anywhere.
    Even more worrisome were the suspicious faces that watched from trailer windows as the Jeep crept down the lane, so it came as a relief when I finally found Duane’s rusting single-wide. His trailer was anchored next door to a sleek Airstream, against which leaned a wrecked Harley-Davidson partially covered by a tarp.
    Two little girls, both freckled redheads, sat on the steps of this gleaming paragon, engrossed in what appeared to be homework. When I pulled my Jeep to a stop, the older girl passed her notebook to the other, and stood up.
    “If you’re huntin’ Duane, he ain’t home.” She was about ten, wearing clean but frayed slacks and a sweater several sizes too large.
    The curtains in the trailer twitched. Someone was inside, listening.
    “How about his mother, then?”
    The girl snickered. “Joleene’s ‘asleep.’” Her hands made the common quote gesture. “You their friend?”
    “Just somebody who wants to talk to them.”
    Another snicker. “You must be a cop, then, ‘cause Duane ain’t got no social worker no more. Hey, that sure is a pretty Jeep, all painted up with them Indian signs and everything. Would you take me and Labelle here for a ride?”
    Given the circumstances of my visit, her over-friendly attitude worried me. “Didn’t your mother tell you it was dangerous to get in a stranger’s car?”
    “Got no mother. So what’s your name, pretty lady?”
    I guessed where this was going and I was right. As soon as I told her my name, she said, “I’m Ladonna Lundstrom, I’m ten, and that there’s my sister Labelle, she’s eight. Now we’s friends, so can we go for a ride?”
    “Sorry. The answer’s still no.”
    Her Cupid’s bow mouth turned down. “You’re a bitch.”
    “And you have a dirty mouth.”
    “Screw you.”
    At that, the curtains gave a final twitch. The door opened and a man wearing a torn Foo Fighters tee shirt hobbled out, his leg encased in a thigh-high cast. In his right hand he carried a baseball bat. “Ladonna, what did I hear from your mouth?”
    Ladonna didn’t