Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent

I reached for the phone and punched in the Parsons number, staring at the bulletin board while it continued to ring. Eight, nine. Oh, yeah. Friday night. I'd forgotten about Rhe's opening at the Axminster Gallery. I hauled out the telephone book and looked up the number for the gallery. This time somebody picked up on the second ring, but there was such a din in the background I could hardly hear. I pressed a hand to my free ear, focusing on the sounds from the gallery. I asked for Tippy and then had to make the same request only doubling the volume and pitch of my voice. The fellow on the other end said he'd go and get her. I sat and listened to people laughing, glasses clinking. Sounded like they were having a lot more fun than I was…

"Hello?"

"Hello, Tippy? This is Kinsey. Listen, I know this is a bad time to try to talk to you, but I was just thinking about what happened the night your aunt was killed. Can I ask you a couple questions?"

"Right now?"

"If you don't mind. I'm just curious about what happened between the time of the accident and the time you saw David Barney."

There was silence. "I don't know. I mean, I went up to my aunt's, but that's it."

"You went to Isabelle's house?"

"Yeah. I was like really upset and I couldn't think what else to do. I was going to tell her what happened and ask her for help. If she told me to go back, I would have done it, I swear."

"Could you speak up, please? What time was this?"

"Right after the accident. I knew I hit the guy so I just took off and headed right up to her place."

"Was she there?"

"I guess so. The lights were on…"

"The porch light was on?"

"Sure. I knocked and knocked but she never came down."

"Was the eyepiece in the door?"

"I didn't really look at that. After I knocked, I walked around the outside, but the place was all locked up. So I just got in my truck and headed home from there."

"You went home on the freeway."

"Sure, I got on at Little Pony Road."

"And got off at San Vicente."

"Well, yeah," she said. "Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothing really. It narrows the time of death, but I can't see that it makes any difference. Anyway, I appreciate your help. If you think of anything else, would you give me a call?"

"Sure. Is that all you want?"

"For now," I said. "Did you talk to the cops?"

"No, but I talked to this lawyer and she's going in with me first thing tomorrow morning."

"Good. You'll have to let me know what happens. How's the opening?"

"Really neat," she said. "Everybody loves it. They're like freaking out. Mom's sold six pieces."

"That's wonderful. Good for her. I hope she sells tons."

"I gotta go. I'll call you tomorrow."

I said good-bye to an empty line.

The phone rang again before I could remove my hand. I snatched up the receiver, thinking maybe Tippy had remembered something. "Hello?"

There was an odd breathy silence, very brief, and then I heard a man's voice. "Hey, Kinsey?" Then the breathiness again.

"Yes." I found myself squinting at the sound. I pressed my fingers to my ear again, listening to the quiet as I'd listened to the party noises at Rhe's opening. The guy was crying. He wasn't sobbing. It was the kind of crying you do when you want to conceal the fact. The air was bypassing his vocal cords. "Kinsey?"

"Curtis?"

"Uh-hunh. Yeah."

"What's wrong? Is somebody there with you?"

"I'm fine. How are you?"

"Curtis, what's the matter? Is someone there with you?"

"That's right. Listen, why I called? I was wondering if you could meet me so we could talk about something."

"Who is it? Are you okay?"

"Can you meet me? I have some information."

"What's going on? Can you tell me who's with you?"

"Meet me at the bird refuge and I'll explain."

"When?"

"As soon as possible, okay?"

I had to make a quick decision. I couldn't keep him on the line much longer. Anybody monitoring the call would get cranky. "Okay. It might take me a while. I'm already in bed so I'll have to get dressed. I'll see you down there as soon as I can make it, but it might be twenty minutes."

The line went dead.

It wasn't nine o'clock yet, but there wasn't much traffic around the bird refuge at night. The preserve encompasses a freshwater lagoon on a little-used access road between the freeway and the beach. The twenty-car parking lot is usually used by tourists looking for a "photo opportunity." There was a tavern across the street, but the property was currently without a tenant. I wasn't going to go down there alone and unarmed. I picked up the phone again and called the police station, asking for Sergeant Cordero.

"I'm sorry, but she won't be in until seven a.m."

"Can you tell me who's working Homicide?"

"Is this an emergency?"

"Not yet," I said tartly.

"You can talk to the watch commander."

"Just skip it. Never mind. I can try someone else." I depressed the button and tucked the telephone in against my shoulder while I checked my personal address book. The "someone else" I called was Sergeant Jonah Robb, an STPD cop who worked the missing persons detail. He and I had had a sporadic relationship that fluctuated according to the whims of his wife. Theirs was a marriage of high drama and long duration, the two having met at age thirteen in the seventh grade. Personally, I didn't think they'd progressed much. At intervals, Camilla would leave him-usually without notice or explanation-taking their two daughters and any money they had in their joint bank account. Jonah always vowed each time was the last. It was during one of these periods of domestic upheaval that I entered, stage left. I was the understudy, a role I discovered I didn't like very much. I'd finally severed the connection. I hadn't spoken to Jonah now for nearly a year, but he was still someone I felt I could call in a pinch.

A woman answered the telephone in a bedroom tone of voice, Camilla perhaps, or her latest replacement. I asked for Jonah and I could hear the receiver being passed from hand to hand. His "Hello" was groggy. God, these people went to bed earlier than I did. I identified myself and that seemed to wake him up some.

"What's happening?" he said.

"I hate to bother you, babe, but a jailbird named Curtis McIntyre just phoned and asked me to meet him at the bird refuge as soon as I can get there. My guess is the guy had a gun to his head. I need backup."

"Who's with him? Do you know?"

"I don't have an answer to that yet and it's too complicated to go into on the phone."

"You got a gun?"

"It's in my office at Lonnie Kingman's. I'm just on my way over there to pick it up. Take me fifteen minutes max and then I'll head down to the beach. Can you help?"

"Yeah, I can probably do that."

"I wouldn't ask, but I don't have anyone else."

"I understand," he said. "I'll see you there in fifteen minutes. I'll drive past and then double back on foot. There's plenty of cover."

"That's what concerns me," I said. "Don't trip over the bad guys."

"Don't worry. I can smell them puppy dogs. See you down there."

"Thanks," I said and hung up.

I grabbed my shoulder bag and my jacket with the car keys in the pocket, congratulating myself that I'd had the presence of mind to get the VW gassed up. It would take all the time I'd allotted to get from my apartment to the office and back down to the bird refuge. Whomever Curtis had with him was going to be edgy about delays, suspicious if I didn't show up in the time I'd said I would. I drove faster than the law allows, but I kept an eye on the rearview mirror, watching for cunningly concealed black-and-whites. I hoped I wouldn't have trouble laying hands on the gun. I'd moved only five weeks ago, hauling my hastily packed cardboard boxes from California Fidelity to Lonnie Kingman's office. I hadn't actually seen the gun since I bought it in May. I'd resented the necessity for the purchase in the first place, but I'd heard that my name was at the top of somebody's hit list. A private eye named Robert Dietz had stepped into the picture when I realized I needed help. Once I accepted the fact that my life was truly endangered, I gave up any passing interest in being politically correct. It was Dietz who'd insisted that I replace my.32-caliber Davis with the H amp;K. The damn gun had cost me an arm and a leg. Come to think of it, I wasn't all that sure where the Davis was either.