I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone 9)

"The sooner the better."

"Ain't that always the way?" Lieutenant Becker said.

Once I hung up the phone, I sat and thought about the situation, wondering if there was a quicker means of verifying the information. I could certainly wait until midafternoon, but it would prey on my mind. David Barney's call had left me feeling restless and out of sorts. I was reluctant to waste time checking out what was probably pure fabrication on his part. On the other hand, Lonnie was counting on Curtis McIntyre's testimony. If Curtis McIntyre was lying, we were sunk, especially with Morley's investigation coming unraveled at the same time. This was my first job for Lonnie. I could hardly afford to get fired again.

In my head, I reran the conversation I'd had with Curtis at the jail. In his account, he'd intercepted David Barney in the corridor just outside the courtroom on the day he was acquitted. I didn't think I could count on Barney's attorney, Herb Foss, to corroborate Curtis's claim, but could there have been another witness to their encounter? Just the countless reporters with their Minicams and mikes.

I grabbed my jacket and my shoulder bag. I left the office and dog-trotted the two blocks to the side street where I'd finally managed to squeeze my car into a bare stretch of curb. I took Capilla Boulevard across town, through the heart of the commercial district, and headed up the big hill on the far side of the freeway.

KEST-TV was located just this side of the summit. From the bluff where the station sat, there was a 180-degree living mural of the city of Santa Teresa: mountains on one side, the Pacific Ocean on the other. There was parking for about fifty cars and I pulled into a spot designated for visitors. I got out of the car and paused for a moment to take in the view. The wind was buffeting the dry grasses along the hill. In the distance, the pale ocean stretched to the horizon, looking flat and oddly shallow.

I remembered the story I'd once heard from a marine archaeologist. He told me there was evidence of primitive offshore villages, underwater now, located at the mouths of ancient sloughs or arroyos. Over the years, the sea had offered up broken vessels, mortars, abalone spangles, and other artifacts, probably eroding from former cemeteries and middens along the now-submerged beach. In legend, the Chumash Indians recount a time when the sea subsided and remained that way for hours. A house was exposed at the far reaches of the low tide… a mile out, or two miles… this miraculous shanty. People gathered on the beaches, murmuring with amazement. The waters receded further and a second house appeared, but the witnesses were too frightened to approach. Gradually the waters returned and the two structures vanished, covered by the slow swell of the incoming tide.

There was something eerie about the tale, Holocene ghosts offering up this momentary vision of a tribal site lost from view. Sometimes I wondered if I'd have dared venture out across that stretch of exposed channel. Perhaps half a mile out, it plunged downward like the sides of a mountain, underwater cliffs tumbling ever deeper to the canyon below. I pictured the sediment on the ocean bottom, glistening, dead gray from the lack of light, cobbled and pockmarked with all its blunt and stony treasures. Time covers the truth, leaving scarcely a ripple on the surface to suggest all the plains and valleys that lie below. Even now, dealing with a six-year-old murder, much was hidden, much submerged. I was left to gather artifacts washed up like rubble on the shores of the present, uneasy about the treasures, undiscovered, lying just out of reach.

I turned and went into the station. The building itself was a one-story stucco structure, painted a plain sand color, bristling with assorted antennae. I went into the lobby with its pale blue carpeting, furnished with the kind of "Danish Modern" furniture an affluent college student might rent for a semester. Christmas decorations were just going up: an artificial tree in one corner, boxes of ornaments stacked in a chair. On the wall to my right, numerous broadcast awards were mounted like bowling trophies. A color television was tuned to a morning game show, the gist of which seemed to be identifying a series of celebrities whose first names were Andy.

The receptionist was a pretty girl with long dark hair and vivid makeup. The name on the placard read Tanya Alvarez. "Rooney!" she called, her eyes pinned to the set. I turned and looked at the picture. "Andy Rooney" was correct and the audience was applauding. The next clue came up and she said, "Oh, shoot, who is that? What's-his-face? Andy Warhol!" Right again, and she flushed with pleasure. She looked over at me. "I could make a fortune on that show, except probably the day I got on it'd be some category I never heard of. Blowfish, or exotic plants. Can I help you?"