I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone 9)

"It won't come to that."

"Oh, it won't? You ought to go in and listen to ' em talk. It would make your stomach turn."

"Come on, Henry. You're overreacting. William's eighty-five years old. She's probably sixty-five, if she'd ever admit to it."

"My point exactly. She's too young for him."

I started laughing. "I can't believe you're serious."

"I can't believe you're not! What if they get 'involved' in some flaming affair? Can you imagine the two of them in my back bedroom?"

"Is that your objection, that William might have a sex life? Henry, you astonish me. That's not like you."

"I think it's tacky behavior," he said.

"He hasn't done anything yet! Besides, I thought you wanted him to quit harping on his health. What better way? Now he can harp on something else."

Henry stared at me, his expression suddenly tinged with uncertainty. "You don't think it's vulgar? Romance at his age?"

"I think it's great. You had a romance of your own not that long ago."

"And look how that turned out."

"You survived it."

"But will he? I keep picturing Rosie flying back to Michigan for Christmas. I hate to sound snobbish, but the woman has no class. She picks her teeth with a bobby pin!"

"Oh, quit worrying."

His mouth formed a grudging line as he reconsidered his position. "I don't suppose it would do any good to protest. They'd just act as if they didn't know what I was talking about."

I kept my mouth shut, concentrating on the food instead. "This is great," I said.

"There's some for later if you want it," he remarked. He pointed to the cards. "You have work to do?"

I nodded. "As soon as I finish this."

He blew out a breath. "Well, enough of this nonsense. I better let you get to it."

"Keep me posted on developments."

"Absolutely," he said.

We made the usual departing mouth noises and then he disappeared. I closed the door behind him and made a beeline for the loft, where I kicked off my flats and peeled out of the all-purpose dress and panty hose. I pulled on my jeans, turtleneck, socks, and Nikes. Heaven.

I went downstairs, popped open a Diet Pepsi, and got down to business. I spread all the material on the counter: Morley's files, his calendar, his appointment book, and his rough-draft reports. I made a list of all the people he'd talked to, the dates, and the details of what was said, according to his notes. I opened the first pack of index cards and started making notes of my own, laying out the story as I understood it. I used to use this technique for every case I worked, pinning the cards on my bulletin board so I could see how the story looked. I learned the practice from Ben Byrd, who'd taught me the business when I was first starting out. Now that I thought about it, Ben had probably learned the method from Morley, who'd been in partnership with him until their falling-out. I smiled to myself. They'd called the agency Byrd-Shine; two old-fashioned gumshoes with whiskey bottles in their desk drawers and endless hands of gin rummy. Their specialty had been "matrimonial inquiries," i.e., extramarital sex. In those days, adultery was considered a shocking breach of morality, good breeding, common decency, and taste. Now you couldn't qualify for a talk show appearance on grounds that tame.

The index cards permitted a variety of approaches: timetables, relationships, the known and the unknown, motives and speculations. Sometimes I shuffled the pack and laid the cards out like solitaire. For some reason, I hadn't employed the routine of late. It felt good to get back to it. It was restful, reassuring, a welcomed time-out in which to get the facts down.

I left my perch and went over to the storage closet, where I hauled out my bulletin board and propped it up on the counter. At this stage, I make no attempt to organize the cards. I censor nothing. There's no game plan. I simply try to record all the information, writing down everything I can think of in the moment. All the cards for Isabelle's murder were green. Tippy's accident was on the orange cards, the players on the white. I found the box of pushpins and began to tack the cards up on the board. By the time I finished the process, it was 4:45. I sat on a kitchen stool, elbows propped on the counter, my chin in my hands. I studied the effect, which really didn't look like much… a jumble of colors, forming no particular pattern.

What was I looking for? The link. The contradiction. Anything out of place. The known seen in a new light, the unknown rising to the surface. At intervals, I took all the cards down and put them up again, ordered or random, arranging them according to various schemes. I thought idly about Isabelle's murder, letting my mind wander. How delicious it must have been for the killer to watch this whole drama unfold. It was even possible that David Barney's harassment had suggested the possibility. Shoot Isabelle and who's the first person they'd suspect? The killer had to be someone who knew David Barney's habits, someone close enough to the scene to keep watch. Of course, half of the people who knew Isabelle were in that position, I thought. The Weidmanns lived within a mile of the house, as did her sister, Simone, whose cottage was on the property. Laura Barney was an interesting possibility. She certainly knew David's penchant for late-night runs. On the face of it, she had little or nothing to gain. I'd tended to assume that the motive was money, but among the killing set there were probably many other satisfactions besides greed to be derived from homicide. What could be more perfect than killing the woman who'd wrecked her marriage and having the blame for it fall on her ex-husband?