I is for Innocent

I looked around to see who she was talking to. "Who, me?"

"Aren't you the one who just called?"

"No, I'm here on some business for Morley Shine, but his office is locked up."

"Oh. Well, I hate to be the one to tell you, honey, but Morley passed away this week."

"I'm aware of that. Sorry. I guess I should have introduced myself." I took out my identification and held it out to her.

She studied it for a moment and then frowned, pointing to my name. "How do you pronounce that?"

"Kinsey," I said.

"No, the last name. Does that rhyme with baloney?"

"No, it doesn't rhyme with baloney. It's Mill-hone."

"Oh. Mill-hone," she said, mimicking me dutifully. "I thought it was Mill-hony, like the lunch meat." She looked back at the photocopy of my private investigator's license. "Are you from Los Angeles, by any chance?"

"No, I'm a local."

She looked up at my hair. "I thought maybe that was one of those new mod cuts like they do down on Melrose. Asymmetrical, they call it, with a geometrical ellipse. Something like that. Usually looks like it's been whacked off with a ceiling fan." She laughed at herself, giving her chest a pat.

I leaned back to catch a glimpse of myself in the nearest mirror. It did look kind of weird. I'd been growing my hair for several months now and it was definitely longer on one side than it was on the other. It also seemed to have a few ragged places and a stick-up part near the crown. I experienced a moment of uncertainty. "You think I need a cut?"

She hooted out a laugh. "Well, I should hope to shout. It looks like some lunatic hacked your hair off with a pair of nail clippers!"

I didn't think the analogy was quite as fu

"Sure. I know Lo

"Morley was doing some work for him and I'm taking over the case. I'd like to get into his office."

"Poor guy," she said. "With his wife sick and all that. He moped around here for months, doing nothing as far as I could tell."

"I think he did a lot of work from his home," I said. "Uh, can I get into his office through here? I saw the door back there. Does that co

"Morley used to use it when he had a bill collector on his doorstep." She began to walk me toward the back, which I took as cooperation.

"Was that often?" I asked. It was hard for me to mind my own business when I had someone else's business within range of me.

"It was lately."

"Would you mind if I stepped in and picked up the files I need?"

"Well, I don't see why not. There's nothing in there worth stealing. Go ahead and help yourself. It's just a thumb-lock on this side."

"Thanks."

I let myself in through the co

I got up and crossed to the file cabinets on the far wall. Under "V" as in VOIGT/BARNEY, I found several manila file folders stuffed with miscellaneous papers. I removed the folders and began to stack them on the desk. Behind me the door banged open and I felt myself jump.

It was Betty, from the beauty shop. "You find everything you need?"

"Yes. This is fine. Turns out he kept most of his files at home."

She made a face, tuning in to the musty odor in the room. She went over to the desk and picked up the wastebasket. "Let me get this out of here. The trash isn't picked up until Friday, but I don't want to risk the ants. Morley used to order his pizzas here where his wife couldn't check on him. I know he was supposed to diet, but I'd see him in here with cartons of take-out Chinese, bags from McDonald's. I tell you, the man could eat. Of course, it wasn't my place to make a fuss, but I wished he'd taken a little bit better care of himself."

"You're the second person who's said that today. I guess you have to let people do what they're going to do." I picked up the files and the calendar. "Thanks for letting me in. I imagine someone will come over in a week or so and clean the place out."

"You're not looking for office space yourself?"

"Not this kind," I said without hesitation. It occurred to me later she might have taken offense, but the words just popped out. The last I saw of her, she was opening his front door so she could stick the wastebasket out on the porchlet.

I returned to my car, dumped the stack of files in the backseat, and backtracked into town, where I turned into the parking garage adjacent to the public library. I grabbed a clipboard from the backseat, locked my car, and headed for the library. Once inside, I went down to the periodicals room, where I asked the guy at the counter for the six-year-old editions of the Santa Teresa Dispatch. In particular, I wanted to look at the news for December 25, 26, and 27 of the year Isabelle Barney was murdered. I took the reel of tape to one of the microfilm readers and threaded it through the viewer, patiently cranking my way back through time until I reached the period that interested me. I made notes about the few significant events of that weekend. Christmas had fallen on a Sunday. Isabelle had died very early on Monday. Maybe it'd be helpful to jog people's memories with a few peripheral facts. A storm had dumped heavy rain over most of California, resulting in a major pileup on the northbound 101 just south of town. There'd been a minor crime wave that included the hit-and-run fatality of an elderly man, who'd been struck by a pickup out on upper State Street. There was also a market robbery, two household burglaries, and a suspected-arson fire, which destroyed a photographer's studio in the early-morning hours of December 26. I also jotted down a reference to an incident in which a two-and-a-half-year-old boy suffered minor injuries when he fired a.44-caliber revolver left in the car with him. As I read the news accounts, I could feel my own memory ignite briefly. I'd forgotten all about the fire, which I'd actually caught sight of as I drove home at the close of a stakeout. The harsh glow of the blaze had been like a torch against the lowering night sky. The rain had contributed a surreal misty counterpoint and I'd been startled when James Taylor's rendition of "Fire and Rain" suddenly came on my car radio. The fragment of memory terminated as abruptly as a light going out.

I combed the rest of the reel, but nothing much stood out. I went back to the begi