I Is for Innocent

and I read my library books, a little closed-circuit system designed to deal with grief. I ate cheese-and-pickle sandwiches like the ones my mother made. I fixed them myself because they had to be just right. Some days I substituted peanut butter for the cheese and that was good. My aunt went about her business, leaving me to work through my feelings without intrusion. My parents died Memorial Day. That fall, I started school....
    "Are you Kinsey?"
    I turned to look at the woman as if waking from a sleep. "That's right. And you're Simone?"
    "Yes. Nice to meet you." She carried a pair of gardening scissors and a shallow wicker basket piled with cut flowers, which she set down. Her smile was brief as she held out her hand for me to shake. I judged her to be in her late thirties or very early forties. She was slightly shorter than I with wide shoulders and a stocky build, which she managed to minimize by the clothes she wore. Her hair was a reddish-blond, a fine flyaway shade much darker at the roots, cut shoulder length and crinkled from a perm. Her face was square, her mouth wide. Her eyes were an unremarkable shade of blue with mascara-darkened lashes and fine reddish brows. The outfit she wore was a black-and-white geometric print, a washable silk jacket over a long black tunic top, her long loose skirt brushing the tops of black suede boots. Her fingers were blunt and there was clear polish on her nails. She wore no jewelry and very little makeup. Belatedly, I noticed that she used a cane. I watched while she transferred it from her left hand to her right. She adjusted her stance and shifted some of her weight to the cane as she leaned down and picked up the basket at her feet.
    "I have to get these in water. Come on in." She opened the bottom portion of the Dutch door and I followed her in.
    I said, "Sorry to have to trouble you again on this. I know you talked to Morley Shine several months ago, I suppose you heard about his death."
    "I spotted his obituary in this morning's paper. I called Lonnie's office first thing and he said you'd be in touch." She moved over to the small tiled kitchen peninsula that served as both a work surface and a breakfast bar, with two wooden stools tucked under it. She hooked the cane over the edge of the counter and took out a clear glass pitcher, which she filled with tap water. She bunched the flowers nicely and stuck them in the makeshift vase, then set the arrangement on the windowsill and dried her hands on a towel.
    "Have a seat," she said. She pulled out one stool and perched on it while I took the other.
    "I'll try not to take too much of your time," I said.
    "Listen, if it helps convict the shitheel, you can take all the time you want."
    "Isn't it a bit awkward, your living on the property just a hundred yards away from him?"
    "I hope so," she said. The depth of bitterness in her voice seemed to affect its very pitch. She looked up in the direction of the big house. "If it's awkward for me, think how it must feel to him. I know it galls him that I refuse to be driven off. He'd love nothing better than to force me out."
    "Can he do that?"
    "Not as long as I have anything to say about it. Izzy left me the cottage. It was part of her will. She and Kenneth bought the property many years ago. They paid a small fortune for it. When that marriage folded, she got it as part of the financial settlement. She had it listed as her sole and separate property when she and David got married. She also made him sign prenups."
    "Sounds very businesslike. Did she do that with the others?"
    "She didn't have to. The first two had money. Kenneth was number two. With David, it was different. Everybody told her he was after her money. I guess she thought the prenups would prove he wasn't. What a joke."
    "So he'll never get title to this place?"
    Simone shook her head. "She rewrote her will, leaving him a life interest. When he dies – which I hope is real soon, I might add – -it goes to her daughter, Shelby. The little house is mine – as long as I'm alive, of course. When I die, it reverts."
    "And you're not afraid?"
    "Of David? Absolutely not. He got away with murder once, but the man's not a fool. All he has to do is sit tight. If he wins this civil suit, it's all his, isn't it?"
    "It looks like it."
    "He could come out of the whole deal smelling like a rose. So why in the world would he jeopardize that? Something happened to me, he's the first place they'd look."
    "What if he loses?"
    "My