I Is for Innocent

you leave the drive you turn left and it's down half a mile. A big white monstrosity, one of those contemporary houses made out of glass and concrete. It's so ugly, you can't miss it."
    "Within easy walking distance?"
    "He could have crawled it's so close."
    "Were you here at the cottage the night she was killed?"
    "Well, yes, but I didn't hear the shot. She'd phoned down here earlier to tell me the Seegers would be arriving late. They'd called about the car trouble and she didn't want me to worry if I saw lights on in the house. We chatted for a while and she sounded great. She'd been such a mess."
    "Because of his harassment?"
    "And the quarrels and the threats. Her life was a nightmare, but she was excited about San Francisco, looking forward to a little shopping, the theater, and the restaurants."
    "What time did you talk to her?"
    "About nine, I guess. It wasn't late. Isabelle was a night owl, but she knew I was usually in bed by ten. The first time I realized there was something wrong was when Don Seeger came down. He said they were worried because they couldn't get Isabelle to answer the door. They could see the fisheye was missing from the door and the hole looked burned. I grabbed a robe, got my key, and went up to the main house with him. We went in through the back door and found her in the foyer. I felt like a zombie. I was absolutely numb. So cold. It was awful, the worst night of my life." I could see tears for the first time and her face was suffused with pain. She fumbled in her pocket for a Kleenex and blew her nose. "Sorry," she murmured.
    I studied her for a moment. "And you really think he killed her?"
    "There's not a doubt in my mind. I just don't know how you're going to prove it."
    "Me neither," I replied.
    It was 2:34 when I left Simone and returned to my car. A heavy marine layer had begun to settle in, obscuring the view. The afternoon light already had the gray feel of twilight and the air was chilly. There was something distinctly unpleasant about having to pass the main house. I glanced quickly at the windows that looked out over the courtyard. There were lights burning in the living room, though the rooms upstairs were dark. No one seemed to be aware of my passing. The BMW was still parked where it had been when I arrived. The Lincoln was gone. I unlocked my car and slid under the steering wheel. I tucked the key in the ignition and paused to scan the house again.
    On this side, a loggia ran along the second story, the red tile roof supported by a series of white columns. A vine had grown up the pillars and trailed now along the overhang, lacy green with a white blossom, probably fragrant if you got close enough. The front door was bisected by a shadow from the balcony overhead, the view further eclipsed by the branches of the live oaks that crowded the walled garden. Because the driveway was long and curved up at such an angle, the house wasn't visible from the road below. A passerby might have caught sight of someone, approaching or departing, but at 1:30 in the morning, who'd be up and about? Teenagers, perhaps, getting home from a date. I wondered if there'd been a concert or a play that night, some charitable event that might have kept the area residents out after midnight. I d have to check back through the papers and find out what was going on, if anything. Isabelle had been killed in the early morning hours on the day after Christmas, which didn't sound promising. The fact that no one had ever stepped forward with information made the possibility of a witness seem even more remote.
    I started the car and shifted into reverse, backing around to my left so I could head down the driveway. David Barney had claimed he was out for a night jog when Isabelle was shot. Night jogging, right, in a neighborhood dark as pitch. Much of Horton Ravine had a rural feel to it – wooded stretches without streetlights and no sidewalks at all. While no one could corroborate his story, there was no one to contradict it either. It didn't help matters that the cops had never come up with a single piece of evidence tying Barney to the scene. No witnesses, no weapon, no fingerprints. How was Lonnie going to nail the sucker if he had no ammunition?
    I eased the VW down the driveway and hung a left at the bottom. I kept one eye on the odometer and the other on the road, cruising past several houses until I spotted the one that I was looking for – the place David Barney leased when he left Isabelle's. The