Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent

By the time Christmas came, she was a nervous wreck, eating little, sleeping poorly, subject to anxiety, panic, and tremors. She was pale. She was haggard. She was drinking too much. She was agitated by company and frightened to be alone. She sent the four-year-old Shelby to live with her father. Ken Voigt had remarried, though some witnesses suggested that he'd never quite recovered from his divorce from her. Isabelle took tranquilizers to get through the day. At night, she popped down sleeping pills. Finally, the Seegers prevailed on her to pack her bags and accompany them on a trip to San Francisco. They were en route to Santa Teresa to pick her up when the electronic fuel injection on the car went out. They called and left a message to let her know they'd be late.

From midnight until approximately 12:45, Isabelle, feeling anxious and excited about the trip, had a lengthy telephone conversation with a former college roommate who lived in Seattle. Some time after that, she heard a rap at the door and went downstairs, assuming the Seegers had arrived. She was fully dressed, smoking a cigarette, her suitcases already lined up in the foyer. She flipped on the porch light and put her eye to the spyhole before opening the door. Instead of seeing visitors, she was staring down the bore of the.38 that killed her. The Seegers showed up at 2:20 and realized something was wrong. They alerted Isabelle's sister, who was living in a cottage on the property. She used her key to let them in through the rear. The alarm system was still armed at the perimeter. As soon as they spotted her, the Seegers called the police. By the time the medical examiner arrived at the scene, Isabelle's body temperature had dropped to 98.1. Using the Moritz formula and adjusting for the temperature in the foyer, her body weight, clothing, and the temperature and conductivity of the marble floor on which she lay, the medical examiner placed the time of death roughly between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m.

At noon the next day, David Barney was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, to which he entered a plea of not guilty. Even that early in the game, it was clear that the evidence against him was largely circumstantial. However, in the state of California, the two elements of a homicide-the death of the victim and the existence of "criminal agency"-may be proved circumstantially or inferentially. A finding of murder in the first degree can be sustained where no body is produced, where no direct evidence of death is produced, and where there is no confession. David Barney had signed a prenuptial agreement that limited his financial settlement if they divorced. At the same time, he was listed as the prime beneficiary on her life insurance policies, and as her widower he stood to inherit the community property portion of her business, which was estimated at two point six million bucks. David Barney had no real alibi for the time of her death. Dink Jordan felt he had more than enough evidence to convict.

As it happened, the trial lasted three weeks, and after six hours of closing arguments and two days of deliberations, the jury voted for acquittal. David Barney walked out of the courtroom not only a free man, but very rich. Interviewed later, some jurors admitted to a strong suspicion that he'd killed her, but they hadn't been persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt. What Lonnie Kingman was attempting, by filing the wrongful death suit, was to retry the case in civil court, where the burden of proof is based on a preponderance of evidence instead of the "reasonable doubt" formula of a criminal prosecution. As I understood matters, it would still be necessary for the plaintiff, Kenneth Voigt, to establish that David Barney killed Isabelle, and, further, that the killing was felonious and intentional. But the onus would be eased by the shift to proof by preponderance. What was at stake here was not Barney's freedom, but any profits he'd garnered from the crime itself. If he'd killed her for money, at least he'd be stripped of his gains.

I realized I was yawning for the third time in a row. My hands were filthy and I'd reached the point in my reading where my mind was wandering. Morley Shine's methodology had really been slipshod and I found myself irritated with the poor man in death. There's nothing quite as irksome as someone else's mess. I left the files where they were and locked my office door. I let myself out into the third-floor corridor and locked the door behind me.

Mine was the only car left in the parking lot. I pulled out of the driveway and turned right, heading toward town. When I reached State Street, I hung a left and headed home, cruising through the empty, well-lighted downtown area of Santa Teresa. Most of the buildings are only two stories high, the Spanish-style architecture of the ground-hugging variety due to frequent earthquakes. In the summer of 1968, for instance, there was a swarm of sixty-six tremors, ranging in severity from 1.5 to 5.2 on the Richter scale, the latter being strong enough to slop half the water out of a swimming pool.

I felt a surge of regret when I passed my old building at 903 State. By now, someone new had probably moved into the space. I ought to talk to Vera, the CF claims manager, to find out what had happened in the weeks since I'd been gone. I hadn't seen her since she and Neil got married on Halloween night. As a side effect of being fired, I was losing touch with a lot of people I knew-Darcy Pascoe, Mary Bellflower. The notion of Christmas in the new office setting seemed strange somehow.

I narrowly missed the light at the intersection of Anaconda and 101. I came to a stop and turned my engine off, waiting the four minutes for the light to turn green again. The highway was deserted, empty lanes of asphalt stretching out in both directions. The light finally changed and I zoomed across, turning right at Cabana, the boulevard paralleling the beach. I took another right onto Bay and a left onto my street, which was narrow and treelined, mostly single-family dwellings with an occasional condo. I found a parking spot two doors away from my apartment. I locked my car and scanned the darkened neighborhood by habit. I like to be out by myself at this hour, though I try to be vigilant and exercise appropriate caution. I let myself into the side yard, lifting the gate on its hinge to avoid the squeak.

My apartment was once a single-car garage attached to the main house by a breezeway, which had been converted to a sunroom. Both my apartment and the sunroom had been reconstructed after a bomb blast and I now had an additional loft sleeping space with a second bath built in. My outside light was on, compliments of my landlord, Henry Pitts, who never goes to bed without peering out his window to see if I'm safely home.

I locked the door behind me and went through my usual nighttime routine, securing all the doors and windows. I turned on my little black-and-white TV for company while I tidied my apartment. Since I'm usually gone during the day, I find myself doing personal chores at night. I've been known to vacuum at midnight and grocery shop at 2:00 a.m. Since I live alone, it isn't hard to keep the place picked up, but every three or four months I do a systematic cleaning, tackling one small section at a time on a rotating basis. That night, even taking time to scrub the kitchen, I was in bed by 1:00.

Tuesday, I woke at 6:00. I pulled on my sweats and tied the laces of my Nikes in a double spit knot. I brushed my teeth, splashed some water on my face, and ran wet fingers through my sleep-flattened hair. My run was perfunctory, more form than content, but at the end of it I was at least in touch with some energy. I used the time to tune into the day, a moving meditation meant to focus my mind as well as coordinate my limbs. I was dimly aware that I hadn't been taking very good care of myself of late… a combination of stress, irregular sleep, and too much junk food. Time to clean up my act.