Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent

"What's the matter? Don't you keep that stuff?"

"It's not that. I'm sure there's a copy of the footage you're looking for. The master tapes are catalogued by subject matter and date, cross-referenced and cross-filed on three-by-five index cards."

"You don't have it on computer?"

He shook his head, with just a hint of satisfaction. "The logistics of the system don't really matter much because I can't let you see the master tape without a properly executed subpoena."

"I'm working for an attorney. I can get a subpoena. This is no big deal."

"Go ahead then. I can wait."

"Yeah, well, I can't. I need the information as soon as possible."

"In that case, you got a problem. I can't let you see the master tape unless you have a subpoena."

"But if I could get it eventually, what difference does it make? I'm entitled to the information. That's the bottom line, isn't it?"

"No tickee, no washee. That's the bottom line," he said.

I was beginning to see why his imaginary classmates liked to torture him. "Could we try this?" I pulled out a mug shot of Curtis McIntyre. "Why don't you look at the tape and tell me if he's on it. That's all I want to know."

He stared at me with that blank look all petty bureaucrats assume while they calculate the probabilities of getting fired if they say yes. "Why do you want to know? I really wasn't listening before."

"This fellow claims he had a conversation with the defendant in a murder trial shortly after he was acquitted. He says the cameras were rolling as the guy left the courtroom, so if what he says is true, he ought to be clearly visible on the tape, right?"

"Yeeess," he said slowly. I could tell he thought there was some kind of trick to it.

"This isn't a violation of anybody's civil rights," I said reasonably. "Could you just look?"

He held his hand out. I gave him Curtis's mug shot. He continued to hold his hand out.

I stared for a moment. "Oh," I said. I opened my handbag and took out my wallet. I peeled off a twenty and put it in his palm. His expression didn't actually change, but I knew he was insulted. I'm sure it's the same look you'd get from a New York taxi driver if you tipped him a dime.

I peeled off another twenty. No reaction. I said, "I really hate corruption in someone so young."

"It's disgusting, isn't it?" he replied.

I added a third.

His hand closed. "Come with me."

He turned and headed back through the doorway and into a narrow corridor. I followed without a word. Offices opened up on either side of us. Occasionally, we passed other station employees wearing jeans and Reeboks, but no one was doing much. The spaces seemed cramped and irregular, with too much knotty pine veneer paneling and too many cheaply framed photographs and certificates. The whole interior of the building had been done up with the sort of do-it-yourself home improvements that later make a house impossible to sell.

At the rear, we passed into a tiny concrete cul-de-sac with a wood-and-metal stairway leading up to an attic. Just to the right was an old-fashioned wooden file cabinet, with a smaller wooden file sitting on top. He opened the drawer for the year we wanted and began to sort through the index cards, starting with the name Barney. "We won't have the actual field tapes," he remarked while he looked.

"What's a field tape?"

"That would be like the whole twenty minutes of tape the guy shot. We keep the ninety seconds to two minutes of edited footage that actually goes on the air."

"Oh. Well, even that would help."

"Unless the guy you're looking for stepped up and spoke to your suspect after the cameras finished rolling."

"True enough," I said.

"Nope. Nothing," he said. "Well, let's see here. What else could it be under?" He tried "Murder,"

"Trials," and "Courtroom Cases," but there was no reference to Isabelle Barney.

"Try 'Homicides,' " I suggested.

"Oh, good one." He shifted to the H's . There it was, with a numerical designation that apparently referred to the number of the tape on file. We went up the narrow stairs and through a door so low we were forced to duck our heads. Inside, there was a warren of tiny rooms with six-foot ceilings, lined with videocassette containers, neatly labeled and filed upright. Leland located and retrieved the cassette we were looking for and then led me downstairs again and around to the right where there were four stations set up with monitoring equipment. He flipped on the first machine and inserted the tape. The first segment appeared on the screen in front of us. He pressed Fast Forward. I watched the news for that year whiz by like the history of civilization in two minutes flat, everybody very animated and jerky. I spotted a still of Isabelle Barney. "There she is," I yelped.

Leland backed the tape up and began to run it at normal speed. An anchorperson I hadn't seen for years was suddenly doing the voice-over commentary as snippets of the case, neatly spliced together, spelled out the highlights of Isabelle's death, David Barney's arrest, and the subsequent trial. The acquittal, in condensed form, had the speedy air of instant justice, well edited, swiftly rendered, with liberty for all. David Barney emerged from the courtroom looking slightly dazed.

"Hold it. Let me look at him."

Leland stopped the tape and let me study the image. He was in his forties with light brown wavy hair combed away from his face. His forehead was lined and there were lines radiating from the corners of his eyes. He had a straight nose and a tense grin over artificially even teeth. His chin was strong and I could see that he had strong hands with blunt-cut nails. He was slightly taller than medium height. His attorney looked very tall and gray and somber by comparison.

"Thanks," I said. I realized belatedly that I'd been holding my breath. Leland pushed Play and the coverage quickly switched to another subject altogether. He handed me Curtis McIntyre's mug shot. "No sign of him."

For the money I'd given him, he could have feigned disappointment. "Could it be the camera angle?" I asked.

"We got a wide and a close. You saw 'em come through the door alone. Nobody approached in the footage we caught. Like I said, the guy might have stepped up and spoken once the press conference was over."

"Well. Thanks," I said. "I guess I'll have to rely on my other source."

I went back to my car, not sure what to do next. If I got verification of Curtis McIntyre's incarceration, I intended to confront him, but I couldn't do that yet. In theory, I had numerous interviews to conduct, but David Barney's phone call had thrown me. I didn't want to spend time shoring up David Barney's alibi, but if what he said was true, we'd end up looking like a bunch of idiots.

I took the winding road down the backside of the hill and turned right on Promontory Drive, following the road along the ocean and through the back entrance to Horton Ravine. I used the next hour and a half canvassing the old neighborhood to see if anybody had been out and about on the night Isabelle was murdered. It didn't thrill me to be in range of David Barney, but I couldn't see a way around it and still get the information I wanted. A canvass by telephone is the same as not doing it. It's too easy for people to hang up, tell fibs, or shine you on.

One neighbor had moved and another had died. A woman on the adjacent property thought she'd heard a shot, but she hadn't paid much attention to the time and she'd later wondered if it hadn't been something else. Like what, I thought. I wasn't sure if it was my paranoia or not, but any time I heard what sounded like a gunshot, I checked the clock to see what time it was.

Of the eight remaining homeowners variously peppered along that stretch of road, none had been out that night and none had seen a thing. I got the impression that it had all happened far too long ago to bear worrying about at this point. A six-year-old murder doesn't engage the imagination. They'd already told their versions of the story one too many times.