Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent

"Sorry if I seemed short with you on the telephone. Let me get these guys going and we can talk out in the breezeway." She checked her watch, which she wore on the inner aspect of her wrist. It was seven straight up. She clapped her hands once. "Okay, people. Settle down. We're paying Linda by the hour. We're going to start with quick sketches, one minute each. This is to loosen up so don't worry about the small stuff. Think big. Fill the paper. I don't want any tight-ass tiny images. Betsy's going to be the timekeeper. When the bell rings, grab the next sheet of newsprint and start again. Any questions? Okay, then. Let's have some fun with this."

There was a bit of a scramble while the late students found empty easels. The model hopped off the stool, dropped her robe, and struck a pose, leaning forward with her hands on the wooden stool, a graceful curve to her back. It was comforting to see that she looked like an ordinary mortal-round and misproportioned, her torso softened by motherhood. The woman working next to me studied the model briefly and began to draw. Fascinated, I watched her capture the line of the model's shoulder, the arch of her spine. The quiet in the room was intense against the lyrical meandering of the music.

Rhe was watching me. Her eyes were a khaki green, her brows ragged. She moved toward the rear exit and I followed. The night air was fifteen degrees cooler than the room itself. She reached for a cigarette and lit it, leaning against one of the supports. "You ever draw? You seemed interested."

"Can you really teach people how to do that?"

"Of course. You want to learn?"

I laughed. "I don't know. It makes me nervous. I've never done anything remotely artistic."

"You ought to try it. I bet you'd like it. I teach the basics fall semester. This is life drawing, for people with a little drawing experience. Do what I tell you, you could pick it up in no time." Her gaze strayed out across the parking lot.

"Are you expecting someone?"

She looked back at me. "My daughter's stopping by. She wants to borrow my car. Hang around long enough and I may bum a ride home."

"Sure, I could do that."

She went back to the subject, maybe hoping to postpone any talk of Isabelle. "I've been drawing since I was twelve. I can remember when it happened. Sixth grade. We were out on a field trip in a little park with a pond. Everybody else drew the fountain with these flat stick people at the edge. I drew the spaces between the chicken wire in the fence. My drawing looked real. Everybody else's looked like sixth graders on a field trip. It was like an optical illusion… something shifted. I felt my brain do a sudden quickstep and it made me laugh. After that, I was like this art prodigy… the star of my class. I could draw anything."

"I envy you that. I always thought it'd be neat. Can I ask about Isabelle? You said your time was in short supply."

She looked away from me then, her voice dropping somewhat. "You might as well. Why not? I talked to Simone this afternoon and she filled me in."

"Sorry about the confusion over Morley Shine. According to the files, he'd already talked to you. I was just going to fill in the blanks."

She shrugged. "I never heard a word from him, which is just as well. I'd have really been annoyed if I had to have the same conversation twice. Anyway, what is it you want to know?"

"How'd you meet?"

"Out at UCST. We took a printmaking class. I was eighteen, unmarried, with a kid on my hands. Tippy was two. I knew who the father was. He's always pitched in with her and helped me out with the money, but he's not the kind of guy I'd ever marry…"

I pictured a dope dealer with his nose pierced, a tiny ruby sitting on his nostril like a semiprecious booger, long, unwashed hair tumbling halfway down his back.

"… Isabelle had just turned nineteen and she was engaged to the guy who was later killed in a boat. We were both way too young for the shit that was coming down, but it bonded us like cement. We were friends for fourteen years. I really miss her."

"Are you close to Simone?"

"In some ways I am, but it's not like Isabelle. For sisters, they were very different… remarkably so. Iz was special. She really was. Very gifted." She paused to take the last drag from her cigarette, which she flipped into the parking lot. "Tip adored Isabelle, who was like a second mother to her. She told Iz the secrets she didn't have the nerve to tell me. Which is just as well, in my opinion. There are things I'm not sure any mother needs to know about her kid." She interrupted herself by holding an index finger up. "Let me take a break here and see how the class is doing."

She moved to the doorway and looked in on the class. I saw one of the students, a man in his sixties, turn a befuddled face toward her. He put a tentative hand up. "Hang on a sec," she said, "I better earn my paycheck."

The man who'd summoned her launched into a long-winded question. Rhe used hand gestures as she made her response, almost like American Sign Language for the deaf. Whatever her point, he didn't seem to get it at first. The model had changed her pose and was perched again on the stool, one bare foot resting on the second rung. I could see the angle of her hip and the line where her buttock was flattened out by the wood. Rhe had moved on. I waited while she completed the circuit, making her way from one easel to the next.

I heard footsteps behind me and I turned, glancing back. A young woman was approaching in tight jeans and high-heeled cowboy boots. She wore a Western-cut shirt and a big leather bag slung across her shoulder like a mail pouch. Her face was a clumsier version of Rhe's, though I suspected the maturation process would refine her features somewhat. At the moment, she looked like a rough pencil sketch for a portrait in oil. Her face was wide, her cheeks still rounded with the last vestiges of baby fat, but she had the same green eyes, the same long, dark hair pulled up in a braid. I placed her in her late teens or very early twenties. Bright-looking, good energy. She flashed me a smile.

"Is my mother in there?"

"She'll be out in a minute. Are you Tippy?"

"Yes," she said, surprised. "Do I know you?"

"I was just talking to your mom and she said you'd be stopping by. My name is Kinsey."

"You teach here, too?"

I shook my head. "I'm a private investigator."

She half smiled, getting ready for the punch line. "For real?"

"Yep."

"Cool. Investigating what?"

"I'm working for an attorney on a case going into court."

Her smile faded. "Is this about my aunt Isabelle?"

"Yes."

"I thought that already went to court and the guy got away with it."

"We're trying again. A different angle this time. We may nail him if we're lucky."

Tippy's expression seemed to darken. "I never liked him. What a creep."

"What do you remember?"

She made a face… reluctance, resistance, a touch of regret perhaps. "Nothing much, except we all cried a bunch. Like for weeks. It was awful. I was sixteen when she died. She wasn't my real aunt, but we were really close."

Rhe emerged from the classroom with her key ring in her hand. "Hi, baby. I thought that was you out here. I see you met Miss Millhone."

Tippy gave her mother's cheek a kiss. "We were just waiting for you. Yon look tired."

"I'm okay. How was work?"

"Work was fine. Corey says I might get a raise, but it's only like three percent."

"Don't knock it. Way to go," Rhe said. "What time are you picking Karen up?"

"Fifteen minutes ago. I'm already late."

Tippy and I watched while Rhe slipped the car key from the ring and then pointed toward the parking lot. "It's in the third row, to the left. I want the car back by midnight."

"We're not even out until quarter of!" Tippy yelped in protest.