I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone 9)

I returned everything to the glove compartment, tidying the contents in the process. I straightened up and put my hands on the steering wheel again, imagining I was Morley. Half the time when I search I don't find jackshit, but I never give up hope. I'm always thinking something's going to come to light if I just open the right drawer, stick my hand in the right coat pocket. I checked the ashtray, which was still full. He'd probably spent a lot of time in the Merc. In this business, where you're on the road a lot, your car becomes a traveling office, a surveillance vehicle, the observation post for a nightlong stakeout, even a temporary motel if your travel funds run short. The Mercury was perfect, aging and nondescript, the sort of vehicle you might note in your rearview without really seeing it. I checked the car above eye level.

On the sun visor, he'd attached a "leather-finish" vinyl utility valet with a mirror, a slot for sunglasses, and a pencil and blank memo pad that looked unused. The valet was attached to the visor by two flimsy metal clamps. I reached up and pulled the visor down. On the underside, Morley'd slipped a six-inch strip of paper under one of the clamps. It was the perfect place to tuck such things; "To Do" lists, receipts for cleaning, parking lot tickets. The strip had been torn from a perforated flap for one of the film envelopes used by a One-Hour Foto Mart in a Colgate shopping mall. The strip showed an order number, but no date, so it might have been up there for months. I slipped the paper in my pocket, got out of the car, and locked it up again. I completed the return trip to the utility porch, where I dropped the keys in the brown bag with the files I'd left.

I drove the five blocks to the mall. An Asian fellow, wearing rubber gloves, was visible through the plate glass window of the One-Hour Foto Mart, removing strips of film from the developer. Prints on a conveyor moved slowly down one side of the window and across the front. Fascinated, I paused, watching as a surprise fortieth birthday party progressed from cake and wrapped presents on a table to a crowd of grinning well-wishers looking smug and self-satisfied while the birthday boy in sweaty tennis togs pretended to be a good sport.

I was stalling, postponing the inevitable. I wanted the photo order to be pivotal. I wanted the pictures to relate to the investigation in some terribly meaningful and pithy way. I wanted to believe Morley Shine was as good a private eye as I'd always believed he was. Oh well. I pushed the door open and went in. Might as well get it over with. Chances were I'd be looking at a set of snapshots from his last vacation.

The interior of the shop smelled of acrid chemicals. The place was empty of customers and the young clerk who waited on me took no time at all coming up with the order. I paid $7.65 and he assured me that I'd be reimbursed for any prints I didn't like. I left the envelope sealed until I reached my car. I sat in the VW and rested the envelope on the steering wheel. Finally, I opened the top flap and slid the prints into the light.

I made a startled sound… not a real word, but something punctuated with an audible exclamation point.

There were twelve prints altogether, each marked at the bottom with last Friday's date. What I was looking at were six white pickup trucks, two views each, including one with a dark blue logo with five interlocking rings. The company was Olympic Painting Contractors; Chris White's name was printed underneath with a telephone number. Morley had been on the same track I was, but what did it mean?

I sorted back through the photographs. It looked as though he'd done exactly what I meant to do. He'd apparently visited various businesses and used-car lots around town and had taken pictures of six- and seven-year-old white pickups, some with logos, some without. In addition to Chris White's company truck, there was one utilized by a gardening firm and one used by a catering company with a camper shell on top. Clever touch. Because he'd incorporated a variety of trucks in the "lineup," it was possible that a more detailed recollection might be triggered from the one and only witness we had.

I stared out the car window, pondering the implications. If he'd talked to Regina Turner at the Gypsy Motel, she'd never mentioned it to me. Surely she'd have brought it up if she'd been queried twice about the same six-year-old fatal accident. But how else could he have known about the logo and color of the vehicle, if not from her? David Barney might have told him about the truck that nearly knocked him down. Morley might have thought to check old issues of the newspaper just as I had myself. Maybe he acquired a copy of the original police report on the hit-and-run and then decided to take the pictures with him when he interviewed the only witness. A description of the truck plus Regina's name and place of business would have been noted by the first officer on the scene. The problem was, I hadn't spotted the police report among the files I'd found, nor had I seen any photocopies of the newspapers to indicate that he was curious about other incidents on the night Isabelle was killed. When I'm working a case, I tend to take a lot of notes. If anything happened to me, the next investigator coming down the pike would know what I'd done and where I'd meant to go next. Clearly, Morley didn't work that way…