Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent

I showered and dressed, ate a bowl of cereal with skim milk, and headed back to the office.

As I passed Ida Ruth's desk, I paused for a quick chat about her weekend, leisure she usually fills with backpacking, horse trails, and hair-raising rock climbs. She's thirty-five and unmarried, a robust vegetarian, with windswept blond hair and brows bleached by the sun. Her cheekbones are wide, her ruddy complexion unsoftened by makeup. While she's always dressed well, she looks like she'd prefer wearing flannel shirts, chinos, and hiking boots. "If you want to talk to Lonnie, you better scoot on in. He's got a court appearance coming up in ten minutes."

"Thanks. I'll do that."

I found him at his desk. He'd shed his coat and had his shirtsleeves rolled up. His tie was askew and his shaggy hair stood out around his head like wheat in need of threshing. Through the windows behind him, I could see clear blue skies with a scrim of mauve-and-gray mountains in the background. It was a gorgeous day. A thick tumble of vivid magenta bougainvillea camouflaged a white brick wall two buildings away.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"All right, I guess. I haven't finished going through the boxes yet, but it seems pretty disorganized."

"Yeah, well, filing was never Morley's strong suit."

"Girls just naturally do that so much better," I said dryly.

Lonnie smiled as he jotted a note to himself, presumably concerning the case he was working on. "We ought to talk fees. What's your hourly rate?"

"What was Morley charging?"

"The usual fifty," he said idly.

He had opened a drawer and was sorting through his files so he couldn't see my face. Morley was getting fifty? I couldn't believe it. Either men are outrageous or women are fools. Guess which, I thought. My standard fee has always been thirty bucks an hour plus mileage. I only missed half a beat. "Bump it up five bucks and I won't charge you mileage."

"Sure," he said.

"What about instructions?"

"That's up to you. Carte blanche."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course. You can do anything you want. As long as you keep your nose clean," he added in haste. "Barney's attorney would love nothing better than to catch us with our pants down, so no dirty tricks."

"That's no fun."

"But it allows you to testify without being thrown out of court and that's critical."

He glanced at his watch. "I gotta fun." He grabbed his suit coat from a hanger and shrugged back into it. He straightened his tie and snapped his briefcase shut and was halfway out the door.

"Lonnie, wait a minute. Where do you want me to start?"

He smiled. "Find me a witness who can put the guy at the murder scene."

"Oh, right," I said to the empty room.

I sat down and read another five pounds of garbled information. Maybe I could sweet-talk Ida Ruth into helping me reconstruct the files. The first box seemed immaculate by comparison to the second. My first chore was going to be to stop by Morley Shine's house to see what files he had there. Before I left the office, I made a few preliminary calls. I had a pretty good sense of who I wanted to talk to and it was then a matter of setting up some appointments. I got through to Isabelle's sister, Simone, who agreed to talk to me around noon at her place. I also had a quick chat with a woman named Yolanda Weidmann, who was married to Isabelle's former boss. He was tied up in his home office and would be until three, so she suggested I stop by later in the afternoon. The third call I placed was to Isabelle's longtime best friend. Rhe Parsons wasn't in, but I left a message on her machine, giving her my name and telephone number, indicating that I'd try again.

Since the police station was only a block away, I decided to start with Lieutenant Dolan in Homicide. He was out with the flu, but Sergeant Cordero was there. I spotted Lieutenant Becker in the corner deep in conversation with someone I took to be a suspect, a white guy in his twenties, looking sullen and uncooperative. I knew Becker better than Cordero, but if I waited until he was free, he'd end up quizzing me about my relationship with Jonah Robb in Missing Persons. I hadn't seen Jonah in six or eight months and I didn't want to generate any contact at this point.

Sheri Cordero was an oddity in the department. Being a female and Hispanic, she managed to fill two minority slots simultaneously. She was twenty-nine, short, buxom, smart, tough, somewhat abrasive in ways that I could never quite define. She never said anything offensive, but the guys in the department were not entirely at ease with her. I understood what she was up against. The Santa Teresa Police Department is better than most, but it's never easy being a woman and a cop. If Sheri erred on the side of being humorless, it was no surprise. She was in the middle of a phone conversation, which she converted to Spanish the minute I arrived. I sat down in the Leatherette-and-metal chair beside her desk. She held up a finger, indicating she'd be with me momentarily. She had a little artificial Christmas tree on her desk. It was decorated with candy canes and I helped myself to one. The nice thing about being in the presence of someone on the telephone is that you can study the person at your leisure without being thought rude. I unwrapped the candy cane and tossed the cellophane in the trash. She was clearly engaged in the subject at hand, gesturing vigorously to make her point. She had a good face, rather plain, and she wore little makeup. One of her two front teeth had a corner clipped off and it added a whimsical note to an otherwise stern expression. While I watched, she began to doodle on a legal pad-a cowboy stabbed in the chest with a cartoon knife.

She finished her conversation and turned her attention to me without any visible transition. "Yes?"

"I was looking for Lieutenant Dolan, but Emerald tells me he's out sick."

"He's got that bug that's been going around. Have you had that thing? I was out for a week. It's the pits."

"So far I've been spared," I said. "How long's he been out?"

"Just two days. He'll come dragging back in looking like death. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Probably. I've been hired by Lonnie Kingman in a wrongful death suit. The defendant is David Barney. I was curious about the scuttlebutt. Were you here back then?"

"I was still a dispatcher, but I've heard ' em talk. Man, they were pissed when he walked. He looked good for the shooting, but the jury wasn't buying. Talk about frustrated. Lieutenant Dolan was mad enough to bite through nails."

"From what I hear, David Barney's former cellmate claims he as good as confessed once the verdict came down."

"You're talking about Curtis McIntyre. Guy's in the county jail, and if you want him, you better make it quick. He gets out this week after doing ninety days on a battery," she said. "Did you hear about Morley Shine?"

"Lonnie mentioned that last night, but I didn't hear the details. How'd it happen?"

"What I heard he just keeled over dead. He'd been in bed with the same damn flu, but I guess he was feeling better. He was having dinner Sunday night? You know Morley. He hated to miss a meal. Got up from the table and dropped in his tracks."

"He had heart trouble?"

"For years, but he never took it serious. I mean, he was under doctor's care, but it never seemed to faze him. He was always joking about his ticker."

"That's too bad," I said. "I'm really sorry to see him go."

"Me, too. I can't believe how terrible I feel. Roll call somebody told me Morley Shine died? I busted out crying. I swear to God, I surprised myself. It's not like we were close. We used to talk over at the courthouse if I was waiting to testify on a case. He was always hanging around there, chain-smoking Camels, munching Fritos or something from the vending machine. It bums me out all those old guys are dropping dead. How come they didn't take better care of themselves?"