I is for Innocent

I made some sympathetic sounds.

She gestured briskly. "Anyway, enough said. I suppose you came to take a look at his study. Why don't you step on in here and let me show you where it is. You just take what you want, and if you need to come back, you can help yourself."

"Thanks. I can leave you a list of any files I take."

She waved off the suggestion. "No need to do that. We've known Mr. Kingman for years."

I moved into the foyer. She proceeded down a short hallway with me following. There was no sign of Christmas. With Mrs. Shine's illness and now Morley's death, there might have been a sense of relief that no such effort would be required this year. The house smelled of chicken soup. "Does Morley still have an office here in Colgate?" I asked.

"Yes, but with Dorothy so sick, he did most of his work here. I believe he still went in most mornings to pick up his mail. Did you want to look there as well?" She opened a door to what had clearly once been a bedroom, converted now to office space by the addition of a desk and file cabinets. The walls were painted beige and the beige shag carpeting was just as shabby as I'd imagined it.

"That's what I was thinking. If I can't find the files here, it probably just means he had them out at the office. Is there some way I could get a key?"

"I'm not sure where he kept them, but I'll check with Dorothy. My goodness," she said then as she looked around. "No wonder Morley didn't want anyone in here."

The room was faintly chilly, the disorder that of a man who operates his affairs according to no known system. If he'd realized he was going to drop dead, would he have straightened up his desk? Unlikely, I thought. "I'll Xerox what I need and bring the files back as soon as possible. Will someone be here in the morning?"

"What's tomorrow, Wednesday? As far as I know. And if not, just go around to the back and set them on the dryer in the service porch. We usually leave that door open for the cleaning woman and the visiting nurse. I'm going to find you a key to Morley's office. Dorothy probably knows where it is."

"Thanks."

While I waited for the woman to return, I did one circuit of the room, trying to get a feel for Morley's methods of paper management. He must have tried to get himself under control at intervals because he'd made up files labeled "Action,"

"Pending," and "Current." There were two marked "To Do," one marked "Urgent," and an accordion folder he'd designated as his "Tickler" file. The paperwork in each seemed outdated, mismatched, as disorderly as the room itself.

Louise stepped back into the study from the hall with a ring of keys in hand. "You better take this whole batch," she said. "Lord only knows which is which."

"You won't need these?"

"I can't think why we would. You can drop them off tomorrow if you'd be so kind. Oh. And I brought you a grocery bag in case you need to load things up."

"Will there be a service?"

"The funeral's Friday morning at the Wynington-Blake here in Colgate. I don't know if Dorothy will be able to manage it or not. We held off on it because Morley's brother is flying in from South Korea. He's a project engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers at Camp Casey. He can't get to Santa Teresa until late Thursday. We scheduled the service on Friday for ten o'clock. I know Frank will be jet-lagged, but we just couldn't delay it any longer than that."

"I'd like to be there," I said.

"That would be lovely," she said. "I know he'd appreciate that. You can let yourself out when you're done. I have to give Dorothy her shot."

I repeated my thanks, but she was already moving on to the next chore. She smiled at me pleasantly and closed the door behind her.

I spent the next thirty minutes unearthing every file that seemed relevant to Isabelle's murder and the subsequent civil suit. Lo

I packed item after item in the grocery bag-his calendar, his appointment book. I checked his desk drawers and his "in" and "out" boxes, making sure there wasn't a stray file stashed somewhere behind the furniture. When I was confident I'd lifted every pertinent folder, I put his key ring in my shoulder bag and closed the study door behind me. At the far end of the hall, I could hear the murmur of voices, Louise and Dorothy conversing.

As I returned to the front door, I passed the archway to the living room. I made an unauthorized detour to what had to be Morley's easy chair, upholstered in ancient cracked leather, the cushions conforming to his portly shape. There was an ashtray that had been emptied of cigarette butts. The end table still bore the sticky circles where his whiskey tumblers had sat. Snoop that I am, I checked the end-table drawer and felt down in the crevices of the chair. There was nothing to find, of course, but I felt better for it.

Next stop was Morley's office, located on a little side street in "downtown" Colgate. This whole residential section had been converted into small businesses: plumbers' shops, auto detailing services, doctors' offices, and real estate brokerages. The former single-family dwellings were identical frame bungalows. The living room in each now served as the front office for an insurance company or, in Morley's case, a beauty salon from which he rented a room with a bath at the rear. I went around to the outside entrance. Two steps led up to a small concrete porch with a small overhanging roof. The office door had a big pane of frosted glass in the upper half, so I couldn't see in. Morley's name was engraved on a narrow plaque to the right of the door, the kind of plate I could imagine his wife having made for him the day he went into business. I tried key after key, but none of them fit. I tried the door again. The place was locked up tighter than a jail. Without even thinking about it, I walked around to the rear and tried the window back there. Then I remembered I was playing by the rules. What a bummer, I thought. I'd been hired to do this. I was entitled to see the files, but not allowed to pick the lock. That didn't seem right somehow. What were all the years of breaking and entering for?

I went back around to the front and entered the beauty salon like a law-abiding citizen. The windows had been painted with mock snowdrifts, two of Santa's elves holding a painted ba

On the back wall, I spotted a paneled door that was probably co