Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent

"Sure. It would have been divided in half and he'd have lost really big. What'd she need him for? She could find half a dozen guys to fill his slot, but that wasn't true for him. Without her, he had zip. On the other hand, if she died, the business came to him intact… more or less. Her portion would go to Shelby, but he didn't have to worry about a four-year-old. At that point, Isabelle had already come up with so many preliminary sketches he could afford to coast and survive on the proceeds. Plus, with her dead, he must have counted on collecting the insurance. Again, some would go to Shelby, but he's still going to rake in a bunch."

"If he wins," I said. "Where's the house he leased when they separated?"

She flapped her hand toward the ocean. "As you leave the drive you turn left and it's down half a mile. A big white monstrosity, one of those contemporary houses made out of glass and concrete. It's so ugly, you can't miss it."

"Within easy walking distance?"

"He could have crawled it's so close."

"Were you here at the cottage the night she was killed?"

"Well, yes, but I didn't hear the shot. She'd phoned down here earlier to tell me the Seegers would be arriving late. They'd called about the car trouble and she didn't want me to worry if I saw lights on in the house. We chatted for a while and she sounded great. She'd been such a mess."

"Because of his harassment?"

"And the quarrels and the threats. Her life was a nightmare, but she was excited about San Francisco, looking forward to a little shopping, the theater, and the restaurants."

"What time did you talk to her?"

"About nine, I guess. It wasn't late. Isabelle was a night owl, but she knew I was usually in bed by ten. The first time I realized there was something wrong was when Don Seeger came down. He said they were worried because they couldn't get Isabelle to answer the door. They could see the fisheye was missing from the door and the hole looked burned. I grabbed a robe, got my key, and went up to the main house with him. We went in through the back door and found her in the foyer. I felt like a zombie. I was absolutely numb. So cold. It was awful, the worst night of my life." I could see tears for the first time and her face was suffused with pain. She fumbled in her pocket for a Kleenex and blew her nose. "Sorry," she murmured.

I studied her for a moment. "And you really think he killed her?"

"There's not a doubt in my mind. I just don't know how you're going to prove it."

"Me neither," I replied.

It was 2:34 when I left Simone and returned to my car. A heavy marine layer had begun to settle in, obscuring the view. The afternoon light already had the gray feel of twilight and the air was chilly. There was something distinctly unpleasant about having to pass the main house. I glanced quickly at the windows that looked out over the courtyard. There were lights burning in the living room, though the rooms upstairs were dark. No one seemed to be aware of my passing. The BMW was still parked where it had been when I arrived. The Lincoln was gone. I unlocked my car and slid under the steering wheel. I tucked the key in the ignition and paused to scan the house again.

On this side, a loggia ran along the second story, the red tile roof supported by a series of white columns. A vine had grown up the pillars and trailed now along the overhang, lacy green with a white blossom, probably fragrant if you got close enough. The front door was bisected by a shadow from the balcony overhead, the view further eclipsed by the branches of the live oaks that crowded the walled garden. Because the driveway was long and curved up at such an angle, the house wasn't visible from the road below. A passerby might have caught sight of someone, approaching or departing, but at 1:30 in the morning, who'd be up and about? Teenagers, perhaps, getting home from a date. I wondered if there'd been a concert or a play that night, some charitable event that might have kept the area residents out after midnight. I d have to check back through the papers and find out what was going on, if anything. Isabelle had been killed in the early morning hours on the day after Christmas, which didn't sound promising. The fact that no one had ever stepped forward with information made the possibility of a witness seem even more remote.

I started the car and shifted into reverse, backing around to my left so I could head down the driveway. David Barney had claimed he was out for a night jog when Isabelle was shot. Night jogging, right, in a neighborhood dark as pitch. Much of Horton Ravine had a rural feel to it – wooded stretches without streetlights and no sidewalks at all. While no one could corroborate his story, there was no one to contradict it either. It didn't help matters that the cops had never come up with a single piece of evidence tying Barney to the scene. No witnesses, no weapon, no fingerprints. How was Lonnie going to nail the sucker if he had no ammunition?

I eased the VW down the driveway and hung a left at the bottom. I kept one eye on the odometer and the other on the road, cruising past several houses until I spotted the one that I was looking for-the place David Barney leased when he left Isabelle's. The house in question was the architectural equivalent of a circus tent: white poured concrete, with a roof line broken into wedges that fanned out from a center pole. Each triangular section was supported by three gaily painted metal pipes. Most of the windows were irregularly shaped, angled to catch some aspect of the ocean view. My guess was that inside the floors would be aggregate concrete, with the plumbing and furnace ducts plainly visible and raw. Add some corrugated plastic panels and an atrium done up in wall-to-wall Astroturf and you'd have the kind of house Metropolitan Home might refer to as 'assured,' 'unsparing,' or 'brilliantly iconoclastic.'

'Unremittingly tacky' would also cover it. Pay enough for anything and it passes for taste.

I parked my car on the berm and hiked back along the road. I reached Isabelle's driveway in exactly seven minutes. Walking up the drive might take another five at best. If you made the trip at night and didn't want to be seen, you'd have to step off into the bushes if a car went past. At that hour, you weren't likely to find anyone else out on foot. Returning to my car, I timed myself again. Eight minutes this round, but I wasn't really pushing it. I made a note of the numbers on the mailboxes by the road. The neighbors might know something that would be of help. I'd have to do a door-to-door canvass to satisfy myself on that point.

I'd scheduled my appointment with the Weidmanns for 3:30, which gave me twenty minutes to spare. In most investigations I'm hired for, the object of the exercise is to flush out culprits: burglars, deadbeats, embezzlers, con artists, perpetrators of insurance fraud. Occasionally, I take on a missing-persons search, but the process is much the same- like picking at a piece of knitting until you find a loose thread. Pull at the right point and the whole garment comes unraveled. This one was different. Here, the quarry was known. The question wasn't who, but how to bring him down. Morley Shine had already done a thorough (though poorly organized) investigation and he'd come up with zilch. Now it was my turn, but what was left? I made some doodles on the page, hoping something would occur to me. Most of my doodles looked like great big goose eggs.

It's been my observation that the rich like to subdivide into the haves and the have-mores. What's the point in achieving status if you can't still be compared favorably with someone else in your peer group? Just because the wealthy band together doesn't mean they've relinquished their desire to be judged superior. The circle is simply more select and the criteria more exotic. The assessment of personal real estate is a case in point. Mansions, while easily distinguished from middle-income tract houses, can be further classified according to a few easily remembered yardsticks. The size and location of the property should be given first consideration. Additionally, the longer the driveway, the more points will be accorded. The presence of a private security guard or a pack of attack-trained dogs would naturally be counted more discerning than mere electronic equipment, unless of an extremely sophisticated sort. Beyond that, one must factor in such matters as guesthouses, spiked gates, reflecting pools, topiary, and excessive outdoor lighting. Obviously the fine points will vary from community to community, but none of these categories should be overlooked in assessing individual worth.