I is for INNOCENT

by Sue Grafton

  "That would be lovely," she said. "I know he'd appreciate that. You can let yourself out when you're done. I have to give Dorothy her shot."

  I repeated my thanks, but she was already moving on to the next chore. She smiled at me pleasantly and closed the door behind her.

  I spent the next thirty minutes unearthing every file that seemed relevant to Isabelle's murder and the subsequent civil suit. Lonnie would have had a fit if he'd known how haphazardly Morley went about his work. In some ways, the measure of a good investigation is the attention to the paperwork. Without meticulous documentation, you can end up looking like a fool on the witness stand. The opposing attorney loves nothing better than discovering that an investigator hasn't kept proper records.

  I packed item after item in the grocery bag – his calendar, his appointment book. I checked his desk drawers and his "in" and "out" boxes, making sure there wasn't a stray file stashed somewhere behind the furniture. When I was confident I'd lifted every pertinent folder, I put his key ring in my shoulder bag and closed the study door behind me. At the far end of the hall, I could hear the murmur of voices, Louise and Dorothy conversing.

  As I returned to the front door, I passed the archway to the living room. I made an unauthorized detour to what had to be Morley's easy chair, upholstered in ancient cracked leather, the cushions conforming to his portly shape. There was an ashtray that had been emptied of cigarette butts. The end table still bore the sticky circles where his whiskey tumblers had sat. Snoop that I am, I checked the end-table drawer and felt down in the crevices of the chair. There was nothing to find, of course, but I felt better for it.

  Next stop was Morley's office, located on a little side street in "downtown" Colgate. This whole residential section had been converted into small businesses: plumbers' shops, auto detailing services, doctors' offices, and real estate brokerages. The former single-family dwellings were identical frame bungalows. The living room in each now served as the front office for an insurance company or, in Morley's case, a beauty salon from which he rented a room with a bath at the rear. I went around to the outside entrance. Two steps led up to a small concrete porch with a small overhanging roof. The office door had a big pane of frosted glass in the upper half, so I couldn't see in. Morley's name was engraved on a narrow plaque to the right of the door, the kind of plate I could imagine his wife having made for him the day he went into business. I tried key after key, but none of them fit. I tried the door again. The place was locked up tighter than a jail. Without even thinking about it, I walked around to the rear and tried the window back there. Then I remembered I was playing by the rules. What a bummer, I thought. I'd been hired to do this. I was entitled to see the files, but not allowed to pick the lock. That didn't seem right somehow. What were all the years of breaking and entering for?

  I went back around to the front and entered the beauty salon like a law-abiding citizen. The windows had been painted with mock snowdrifts, two of Santa's elves holding a painted banner reading MERRY X-MAS across the glass. There was a big decorated Christmas tree in the corner with a few wrapped boxes under it. There were four stations altogether, but only three were occupied. In one, a plastic-caped woman in her forties was having her hair permed. The beautician had divided the damp strands into sections, inserting small white plastic rollers as dainty as chicken bones. The permanent wave solution filled the air with the scent of spoiled eggs. In the second station, the woman in the chair had her head secured in a perforated bathing cap while the beautician pulled tiny strands through the rubber with what looked like a crochet hook. Tears were rolling down the woman's cheeks, but she and the beautician were chatting away as if this were an everyday occurrence. To my right, a manicurist worked on a client, who was having her fingernails painted a bubblegum pink.

  On the back wall, I spotted a paneled door that was probably connected to Morley's office. There was a woman in the rear folding towels into tidy stacks. When she saw my hesitation, she moved up to the front. Her name tag said: Betty. Given her occupation, I was surprised she didn't have a better cut. She'd apparently fallen into the hands of one of those cruel stylists (usually male) who delight in mismanaging the hair of women over fifty. The particular cut that had been inflicted on this woman consisted of a shaved backside and a frizzy pouf along the front that made her neck look wide and her facial expression fearful. She fanned the air, her nose wrinkling. "Pee-yew! If they're smart enough to get a man on the moon, why can't they make a perm lotion that don't stink?" She picked up a plastic cape from the nearest chair and assessed me with a practiced eye. "Boy oh boy. You sure do have a hair emergency. Take a seat."

  I looked around to see who she was talking to. "Who, me?"

  "Aren't you the one who just called?"

  "No, I'm here on some business for Morley Shine, but his office is locked up."

  "Oh. Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, honey, but Morley passed away this week."

  "I'm aware of that. Sorry. I guess I should have introduced myself." I took out my identification and held it out to her.

  She studied it for a moment and then frowned, pointing to my name. "How do you pronounce that?"

  "Kinsey," I said.

  "No, the last name. Does that rhyme with baloney?"

  "No, it doesn't rhyme with baloney. It's Mill-hone."

  "Oh. Mill-hone," she said, mimicking me dutifully. "I thought it was Mill-hony, like the lunch meat." She looked back at the photocopy of my private investigator's license. "Are you from Los Angeles, by any chance?"

  "No, I'm a local."

  She looked up at my hair. "I thought maybe that was one of those new mod cuts like they do down on Melrose. Asymmetrical, they call it, with a geometrical ellipse. Something like that. Usually looks like it's been whacked off with a ceiling fan." She laughed at herself, giving her chest a pat.

  I leaned back to catch a glimpse of myself in the nearest mirror. It did look kind of weird. I'd been growing my hair for several months now and it was definitely longer on one side than it was on the other. It also seemed to have a few ragged places and a stick-up part near the crown. I experienced a moment of uncertainty. "You think I need a cut?"

  She hooted out a laugh. "Well, I should hope to shout. It looks like some lunatic hacked your hair off with a pair of nail clippers!"

  I didn't think the analogy was quite as funny as she did. "Maybe some other time," I said. I decided to get down to business before she talked me into a haircut I would later regret. "I'm working for an attorney by the name of Lonnie Kingman."

  "Sure. I know Lonnie. His wife used to go to my church. What's he got to do with it?"

  "Morley was doing some work for him and I'm taking over the case. I'd like to get into his office."

  "Poor guy," she said. "With his wife sick and all that. He moped around here for months, doing nothing as far as I could tell."

  "I think he did a lot of work from his home," I said. "Uh, can I get into his office through here? I saw the door back there. Does that connect to his suite?"

  "Morley used to use it when he had a bill collector on his doorstep." She began to walk me toward the back, which I took as cooperation.

  "Was that often?" I asked. It was hard for me to mind my own business when I had someone else's business within range of me.

  "It was lately."

  "Would you mind if I stepped in and picked up the files I need?"

  "Well, I don't see why not. There's nothing in there worth stealing. Go ahead and help yourself. It's just a thumb-lock on this side."

  "Thanks."

  I let myself in through the connecting door. There was one room, the back bedroom in the days when the bungalow was used as a residence. The air smelled musty. The carpeting was a mud brown, a color probably chosen because it wouldn't show dirt. What showed up instead was all the lint and dust. There was a small walk-in closet that Morley used for storage, a small bathroom with a brown vinyl tile floor, a commode with a wooden seat, a small Pullman sink, an
d a fiberglass shower stall. For one depressing moment, I wondered if this was how I'd end up: a small-town detective in a dreary nine-by-twelve room that smelled of mold and dust mites. I sat down in his swivel chair, listening to the creak as I rocked back. I snagged his Month at a Glance. I checked his drawers one by one. Pencils, old gum wrappers, a stapler empty of staples. He'd been sneaking fatty foods on the sly. A flat white bakery box had been folded in half and shoved down in the wastebasket. A large grease stain had spread across the cardboard and the remains of some kind of pastry had been tossed in on top. He probably came into the office every morning to sneak doughnuts and sweet rolls.

  I got up and crossed to the file cabinets on the far wall. Under "V" as in VOIGT/BARNEY, I found several manila file folders stuffed with miscellaneous papers. I removed the folders and began to stack them on the desk. Behind me the door banged open and I felt myself jump.

  It was Betty, from the beauty shop. "You find everything you need?"

  "Yes. This is fine. Turns out he kept most of his files at home."

  She made a face, tuning in to the musty odor in the room. She went over to the desk and picked up the wastebasket. "Let me get this out of here. The trash isn't picked up until Friday, but I don't want to risk the ants. Morley used to order his pizzas here where his wife couldn't check on him. I know he was supposed to diet, but I'd see him in here with cartons of take-out Chinese, bags from McDonald's. I tell you, the man could eat. Of course, it wasn't my place to make a fuss, but I wished he'd taken a little bit better care of himself."

  "You're the second person who's said that today. I guess you have to let people do what they're going to do." I picked up the files and the calendar. "Thanks for letting me in. I imagine someone will come over in a week or so and clean the place out."

  "You're not looking for office space yourself?"

  "Not this kind," I said without hesitation. It occurred to me later she might have taken offense, but the words just popped out. The last I saw of her, she was opening his front door so she could stick the wastebasket out on the porchlet.

  I returned to my car, dumped the stack of files in the backseat, and backtracked into town, where I turned into the parking garage adjacent to the public library. I grabbed a clipboard from the backseat, locked my car, and headed for the library. Once inside, I went down to the periodicals room, where I asked the guy at the counter for the six-year-old editions of the Santa Teresa Dispatch. In particular, I wanted to look at the news for December 25, 26, and 27 of the year Isabelle Barney was murdered. I took the reel of tape to one of the microfilm readers and threaded it through the viewer, patiently cranking my way back through time until I reached the period that interested me. I made notes about the few significant events of that weekend. Christmas had fallen on a Sunday. Isabelle had died very early on Monday. Maybe it'd be helpful to jog people's memories with a few peripheral facts. A storm had dumped heavy rain over most of California, resulting in a major pileup on the northbound 101 just south of town. There'd been a minor crime wave that included the hit-and-run fatality of an elderly man, who'd been struck by a pickup out on upper State Street. There was also a market robbery, two household burglaries, and a suspected-arson fire, which destroyed a photographer's studio in the early-morning hours of December 26. I also jotted down a reference to an incident in which a two-and-a-half-year-old boy suffered minor injuries when he fired a .44-caliber revolver left in the car with him. As I read the news accounts, I could feel my own memory ignite briefly. I'd forgotten all about the fire, which I'd actually caught sight of as I drove home at the close of a stakeout. The harsh glow of the blaze had been like a torch against the lowering night sky. The rain had contributed a surreal misty counterpoint and I'd been startled when James Taylor's rendition of "Fire and Rain" suddenly came on my car radio. The fragment of memory terminated as abruptly as a light going out.

  I combed the rest of the reel, but nothing much stood out. I went back to the beginning and made copies of everything except the print ads and the classifieds. I rewound the film and tucked the reel of tape back in the box. I paid for the copies at the main desk on my way out, thinking about the people whose whereabouts I'd have to question for those couple of days. How much would I remember if someone quizzed me about the night Isabelle was killed? One fragment had been restored, but the rest was a blank.

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  I retrieved my car from the public lot and drove out to the Santa Teresa County Sheriff's Department Detention and Corrections Facility. Morley's interview with Curtis McIntyre was one of the documents I'd found in the proper file, though the subpoena had never been served. He'd apparently spoken to Curtis mid-September and no one had talked to him since. According to Morley's notes, McIntyre had been in a holding cell with Barney his first night in the can. He claimed they'd established a friendship of sorts, more on his part than Barney's. He'd found himself intrigued because Barney was a man who seemed to have everything. Curtis, accustomed to doing jail time with losers, had followed the case in the papers. When the trial came up, he'd made a point of being in attendance. He and Barney hadn't talked much until the day he was acquitted. As David Barney left the courtroom, Curtis McIntyre had stepped forward to offer his congratulations. At that point, according to the informant, David Barney made the remark that implied he'd just gotten away with murder. I couldn't tell if Curtis had elaborated on that or not.

  I parked out in front of the jail, across the lot from the Santa Teresa County Sheriff's Department with its fleet of black-and-white s. I moved up the walk and pushed through the front door into the small reception area, approaching the L-shaped counter with the glass partition along the top. I'd done an overnight at the jail nearly six weeks before and I was glad to be returning in a legitimate guise. It felt much better walking in the front door than it had going in the back in the company of an arresting officer.

  I signed in at the desk and filled out a jail visitation pass. The woman at the counter took the information and disappeared from the window. I waited in the lobby, perusing the bulletin board while she called down for someone to bring Curtis up to the interview room. On the wall near the pay phone, all the better bail bondsmen were listed, along with the Santa Teresa taxicab companies. Getting yourself arrested is usually an unexpected piece of misery. Once your bail's been posted, if your car's been impounded, you find yourself stuck out in the boonies – an added element of distress after a night of humiliations.

  The woman behind the counter caught my attention. "Your client's coming up in a minute. Booth two."

  "Thanks."

  I traversed the short hallway and passed through the door leading to the visitors' booths. There were only three in that section, set up so that inmates could confer in private with their attorneys, probation officers, or anyone else they had a legitimate reason to consult. I let myself into the second "room," which was maybe four feet wide, furnished with a glass window, a four-foot length of counter, and a footrail of the sort you'd find in a bar. I hied myself up to the counter and put my foot up, leaning on my elbows. Beyond the glass was a roomette that mirrored the one I was in, with a door in the back wall through which the inmates were brought. Within minutes, the door opened and Curtis McIntyre was ushered in. He seemed puzzled at the unscheduled visit, perplexed at the sight of me when he'd probably expected his attorney.

  He was twenty-eight, lean and long-waisted with hips so narrow they hardly held his pants up. He looked good in jail blues. His shirt was short-sleeved, showing long, smooth arms, the perfect epidermal canvas for a dragon tattoo. My guess was that somebody'd once told Curtis he had soulful eyes because he seemed determined to make deep, meaningful eye contact with me. He was clean-shaven, with an innocent-looking face (for a convicted felon). His hair was ill cut, which was no big surprise as the man had been in jail for months. I didn't picture his having a regular salon cut and blow-dry in the best of circumstances.

  I introduced myself, explaining my purp
ose, which was to get his written statement. "From Mr. Shine's notes, I gather you met David Barney in a holding cell the first night after his arrest."

  "You single?"

  I checked behind me. "Who, me?"

  He smiled the kind of smile you'd have to practice in the mirror, eyes boring into mine. "You heard me."

  "What's that got to do with it?"

  His voice softened to the coaxing tone reserved for stray dogs and women. "Come on. Just tell me. I'm a nice guy."

  I said, "I'm sure you're very nice, but it's none of your business."

  This amused him. "How come you're afraid to answer? Are you attracted to me? Because I'm attracted to you."

  "Well, you're very forthcoming and I appreciate that, Curtis. Uh, now, could you tell me about the time you spent with David Barney?"

  He smiled faintly. "All business. I like that. You take yourself serious."

  "That's right. And I hope you'll take me serious, too."

  He cleared his throat, sobering, clearly trying to make a good impression. "Him and me were in a cell together. He was arrested on a Tuesday and we didn't go before the judge until Wednesday afternoon. Seemed like a nice guy. By the time his trial come up, I'se out, so I figured I'd sit in on it and see what all the fuss was about."

  "Did the two of you talk about the murder at the time of his arrest?"

  "Naw, not really. He was upset, which I could understand. Lady got shot in the eye, that's ugly. I don't know what land of person'd do a thing like that," he said. "Turns out it was him, I guess."

  "What did you talk about?"

  "I don't know. Nothin' much. He was asking what all I was in for and stuff like that, what judge I thought we'd pull for the arraignment the next day. I give him a rundown on which ones are tough, which is most of 'em. Well, that one guy's a pussy, but the rest is mean."

  "What else?"

  "That's about it."

  "And on the basis of that, you sat through the whole trial?"