Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent

"So you'll do it?"

"Well, if she signs the papers, we'll give it a shot."

I could feel excitement bubble up, mixed with equal parts fear. If I was wrong, I was going to feel like a fool.

"What's the grin for?" he asked.

"I didn't think you'd take me seriously."

"I'm paid to take people seriously when it comes right down to it. Lot of times, presumption of death by poisoning only comes about because of suspicion on the part of decedent's friends and relatives. We'll bring Morley out here and take a look."

"What about the funeral?"

"They can go ahead with the services. We'll have him brought out here after that and get right on it." He paused, giving me a speculative look. "Got a suspect in mind if it turns out you're right?"

"I literally don't have a clue," I said. "I'm still trying to figure out who killed Isabelle Barney."

"I wouldn't try too hard if I were you."

"How come?"

"That kind of curiosity might have been what killed Morley."

I couldn't believe I had to go back to Morley's again, but that's where I was headed. Burt Walker had asked me to bring him any household products that were possible poison candidates. Louise was out in front, standing at the mailbox, when I pulled up. If she was surprised to see me she gave no indication. She waited patiently while I parked the car and got out. We began walking toward the house as companionable as old friends.

"Where's Dorothy?" I asked.

"She's gone to her room to rest."

"Was she upset?"

Her look was frank. "My sister is a realist. Morley's gone. If someone poisoned him, she wants to know. Of course it's upsetting. Why wouldn't it be?"

"I hated to add to her burden, but I didn't see a way around it."

"There's nothing either one of us can do about that. What brings you back?"

I told her about my conversation with the coroner. "He doesn't seem optimistic, but at least he's willing to check into it if I round up some possibilities. I'm going to need some sort of carrier for the items we find."

"How about a kitchen garbage bag? Ours are the small ones with a drawstring at the top."

"Perfect," I said.

I followed her to the kitchen and together we gathered up everything that seemed pertinent. The storage area under the sink turned out to be a rich lode of toxic substances. It was sobering to realize that the average housewife spends her days knee-deep in death. Some items I declined, like the Drano, reasoning there was no way he could have sucked down a fatal dose of hair-ball solvent without being aware of it.

Louise had a sharp eye, pointing out items I might have overlooked otherwise. Into the bag went oven cleaner, Raid, Brasso, household ammonia, denatured alcohol, and a box of ant motels. I had a brief incongruous image of Morley with his head back, slipping ant motels down his gullet like a succession of live goldfish. There were several of Morley's prescriptions lined up along the kitchen window sill and we tossed those into my trick-or-treat bag.

In the bathroom, we emptied the medicine cabinet of everything with Morley's name on it, plus a few over-the-counter medications that might be lethal in quantity. Aspirin, Unisom, Percogesic, antihistamines. None of it felt particularly ominous or threatening. We checked all the wastebaskets, but came up with nothing the slightest bit suspicious. The garage netted us a few containers, but not nearly as many as I'd anticipated. "Not many insecticides or fertilizers," I remarked idly. Louise was loading my bag with turpentine and paint thinner.

"Morley hated working in the garden. That was Dorothy's bailiwick." She stood back from the shelves, doing a slow turn as she scanned the premises. "That looks like it. Well, motor oil," she said. She turned and looked at me.

"You might as well put it in the bag," I said. "I can't believe he OD'd on Sears heavyweight, but anything's possible. What about the office? Does he have a medicine cabinet in the bathroom there?"

"I hadn't even thought about that. He sure does. Here, let me rustle up his keys while we're at it."

"Don't worry about it. I can have the woman in the beauty shop let me in from her side."

We returned to the front of the house, where I got out my car keys. "Thanks for your help, Louise."

"Let us know what they find," she said.

"It'll be a while yet. Toxicology reports sometimes take a month."

"What about the autopsy? That should tell them something."

"Nothing's going to happen till after the funeral."

"Will we see you at the service?"

"As far as I know."

Driving over to Morley's office I found myself nearly overwhelmed with uncertainty. This was ridiculous. Morley wouldn't have eaten anything laced with Brasso or Snarol. He was hardly an epicurean, but he surely would have noticed the first time he slurped up a spoonful of Malathion or Sevin. I couldn't speak to the issue of his medications. None of the bottles had been empty, or even low, so it didn't look as if he'd overdosed, accidentally or otherwise. The two prescriptions that came in capsule form could have been tampered with, of course. I gathered that most days the back door was left unlocked and open. Anyone could have walked in and replaced his pills with something fatal.

I reached Morley's office and parked in the driveway. I rounded the bungalow and moved toward the front door, toting my plastic garbage bag like a vagrant Santa Claus. On second viewing, the place seemed even more depressing than it had at first. The exterior siding was painted the bright turquoise of Easter eggs, the window frames and roof trim done in sooty white. Various signs in the plate glass window, tucked in among the snowdrifts, announced that the salon was now stocking Jhirmack and Redken. I went in.

This time the shop was empty and Betty, whom I took to be the owner, was having coffee and a cigarette at the back while she worked on her accounts. "Where is everybody?"

"They're all out at lunch. Jeannie has a birthday and I said I'd mind the phones. What can I do for you?"

"I need to get back into Morley's office."

"Help yourself," she said and shrugged.

Someone had pulled the shades down. The light in the room was tawny, overcast sun filtered through cracked paper. Along with the smell of mildew and carpet dust, I picked up the scent of old cigarette butts mingling with the smell of scorched coffee and fresh smoke that wafted through the heating vent from the salon adjacent.

A cursory check of the desk drawers and file cabinets netted me nothing in the way of toxic substances. In the bathroom, I found a can of Comet so close to empty the remaining cleanser had formed pellets that rattled around the bottom like dried peas. The medicine cabinet was empty except for a half-empty bottle of Pepto-Bismol. I added that to my plastic bag in case the contents had been infused with rat poison, powdered glass, or mothballs. Having staged this little melodrama, I felt obliged to play it all the way out to the end. The bathroom waste can was empty. I returned to the office to check the wastebasket under Morley's desk but there was no sign of it. I looked around in puzzlement. I'd seen it in here my first trip.

I opened the connecting door and stuck my head into the salon. "Where'd Morley's wastebasket disappear to?"

"Out on the porch."

"Thanks. Can you do me another favor?"

"I can try," she said.

"Morley's office might turn out to be a crime scene; we won't know for another couple days. Can you keep it secure?"

"Meaning what? Don't let anybody in?"

"Right. Don't touch anything and don't throw anything away."

"That's how Morley kept it in the first place," she said.

I closed the door again and retrieved the wastebasket from the front porch, where the Ho Chi Minh of ant trails now meandered across the concrete. Gingerly, I poked through, brushing ants away. I sat down on the top step and began to empty the contents. Discarded papers, catalogues, used Kleenex, Styrofoam coffee containers. The cardboard box, with the half-eaten pastry in it, had now become sole food source for the teeming colony of ants. I set the box on the porch beside me and did a quick study of the contents. Morley must have stopped off at the bakery on his way into the office, picked up a sweetie, and brought it back with him. He'd eaten half of it and then tossed the rest in the trash, probably feeling guilty about breaking his diet. I peered at the pastry closely, but I had no idea what I was looking at. It didn't appear to be fruit, but what else do you make strudel with? I gathered the remnants carefully and wrapped them in the paper that had come with the box.