I is for Innocent (33 page)

I went back to my VW and headed out of the lot, turning left onto Faith in the direction of upper State. Curtis McIntyre's motel was only a mile away. This section of town was devoted to fast-food restaurants, car washes, discount appliance stores, and assorted small retail establishments, with an occasional office building sandwiched into the mix. Once I was past the Cutter Road Mall, the northbound freeway entrance appeared on the right. State Street angled left, running parallel to the highway for another mile or two.

The Thrifty Motel was located near the junction of State Street and the two-lane highway that cut north toward the mountains. I hung a left into the gravel entrance to the motel parking lot. I pulled into the unoccupied slot in front of Curtis's room. The lights in most rooms along the L were blazing, the air richly perfumed with the scent of frying meats, a heady blend of bacon, hamburger, pork chops, and sausage. Television news shows and booming country music competed for airspace. Curtis's windows were dark and there was no response to my knock. I tried the room next door. The guy who answered must have been in his forties, with bright blue eyes, a bowl-shaped haircut, and a beard like a tangle of hair pulled out of a brush.

“I'm looking for the guy next door. Have you seen him?”

“Curtis went out.”

“Do you have any idea where?”

The guy shook his head. “Not my day to keep track of him.”

I took out a business card and a pen. I scribbled a note
asking Curtis to call me as soon as possible. “Could you give him this?”

The guy said, “I will if I see him.” He shut the door again.

I took out another card and jotted down a duplicate message, which I slid in behind the metal
9
tacked to his door. The neon motel sign blinked on as I crossed the parking lot to the manager's office.
Thrifty Motel
was spelled out in sputtering green, the sound of flies buzzing against a window screen. The glass-paneled office door was open and a
NO VACANCY
sign, red letters on a white ground, had been propped against one of the jalousie windowpanes.

The registration counter was bare, the small area behind it unoccupied. A door in the rear was standing ajar and there were lights on in the apartment usually reserved for the manager on the premises. He was apparently watching the rerun of a sitcom, laugh track pummeling the air with recurrent surges of mirth. Every third laugh was a big one and it wasn't difficult to visualize the sound engineer sitting at the board pushing levers up and back, up and back,
WAY
up and back.

A small sign on the counter said, “H. Stringfellow, mgr. Ring bell for service” with an old-fashioned punch bell. I dinged, which got a big laugh from the unseen audience. Mr. Stringfellow shuffled through the door, closing it behind him. He had snow-white hair and a gaunt clean-shaven face, his complexion very pink, his chin jutting forward as if he'd had it surgically augmented. He wore baggy brown pants and a drab brown polyester shirt with a thin yellow tie. “Full up,” he said. “Try the place down the street.”

“I'm not looking for a room. I'm looking for Curtis McIntyre. You have any idea what time he'll be back?”

“Nope. Some fellow came and picked him up. At least, I think it was a man. Car pulled in out there and off he went.”

“You didn't see the driver?”

“Nope. Didn't see the car either. I was working in the back and I heard a honk. Few minutes later, I saw Curtis passing by the window. I just happened to glance out the door or I wouldn't have seen that. Pretty soon a door slammed and then the car pulled away.”

“What time was this?”

“Just a little while ago. Maybe five, ten minutes.”

“Do his calls come through the switchboard?”

“Isn't any switchboard. He's got a telephone in his room. That way his phone bill's his own business and I don't have to fool with it. I don't pretend I'm dealing with a classy type of tenant. Dirtbags, most of 'em, but it's nothing to me. Long as they pay the rent in advance as agreed.”

“Is he pretty good about that?”

“He's better than most. You his parole officer?”

“Just a friend,” I said. “If you see him, could you ask him to give me a call?” I took out another business card and circled my number.

I unlocked the car door, just about to let myself in, when my bad angel piped up, giving me a little nudge. Right there in front of me was Curtis McIntyre's door. The lock looked respectable, but the window right next to it was open. The gap was only three inches, but the wooden frame on the window screen was warped along the bottom
and actually bulged out just about far enough for me to tuck my tiny fingers in. Pop the screen out and all I'd have to do is push the sash up, reach around on the inside, and turn the thumb-lock. There was no one in the parking lot and the noise from all the television sets would cover any sound. I'd been a model citizen all week and where had it gotten me? The case was never going to get as far as court anyway, so what difference would it make if I broke the law? Breaking and entering isn't
that
big a deal. I wasn't going to steal anything. I was just going to have a teeny, tiny, little peek. This is the kind of reasoning my bad angel gets into. Trashy thinking, but it's just so persuasive. I was ashamed of myself, but before I could even reconsider I was easing the screen out, slipping the naughty old digits through the opening. Next thing I knew I was in his room. I turned the light on. I just had to hope Curtis wouldn't walk in. I wasn't sure he'd care if I tossed his place. I was more worried that if he caught me there, he'd think I was hustling him.

His mother would have been embarrassed to see his personal habits. “Pick up your clothes” was not in his vocabulary. The room wasn't very big to begin with, maybe twelve feet by twelve, with a galley-size kitchen—combination refrigerator, sink, and hot plate, all filthy. The bed was unmade, no big surprise there. A small black-and-white TV sat on one of the bed tables, pulled away from the wall for better viewing in bed. Cords trailed across the floor, fairly begging to be tripped over. The bathroom was small, draped with damp towels that smelled of mildew. He seemed to favor the kind of soap with pubic hairs embedded in it.

Actually, I didn't care how he kept his place. It was the rickety wooden desk that interested me. I began to search. Curtis didn't believe in banks. He kept his cash loose in the top drawer, quite a lot of it. He probably figured that roving bands of big-time thieves weren't going to target room 9 of the Thrifty. A few bills were tossed in helter-skelter with the cash: gas, telephone, Sears, where he'd charged some clothes. Under the windowed envelopes was a heavyweight self-sealing envelope meant for mailing checks. The address was handwritten, with no return address visible in the upper lefthand corner. I flipped it over. The personalized name and address of the sender had been printed on the back flap: Mr. and Mrs. Peter Weidmann. Well, that was interesting. I tilted the shade on the little table lamp, holding the envelope so close to the bulb I nearly scorched the paper. The envelope was lined with obnoxious stars, obscuring the field so I couldn't see the contents. Happily the heat from the bulb seemed to soften the gum seal, and by picking patiently at the flap I managed to peel it open.

Inside was a check for four hundred dollars, made out to Curtis and signed by Yolanda Weidmann. There was no explanation on the check in the space marked “Memo” and no personal note tucked into the envelope. How did she know Curtis and why was she paying him? How many more people was the guy collecting from? Between Kenneth and Yolanda, he was raking in five hundred dollars a month. Add a few more contributors and it was better than a paying job. I slid the check back and resealed the envelope. The rest of the desk drawers contained nothing of interest. I did another quick visual survey and then flipped the light out. I peered around the edge of the curtain. The
parking lot was deserted. I turned the thumb-lock and eased out, pulling the door shut behind me.

I bypassed the freeway and took surface roads back into Horton Ravine. Lower Road was dark, the few streetlamps too widely spaced to offer adequate illumination. The lights that had been turned on at the Weidmanns' house were the sort you offer up to burglars in hopes they'll go elsewhere. The porch light was on and there was no car in the drive. I left my engine idling while I rang the bell. Once I was convinced there was no one home, I backed down the driveway and parked around the corner on Esmeralda. The Horton Ravine Patrol would swing by at intervals, but I thought I'd escape notice temporarily. I opened the glove compartment and took out the big flashlight. To the best of my recollection, the Weidmanns didn't have electronic fences or a big slobbering Doberman. I grabbed my jacket from a jumble in the backseat. I shrugged myself into it and zipped it up the front. Time to go walking in the woods on a little toadstool hunt.

I approached the house on foot, my flashlight raking back and forth across the path in front of me. The porch light contributed a soft wash of yellow that blended with the shadows at the edge of the yard. I moved around the side of the house to the patio in the rear, where two harsh spotlights made the property inhospitable to prowlers. I crossed the concrete slab and went down four shallow steps to the formal garden. The cushion on Peter's chaise had been folded in half, possibly to spare it further weathering. Over the years, the sun had bleached the canvas to a tired and cracking gray. I could see that snails were currently using the surface as a playground.

The grass had been cut. I could see parallel paths through the back lawn, swaths overlapping where the mower had doubled back. Where I'd seen toadstools, there was nothing. I crossed the yard, trying to remember the placement of the fairy rings. Some toadstools had grown singly and some in clumps. Now everything had been obliterated by the passing mower blades. I hunkered, touching minced vegetable matter, whitish against the dark grass. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement . . . a shadow passing through the light. Yolanda was home, tramping through the wet grass to the place where I was crouched. She was wearing another two-piece velour running suit, this one magenta. Her walking shoes seemed to flash with short strips of reflecting tape, the pristine leather uppers sprinkled with clippings from the mown grass.

“What are you doing out here?” Her voice was low, and in the half light her face was gray with fatigue. Her platinum-blond hair was as stiff as a wig.

“I was looking for the toadstools that were here the first time I came.”

“The gardener came yesterday. I had him mow all of this.”

“What'd he do with the clippings?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Morley Shine was murdered.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.” Her tone was perfunctory.

“Really?” I said. “You didn't seem to like him much.”

“I didn't like him at all. He smelled like someone who drank and smoked, which I don't approve of. You still haven't explained what you're doing on my property.”

“Have you ever heard of
Amanita phalloides
?”

“A type of toadstool, I presume.”

“A poisonous mushroom of the type that killed Morley.”

“The gardener puts the clippings in a big heap over there. When the pile gets big enough, he loads up his truck and takes it all to the dump. If you like, you can have the crime lab come haul it away for analysis.”

“Morley was a good investigator.”

“I'm sure he was. What's that got to do with it?”

“I suspect he was murdered because he knew the truth.”

“About Isabelle's murder?”

“Among other things. You want to tell me why you sent a four-hundred-dollar check to Curtis McIntyre?”

That seemed to stump her. “Who told you that?”

“I saw the check.”

She was silent for a full thirty seconds, a very long time in ordinary conversation. Reluctantly she said, “He's my grandson. Not that it's any of your business.”

“Curtis?” I said with such incredulity that she seemed to take offense.

“You don't need to say it like that. I know the boy's faults perhaps better than you.”

“I'm sorry, but I never in this world would have linked you with him,” I said.

“Our only daughter died when he was ten. We promised her we'd raise him as well as we could. Curtis's father was unbearably common, I'm afraid. A criminal and a misfit. He disappeared when Curt was eight and we haven't heard a word from him since. When it comes to nature versus nurture, it's plain that nature prevails. Or perhaps we failed in some vital way. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“Is that how he got involved in all this?”

“This what?”

“He was set to testify in the civil suit against David Barney. Did you talk to him about the murder?”

She rubbed her forehead. “I suppose.”

“Do you remember if he was staying with you at the time?”

“I don't see what that has to do with anything.”

“Do you happen to know where he is at the moment?”

“I haven't any idea.”

“Somebody picked him up at his motel a little while ago.”

She continued to stare at me. “Please. Just tell me what you want and then leave me alone.”

“Where's Peter? Is he here?”

“He was admitted to the hospital late this afternoon. He's had another heart attack. He's in the cardiac care unit. If it's not too much to ask, I'd like to go in now. I came home for a bite of supper. I have some phone calls to make and then I have to go back to the hospital. They're not sure he's going to make it this time.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I had no idea.”

“It doesn't matter now. Nothing really matters much.”

I watched with uneasiness as she tramped back across the grass, her wet shoes leaving partial prints on the concrete. She looked shrunken and old. I suspected she was a woman who would follow her mate into death within months. She unlocked the back door and let herself in. The kitchen light went on. As soon as she was out of sight, I began to cross the grass, my flashlight picking up occasional fragments of white. I hunkered, brushing aside a
clump of grass clippings. Under it was a scant portion of mower-chopped toadstool—less than a tablespoon from the look of it. The chances of its being
A. phalloides
seemed remote, but in the interest of thoroughness I took a folded tissue from my jacket pocket and carefully wrapped the specimen.