I Is for Innocent

by Sue Grafton

  When I got to the office, I left my car out on the street with my shoulder bag tucked down against the driver’s seat out of sight. There was little or no traffic and all the nearby office buildings were locked down for the night. I moved through the darkened arch along the driveway that led back to the little twelve-car parking lot. I didn’t see Lonnie’s Mercedes, but there was a section of pavement washed with the light from his offices above. Well, great. He was back. I couldn’t stop and explain what was going on, but it probably wouldn’t be hard to talk him into going with me. Despite his professional demeanor, Lonnie’s a brawler at heart. He’d love the idea of sneaking through the bushes in the dark.

  I used my keychain flashlight against the pitch-black stairwell. When I reached the third-floor corridor, I could see where Lonnie’d turned the lights on in the reception area. I bypassed the front entrance and used the unmarked door that opened closer to my office. I glanced to my right toward Lonnie’s office, located one door down from mine.

  “Hey, Lonnie? Don’t disappear on me. I need some help. I’ll be there in a second and tell you what’s going on.”

  I didn’t bother to wait for a reply. I opened my office door and flipped the light switch. My office space had once functioned as the employees’ lounge/kitchen, with my current closet serving as a pantry of sorts. There were five cartons still stacked against the back wall, clearly stuff I hadn’t needed in the new place so far. I couldn’t even remember what was in those boxes. I’ve heard the theory that if you still haven’t unpacked a carton two years after a move, you simply call the Salvation Army and have the damn thing hauled away. I’d cleverly marked each box “Office Stuff.” I pulled one out and ripped off the wide brown sealing tape. I peeled the flaps back. This box contained all my income tax files. I tried the next box and hit pay dirt. Oh, yea. The Heckler & Koch was sitting right on top, still in the box, the Winchester Silvertips in two boxes just under it.

  I sat down on the floor and took the gun out. I grabbed a box of ammo and opened it, pulling out the little white Styrofoam base. I began to push cartridges into the magazine. Once we’d arrived at the gun shop, Dietz and I had had yet another fractious argument about which model I should buy: the P7, which held nine rounds, or the P9S, which held ten. Guess which one cost more? I was in a bitchy mood anyway, feeling stubborn and uncooperative. The P7 was already priced at more than eleven hundred bucks. I’d also griped about the P9S, which I felt was too much gun for me. What I meant, of course, was expensive, which Dietz guessed right away.

  I said, “Goddamn it. I get to win sometimes.”

  “You win more often than you should,” he said. I wished now he’d won a lot more arguments, especially the one about my going off to Germany with him. . . .

  The lights in my office went out abruptly and I was left in the pitch-black dark. I had no exterior windows so I couldn’t see a thing. Had Lonnie left without saying a word? Maybe he hadn’t heard me come in, I thought. I slid the magazine into the gun and slapped it home with my palm. Navigating in the dark is like escaping from a burning building—you stay low. I tucked the gun in my waistband and crawled to the doorway with no dignity whatsoever. It beat bumping into the furniture, but it wasn’t going to look good if the lights popped back on. My office door was standing open and I peered out into the hallway. All the lights in the office were out. What the hell had he done, stuck a fork in the outlet? The whole place had been plunged into blackness. I said, “Lonnie?”

  Silence. How could he have disappeared so fast?

  I could have sworn I heard a faint sound from the vicinity of Lonnie’s office. I didn’t think I was alone. I listened. The office was so quiet the silence seemed dense, thick with subsounds. Even in the dark, I found myself closing my eyes, hoping somehow to hear better with my visual sense shut down. I sat back on my haunches, crouched in my doorway across from the point where Ida Ruth and a secretary named Jill had their desks.

  Who was in the office with me? And where? Having called out twice now in clear bell-like tones, we all knew where I was. I eased back down on all fours and started belly-crawling the ten feet across the corridor toward the space between the two secretaries’ desks.

  Somebody fired at me. The report was so loud I levitated like a cat, in one of those miraculous moves where all four limbs seem to leave the ground at once. Adrenaline blew through me in a sudden spurt. I wasn’t aware that I had shrieked until the sound was out. My heart banged in my throat and my hands tingled from the rush. I must have leaped the distance because I found myself exactly where I wanted to be, in a crouch, my right shoulder resting against Ida Ruth’s desk drawers. I put a hand across my mouth to still my breathing. I listened. The shooter seemed to be firing from the vantage point of Lonnie’s office, effectively cutting me off from the reception area, where the front entrance was located. The obvious maneuver here was to back my way down the wide corridor, which was now to my left. The unmarked door, leading to the main hall, was about fifteen feet away. Once there, I could crouch beside it, try the knob to make sure the door was still open, count to three, and then VOOM . . . go right through. Good plan. Okay. All I had to do was get there. The problem was that I was afraid to risk the distance without cover of some kind. Where was Ida Ruth’s rolling chair? That might do. . . .

  I put a tentative hand out, groping my way along the floor in search of the chair. I found myself touching a face. I jerked my hand back, emitting a sound at the back of my throat as I sucked in my breath. Someone was lying on the floor next to me. I half expected a hand to shoot out and grab me, but there was no move in my direction. I reached out again and made contact. Flesh. Slack mouth. I felt the features. Smooth skin, strong chin. Male. The guy was too thin to be Lonnie and I didn’t believe it was John Ives or the other attorney, Martin Cheltenham. It almost had to be Curtis, but what the hell was he doing here? He was still warm, but his cheek was sticky with blood. I put my hand on his throat. No pulse. I place a hand on his chest, which was dead still. His shirt was wet in front. He must have made the call from the office. He was probably shot shortly afterward in preparation for my arrival. Somebody knew me better than I thought . . . well enough to know where kept my gun, at any rate . . . well enough to know I’d never show up at a meeting without coming down here first.

  I felt behind me in the dark again, encountering one of the sturdy casters on Ida Ruth’s rolling chair. I blinked in the dark as another possibility occurred to me. If I could find an open phone line, I could dial 911 and let it ring through to the dispatcher. Even if I never said a word, the address would come up on the police station computer and they’d send someone to investigate. I hoped.

  I came up on my knees, peering over the top of the nearest desk. Now that my eyes were adjusting, I could distinguish greater and lesser degrees of dark: the charcoal upright of a doorway, the block form of a file cabinet. I moved my hand across the surface of the desk with incredible care, not wanting to bump into anything or knock anything over. I found the telephone. I lifted the entire instrument. I cleared the edge of the desk and lowered it to the floor. I angled the receiver upward slightly, slipping an index finger onto the cutoff button. I put the receiver against my ear and let the button come up. Nothing. No dial tone. No light coming on.

  I peered up over the desk again and scanned the dark. There was no movement, no shadowy silhouette framed in Lonnie’s doorway.

  I eased the gun from my waistband. I’d never fired the H&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 Aha! 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 seasoning 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&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.”

  “Jesus. This is really profound. I’m taking notes over here.”

  That made him mad and he fired twice, slugs plowing into the carpet to my right. I matched him shot for shot just for the hell of it.

  “You’re so innocent,” he said. “You think you’re such a cynic, but you were easy to fool—”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” I said. I thought I saw his head appear in Lonnie’s doorway. I fired two more times.

  He disappeared. “You missed.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” I slipped out the magazine and counted cartridges by feel. All that nice ammo in the other room.

  “You have a problem over there?”

  “I broke a fingernail.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Be careful with your ammo. You only have one shot left.”

  “Bullshit. I have two.”

  He laughed in the dark. �
�Oh, right. Uh-hunh.”

  I was quiet and then I said, “What makes you so sure?”

  “I can count.”

  I put my head down briefly, gathering my strength. Time to move along, I thought. I slipped my left shoe off and placed it on the floor in front of me. I slipped my right shoe off, my eyes crossing at the heat in my right hip. I could feet a numbness spreading and I couldn’t quite compute how pain and nothing could share the same nerve path. “That was only seven,” I said.

  “It was eight.”

  “I have a ten-shot,” I said piously. I began to ease back toward the point at which the corridor made a left.

  “A ten-shot. What crap. You’re such a liar,” he said.

  “Oh, really? What kind of gun do you have?”

  “A Walther. An eight-shot. I have two shots left.”

  “No, you don’t. You have one. I can count, too, bird-breath.” I was moving by degrees, nearing the corner, feeling backward with my foot. David Barney didn’t seem to notice the change in my location.

  “You can’t fool me. I did my homework on you.”

  “Like what?” I said. I reached the corner and angled myself around until only the upper portion of my body was in the corridor. David Barney was now about twenty-five feet away. I was resting on my right side, my blue jeans wet with blood. I looked down at myself. My hip had started to glow. I lifted myself on one elbow. I’d put my weight on my key-chain, activating the little plastic flashlight that was shaped like a flattened oval and turned on when you pinched it. I eased the keys out of my jeans pocket and took the flash off the key ring. I pushed the keys to one side, uneasy about their jangling.