I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton Read Free Book Online Page A

suite?”
    â€œMorley 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.
    â€œWas 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.
    â€œIt was lately.”
    â€œWould you mind if I stepped in and picked up the files I need?”
    â€œWell, I don’t see why not. There’s nothing in thereworth stealing. Go ahead and help yourself. It’s just a thumb-lock on this side.”
    â€œThanks.”
    I let myself in through the connecting door. There was one room, the back bedroom in the days when the bungalow was used as a residence. The air smelled musty. The carpeting was a mud brown, a color probably chosen because it wouldn’t show dirt. What showed up instead was all the lint and dust. There was a small walk-in closet that Morley used for storage, a small bathroom with a brown vinyl tile floor, a commode with a wooden seat, a small Pullman sink, and a fiberglass shower stall. For one depressing moment, I wondered if this was how I’d end up: a small-town detective in a dreary nine-by-twelve room that smelled of mold and dust mites. I sat down in his swivel chair, listening to the creak as I rocked back. I snagged his Month at a Glance. I checked his drawers one by one. Pencils, old gum wrappers, a stapler empty of staples. He’d been sneaking fatty foods on the sly. A flat white bakery box had been folded in half and shoved down in the wastebasket. A large grease stain had spread across the cardboard and the remains of some kind of pastry had been tossed in on top. He probably came into the office every morning to sneak doughnuts and sweet rolls.
    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?”
    â€œYes. 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 waste-basket. “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.”
    â€œYou’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.”
    â€œYou’re not looking for office space yourself?”
    â€œNot 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, Iwanted 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