Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent

I eased the gun from my waistband. I'd never fired the H amp;K in a tight spot. I'd gone up to the range a few times with Dietz before he left. He'd put me through numerous firing drills until I refused to take any more orders from him. Usually I'm pretty good about keeping in practice, but not lately. It was the first time I'd tuned in to the fact I was depressed about his leaving. Shit, Kinsey, get a clue. The gun was reassuring. At least I wouldn't be totally at the mercy of my assailant. I squeezed the cocking lever on the grip.

I could hear breathing now, but it might have been mine.

I wished I hadn't left the relative safety of my office. My phone had a separate line and it might still be functioning. If I could cross the hall and get back to my office, I could at least lock the door and shove the desk up against it. All I'd have to do then was hold out until morning. Surely the cleaning crew would be in. I might be rescued sooner if anybody figured it out. I thought about Jonah. He'd be waiting at the bird refuge, wondering what had happened. What would he do when I didn't show up? Probably assume he got the location wrong. To my mind, the term bird refuge didn't contain any ambiguity. There was only one parking area. I had told him I was coming here first to pick up my gun, but he'd sounded half asleep. Who knew what he'd remember or if it would ever dawn on him to check it out.

I pulled Ida Ruth's chair closer and crouched behind it, keeping it between me and my assailant as I crept toward the unmarked door. Another shot was fired. The bullet tore through the upholstery with such force that the plastic chair back banged me right in the face. It was all I could do to keep from screaming as the blood gushed from my nose. I scooted backward, pulling the chair along in front of me as I scrambled toward the door. I eased a hand up along the doorframe until I touched the knob. Locked. Another shot was fired. A splinter of wood sailed past my face. I dove toward the wall, using the baseboard like a lane marker as I swam my way along the floor, praying the carpet would part for me and let me sink beneath the pile. The next shot ripped along my right hip as if someone were trying to strike a giant match. I jumped again, making a short exclamation of pain and astonishment. The stinging sensation told me I'd been hit. I fired back.

I rolled toward the far side of the corridor. The only protection I had at this point was the dark. If my eyes were adjusting, then so were my assailant's. I fired at Lonnie's doorway again. I heard a bark of surprise. I fired again, crawling backward down the hallway toward the kitchen in haste. My right buttock was on fire, sparks shooting down my right leg and up into my right side. I wasn't even crawling as efficiently as a six-month-old baby. I hugged the wall, feeling tears well, not from sorrow, but from pain.

I don't presume to understand how the human brain works. I do know that the left brain is verbal, linear, and analytical, solving life's little problems by virtue of sound reasoning. The right brain on the other hand tends to be intuitive, imaginative, whimsical, and spontaneous, coming up with the inexplicable Ah-ha! answer to some question you may have asked yourself three days before. There's no accounting for this. As I huddled in the blackness, gun in hand, with my lips pressed together to keep from shrieking like a girl, I knew with perfect certainty who was shooting at me. And to tell you the truth, it really pissed me off. When the next shot was fired, I flattened myself, braced the gun in both hands, and fired back. Maybe it was time to declare myself. "Hey, David?"

Silence.

"I know it's you," I said.

He laughed. "I was wondering if you'd figure it out."

"It took me a while, but I got it," I said. It was weird talking to him in the dark like this. I could barely visualize his face and that bothered me.

"How'd you guess?"

"I realized there was a gap between the time Tippy hit the pedestrian and the time she bumped into you."

"So?"

"So I called her and asked where she was for that thirty minutes. Turns out she went up to Isabelle's."

There was a silence.

I went on, "You must have just killed Isabelle when you saw Tippy coming up the drive. While she was knocking at the door, you hopped in the truck bed. She drove you away from the house when she left. All you had to do then was wait till she slowed down. Out you hop on the driver's side, giving the truck a thump with your fist as you jump. Tippy turns left and you're sprawled on the pavement in plain view of the work crew across the street."

"Yeah, with Mr. Average Citizen ready to testify in my behalf," he chimed in at last.

"What about Morley? Why'd you have to kill him?"

"Are you kidding? That old buzzard was really breathing down my neck. When I talked to him on Wednesday, he'd just about made the leap. I knew if I didn't take him down quick, I'd be in the soup. Raiding his files was a snap after that. He's kind of a slob when it came down to his paperwork."

"Where'd you get the death caps?"

"The Weidmanns' backyard. That's what inspired the notion in the first place. I went over there one night and plucked up a dozen and then paid my cook a little extra to make the pastry. She didn't know Amanita from her ass. She's lucky she didn't taste for seasonings as she went along."

"I gotta hand it to you. You are one clever chap," I said, thinking hard. Behind me, the corridor made a left-hand turn into a cul-de-sac with the copy room on one side and the new kitchenette on the other. If I rounded the corner, I'd be out of the line of fire, but I'd have a couple of problems I wasn't sure I could solve. One, I'd no longer have a straight line of fire myself. And two, I'd be trapped. On the other hand, I was trapped where I was. The kitchen had a small window. With luck, if I got there, I could bust out the glass and holler real loud for help. Like maybe nobody'd heard the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in here. If I could persuade him to keep talking, he might not hear me shift locations. "I'm surprised you didn't slip up somewhere along the line," I said. As long as I was stuck, I might as well fish for information.

Reluctantly, he said, "I did slip once."

"Really? When was that?"

"I got drunk one night with Curtis and flapped my big mouth. I still can't believe I did that. The minute it was out I knew I'd have to get rid of him one day."

"God," I said. "You mean to tell me he was telling the truth for once?"

Barney laughed in the dark. "Oh, sure. He figured it was worth some money to someone so he went straight to Ken Voigt and tattled. Sure enough, Voigt started paying Curtis to ensure his testimony. Fool."

I closed my eyes. Voigt was a fool. So eager to win he'd risked his own credibility. "What about me? Is there some scheme in the works or you just doing this for yucks?"

"Actually, I'd like to run you out of ammunition so I can finish you off. I killed Curtis with an H amp;K, like the one you've got. I'm going to shoot you with the thirty-eight I used on Isabelle and put that gun in his hand. That way, it'll look like he killed her-"

"And I killed him," I said, completing the sentence. "You ever hear about ballistics? They're going to know the gun wasn't mine."

"I'll be gone by then."

"Smart."

"Very smart," he said, "which is more than you can say of most people. Human beings are like ants. So busy, so involved in their little world. Watch an anthill sometime. Such activity. You can tell everything looks so important from the ant's point of view. But it's not. In reality, it doesn't amount to anything. Haven't you ever stepped on an ant? Rubbed one out with your thumb? You don't suffer any great pangs of conscience. You think, There. I gotcha. Same thing here."