I Is for Innocent

by Sue Grafton

  “I finally realized just how sick I was of Isabelle’s murder. I’m sick of the whole subject and all the drama attached. It’s been six years and that’s all Kenneth talks about. Her murder, her money, her talent. How beautiful she was. The tragedy of her death. He’s obsessed with the woman. He’s more in love with her dead than he was when she was alive.”

  “Not necessarily. . . .”

  She went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “I told Morley I hated Iz, that I was thrilled to pieces when she died. I was just, you know, spewing out all this emotional . . . garbage. What’s weird is when I thought about it later, I understood how twisted my thinking had become. Kenneth’s, too. I mean, look at us. This is really a very neurotic relationship.”

  “You came to this conclusion after talking to Morley?”

  “That was part of what triggered the realization that it was time to get out. If I’m ever going to be healthy, I’ve got to separate myself from Ken, learn to stand on my own two feet for a change—”

  “And that’s when you decided you were leaving him? Just last week?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “So it had nothing to do with the cancer two years ago.”

  She shrugged. “I’m sure that played a part. It was like waking up. It was like suddenly understanding what my life was about. Honestly, until I talked to Morley, I thought I was happily married. Really. I thought everything was fine. I mean, more or less. After that, I understood it was all an illusion.”

  “Must have been a hell of a conversation,” I said.

  I waited briefly, but she had lapsed into silence.

  “What was the ‘more or less’ part?” I asked.

  She looked up at me. “What?”

  “You want to tell me what you discovered? You said something made you angry. I gather that’s why you got in touch with Morley in the first place.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. I was tidying up the study and came across an account Ken had been keeping from me.”

  “A bank account?”

  “Like that. A ledger sheet. He’d been, uhm, assisting someone financially.”

  “Assisting someone,” I repeated blankly.

  “You know. Regular cash payments from month to month. This has been going on for three years. Being a good businessman, of course he kept a record. It must not have occurred to him that I’d lay hands on it.”

  “What’s it about? Does Kenneth have a mistress?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but in a way it’s worse.”

  “Francesca, would you just quit screwing around and tell me what’s going on?”

  It took her a moment. “He’s been giving money to Curtis McIntyre.”

  “To Curtis?” I said. I could barely take that in. “What for?”

  “That’s what I asked. I was appalled of course. The minute he came home, I confronted him.”

  I stared at her. “And what did he say?”

  “He says it was like walking-around money. To help with his rent. A few bucks to get some of his bills paid off. Things like that.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?” I asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “How much?”

  “About thirty-six hundred dollars so far.”

  “Well, there goes that,” I said. “Here I’ve been feeling guilty because I came up with information that throws a monkey wrench into Lonnie’s case and now I find out the plaintiff has been keeping the prime witness on retainer. Wait till Lonnie hears. He’s going to have a fit!”

  “That’s what I told Ken. He swears he was just trying to help the guy out.”

  “Doesn’t he know how that’s going to look if it comes to light? It’s going to look like he’s paying Curtis for his testimony. Trust me, Curtis is not that reliable as it is. How are we going to pass him off as an impartial witness doing his civic duty?”

  “He doesn’t see anything wrong with it. He says Curtis was having trouble finding a job. I guess Curtis told him he might have to leave the area and go somewhere else. Kenneth wanted to make sure he’d be available—”

  “That’s what subpoenas are for!”

  “Well, don’t get mad at me. Ken swears it’s not what it looks like. Curtis came to him after David was acquitted—”

  “Oh, stop it, Francesca. What’s a jury supposed to think? How convenient. Curtis’s testimony is going to directly benefit the man who’s been paying him now for three years. . . .” I stopped where I was. Something in the way she was clutching at the pillow made me study her more closely. “What’s the rest?”

  “I gave Morley the ledger. I was worried Kenneth would destroy it so I left it with Morley for safekeeping till I could decide what to do.”

  “When was this?”

  “When I found the ledger? Wednesday night, I guess. I took it over to Morley on Thursday, and when Kenneth got home later, we had a huge fight. . . .”

  “Did he know you’d taken it?”

  “Yes, and he was furious. He wanted it back, but there was no way I was going to do that.”

  “Did he know you’d given it to Morley?”

  “I never said that. He might have figured it out, but I don’t see how. What makes you ask?”

  “Because Morley was murdered. Somebody baked him a strudel filled with poisoned mushrooms. I found the white bakery box in the wastebasket.”

  Her face was blank. “Surely you don’t think it was Ken.”

  “Let’s put it this way: I’ve been through both of Morley’s offices. There’s no ledger at all and the files are incomplete. I’ve been operating on the assumption that his housekeeping was sloppy or he was ripping Lonnie off, billing him for work that was never done. Now I’m wondering if someone stole files to cover the theft of something else.”

  “Kenneth wouldn’t do such a thing. He wouldn’t do any of it.”

  “What happened Thursday when you couldn’t produce the ledger? Did he drop the subject?”

  “He asked me repeatedly, but I wouldn’t tell him. Then he said it didn’t matter anyway because it wasn’t a crime. If he lent Curtis money, it was between the two of them.”

  “But doesn’t it strike you as interesting? Here’s Kenneth Voigt paying Curtis McIntyre, whose testimony just happens to incriminate David Barney in a lawsuit that just happens to benefit Kenneth Voigt. Don’t you see the symmetry? Or maybe it was blackmail. Now there’s a thought.”

  “Blackmail for what?”

  “Isabelle’s murder. That’s what all of this is about.”

  “He wouldn’t have killed Isabelle. He loved her too much.”

  “That’s what he says now. Who knows what he felt back then?”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” she said without much conviction.

  “Why not? Isabelle rejected him for David Barney. What could be more satisfying than to kill her and have the blame fall on David?”

  I left her sitting there with the pillow in her lap. She’d twisted one corner until it looked like a rabbit’s ear.

  20

  On the way back to Colgate, I stopped at a gas station and filled my tank. This crosstown driving was the equivalent of a round-trip to Idaho and I was beginning to regret the fact that I wasn’t charging Lonnie for the mileage. It was just after 6:00 and traffic was heavy, most of it inbound, heading in the opposite direction. Clouds lay across the mountains like a layer of bunting.

  I headed for Voigt Motors, trying to calculate the odds of Kenneth Voigt telling me the truth. Whatever his relationship with Curtis, it was time for some straight talk. If I couldn’t get it out of Kenneth, I was going to track Curtis down and have a chat with him. I parked in the little strip lot in front of Voigt Motors, tucking my VW between a vintage Jaguar and a brand-new Porsche. I went in through the front door, ignoring the saleswoman who stepped forward to greet me. I went up the wide stairs to the loggia of offices that rimmed the second floor—Credit, Accounting. Apparently the salespeople were required to be on the floor until closing time at
8:00. Those working the business end were a little luckier, already in the process of going home for the day. Kenneth’s office door carried his name in two-inch brass letters. His secretary was a woman in her early fifties who’d gone on being a bleached blonde way beyond the legal age for it. Time had marked the space between her eyes with a goalpost of worry. She was tidying her desk, putting files away, making sure the pens and pencils were placed neatly in a ceramic mug.

  I said, “Hi. Is Mr. Voigt here? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “You didn’t pass him on the stairs as you came up? He left two minutes ago, but he may have gone down the back way. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “I don’t think so. Can you tell me where he parks? Maybe I can catch him before he takes off.”

  Her expression had changed and she regarded me with caution. “What is this regarding?”

  I didn’t bother to reply.

  I ducked out of the office and continued along the upper level, peering briefly into every room I passed, including the men’s room. A startled-looking fellow in a business suit was just shaking himself off. God, that would be convenient. If there were any justice in the world, women would have the little hang-down things and men would get stuck with putting the paper down on the seats. I said, “Ooops. Wrong room,” and shut the door again. I found the back stairs through a door marked “Fire Exit.” I took the stairs two at a time going down, but when I reached the parking lot, there was no sign of Ken and there were no cars pulling out of the exit.

  I went back to my VW and headed out of the lot, turning left onto Faith in the direction of upper State. Curtis McIntyre’s motel was only a mile away. This section of town was devoted to fast-food restaurants, car washes, discount appliance stores, and assorted small retail establishments, with an occasional office building sandwiched into the mix. Once I was past the Cutter Road Mall, the northbound freeway entrance appeared on the right. State Street angled left, running parallel to the highway for another mile or two.

  The Thrifty Motel was located near the junction of State Street and the two-lane highway that cut north toward the mountains. I hung a left into the gravel entrance to the motel parking lot. I pulled into the unoccupied slot in front of Curtis’s room. The lights in most rooms along the L were blazing, the air richly perfumed with the scent of frying meats, a heady blend of bacon, hamburger, pork chops, and sausage. Television news shows and booming country music competed for airspace. Curtis’s windows were dark and there was no response to my knock. I tried the room next door. The guy who answered must have been in his forties, with bright blue eyes, a bowl-shaped haircut, and a beard like a tangle of hair pulled out of a brush.

  “I’m looking for the guy next door. Have you seen him?”

  “Curtis went out.”

  “Do you have any idea where?”

  The guy shook his head. “Not my day to keep track of him.”

  I took out a business card and a pen. I scribbled a note asking Curtis to call me as soon as possible. “Could you give him this?”

  The guy said, “I will if I see him.” He shut the door again.

  I took out another card and jotted down a duplicate message, which I slid in behind the metal 9 tacked to his door. The neon motel sign blinked on as I crossed the parking lot to the manager’s office. Thrifty Motel was spelled out in sputtering green, the sound of flies buzzing against a window screen. The glass-paneled office door was open and a NO VACANCY sign, red letters on a white ground, had been propped against one of the jalousie windowpanes.

  The registration counter was bare, the small area behind it unoccupied. A door in the rear was standing ajar and there were lights on in the apartment usually reserved for the manager on the premises. He was apparently watching the rerun of a sitcom, laugh track pummeling the air with recurrent surges of mirth. Every third laugh was a big one and it wasn’t difficult to visualize the sound engineer sitting at the board pushing levers up and back, up and back, WAY up and back.

  A small sign on the counter said, “H. Stringfellow, mgr. Ring bell for service” with an old-fashioned punch bell. I dinged, which got a big laugh from the unseen audience. Mr. Stringfellow shuffled through the door, closing it behind him. He had snow-white hair and a gaunt clean-shaven face, his complexion very pink, his chin jutting forward as if he’d had it surgically augmented. He wore baggy brown pants and a drab brown polyester shirt with a thin yellow tie. “Full up,” he said. “Try the place down the street.”

  “I’m not looking for a room. I’m looking for Curtis McIntyre. You have any idea what time he’ll be back?”

  “Nope. Some fellow came and picked him up. At least, I think it was a man. Car pulled in out there and off he went.”

  “You didn’t see the driver?”

  “Nope. Didn’t see the car either. I was working in the back and I heard a honk. Few minutes later, I saw Curtis passing by the window. I just happened to glance out the door or I wouldn’t have seen that. Pretty soon a door slammed and then the car pulled away.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Just a little while ago. Maybe five, ten minutes.”

  “Do his calls come through the switchboard?”

  “Isn’t any switchboard. He’s got a telephone in his room. That way his phone bill’s his own business and I don’t have to fool with it. I don’t pretend I’m dealing with a classy type of tenant. Dirtbags, most of ’em, but it’s nothing to me. Long as they pay the rent in advance as agreed.”

  “Is he pretty good about that?”

  “He’s better than most. You his parole officer?”

  “Just a friend,” I said. “If you see him, could you ask him to give me a call?” I took out another business card and circled my number.

  I unlocked the car door, just about to let myself in, when my bad angel piped up, giving me a little nudge. Right there in front of me was Curtis McIntyre’s door. The lock looked respectable, but the window right next to it was open. The gap was only three inches, but the wooden frame on the window screen was warped along the bottom and actually bulged out just about far enough for me to tuck my tiny fingers in. Pop the screen out and all I’d have to do is push the sash up, reach around on the inside, and turn the thumb-lock. There was no one in the parking lot and the noise from all the television sets would cover any sound. I’d been a model citizen all week and where had it gotten me? The case was never going to get as far as court anyway, so what difference would it make if I broke the law? Breaking and entering isn’t that big a deal. I wasn’t going to steal anything. I was just going to have a teeny, tiny, little peek. This is the kind of reasoning my bad angel gets into. Trashy thinking, but it’s just so persuasive. I was ashamed of myself, but before I could even reconsider I was easing the screen out, slipping the naughty old digits through the opening. Next thing I knew I was in his room. I turned the light on. I just had to hope Curtis wouldn’t walk in. I wasn’t sure he’d care if I tossed his place. I was more worried that if he caught me there, he’d think I was hustling him.

  His mother would have been embarrassed to see his personal habits. “Pick up your clothes” was not in his vocabulary. The room wasn’t very big to begin with, maybe twelve feet by twelve, with a galley-size kitchen—combination refrigerator, sink, and hot plate, all filthy. The bed was unmade, no big surprise there. A small black-and-white TV sat on one of the bed tables, pulled away from the wall for better viewing in bed. Cords trailed across the floor, fairly begging to be tripped over. The bathroom was small, draped with damp towels that smelled of mildew. He seemed to favor the kind of soap with pubic hairs embedded in it.

  Actually, I didn’t care how he kept his place. It was the rickety wooden desk that interested me. I began to search. Curtis didn’t believe in banks. He kept his cash loose in the top drawer, quite a lot of it. He probably figured that roving bands of big-time thieves weren’t going to target room 9 of the Thrifty. A few bills were tossed in helter-skelter with the cash: gas, telephone, Sears, wh
ere he’d charged some clothes. Under the windowed envelopes was a heavyweight self-sealing envelope meant for mailing checks. The address was handwritten, with no return address visible in the upper lefthand corner. I flipped it over. The personalized name and address of the sender had been printed on the back flap: Mr. and Mrs. Peter Weidmann. Well, that was interesting. I tilted the shade on the little table lamp, holding the envelope so close to the bulb I nearly scorched the paper. The envelope was lined with obnoxious stars, obscuring the field so I couldn’t see the contents. Happily the heat from the bulb seemed to soften the gum seal, and by picking patiently at the flap I managed to peel it open.

  Inside was a check for four hundred dollars, made out to Curtis and signed by Yolanda Weidmann. There was no explanation on the check in the space marked “Memo” and no personal note tucked into the envelope. How did she know Curtis and why was she paying him? How many more people was the guy collecting from? Between Kenneth and Yolanda, he was raking in five hundred dollars a month. Add a few more contributors and it was better than a paying job. I slid the check back and resealed the envelope. The rest of the desk drawers contained nothing of interest. I did another quick visual survey and then flipped the light out. I peered around the edge of the curtain. The parking lot was deserted. I turned the thumb-lock and eased out, pulling the door shut behind me.

  I bypassed the freeway and took surface roads back into Horton Ravine. Lower Road was dark, the few streetlamps too widely spaced to offer adequate illumination. The lights that had been turned on at the Weidmanns’ house were the sort you offer up to burglars in hopes they’ll go elsewhere. The porch light was on and there was no car in the drive. I left my engine idling while I rang the bell. Once I was convinced there was no one home, I backed down the driveway and parked around the corner on Esmeralda. The Horton Ravine Patrol would swing by at intervals, but I thought I’d escape notice temporarily. I opened the glove compartment and took out the big flashlight. To the best of my recollection, the Weidmanns didn’t have electronic fences or a big slobbering Doberman. I grabbed my jacket from a jumble in the backseat. I shrugged myself into it and zipped it up the front. Time to go walking in the woods on a little toadstool hunt.