“Donnie’s the hunter in the family?”
Jill nodded. “I used to just tag along, you know, but lately I decided if I was going to cook the holiday turkey, I should be honest about where our meat comes from. So now I pull the trigger. I gotta say, there is nothing like fresh game. It is positively delicious.”
“I’m sure that’s true.”
“You hunt?”
“No…but neither did my dad…not that it mattered.” Amanda smiled. “I didn’t have such a great relationship with my father, but I don’t dare complain. My husband more than makes up for that deficit.”
Jill was silent. Then she said, “We all have our crosses to bear. Donnie’s got good intentions.” She shrugged. “You know what they say about good intentions.”
“I do.”
“He just gets caught up in stuff,” Jill said. “He don’t always think things through. It’s cost him some promotions.”
“How’s that?”
“Instead of studying for the Sergeant’s tests, he’s helping this old friend or that old friend or just shooting the bull down at Brady’s.” She faced Amanda. “Sometimes people take advantage of him.”
“That’s not good.”
“Not good at all.” Jill exhaled. “But like I said, he’s a good man.”
Actually, she said he had good intentions, but Amanda didn’t correct her. “How long have you two been married?”
“Twenty-one years. We met in high school.”
“Oh.” Amanda feigned ignorance. “Did you know Davida Grayson? She was also a local.”
“Yes, I knew Davida.”
“Were you at the memorial service today?”
“Donnie was, but I couldn’t make it. Conflict with the school…parent-teacher thing.” Jill shrugged. “It must have been sad.”
“Very.”
“To be honest, I didn’t want to go…too freaky, you know? To know someone who was murdered.”
“Were you and Davida friends?”
“Oh heavens no. I didn’t like her at all back then, but that was probably ignorance. She’d already come out when I was a sophomore and I thought it was gross- you know, women with women.”
“Sure.”
“Anyway, that was a lifetime ago. It didn’t help my feelings that Donnie had dated her also. Did you know that?”
Amanda shook her head. Keep those bald lies coming.
“Anyway, after she came out, Donnie was sorely traumatized. He got lots of ribbing from his friends.”
“I can imagine. Did you start dating him right after?”
“Pretty much, yeah. The rest, like they say, is history.” Jill smiled tightly. “How many children do you have?”
Changing the subject. Amanda said, “None, yet.”
“They bear watching. Kids. My oldest one really bears watching. He’s sneaky…like some other people I know.”
The implication was obvious, but Amanda didn’t press her for more. When people opened up too quickly, there was often a backlash of anger. “You ever practice shooting on your own property? What do you have here, like twenty acres?”
“Ten and a half but it looks bigger ’cause a lot of it’s clearing. Sometimes when I’m in the mood, I do target practice on a bull’s-eye that I got hanging on the trees. If I used my shotgun on the oaks, I’d blow them to a stump.”
“Well, maybe one day we can go shooting together. I’m not a bad shot but there’s certainly room for improvement.”
Jill hid a smile. “Be happy to show you whatever I know.”
“That would be great.” Amanda was very satisfied with the turn of events. Both Donnie and now Jill could be suspects. If she went shooting with Jill, it would be a good way to pocket some shotgun casings.
Barnes looked at the twelve-gauge Browning Gold Lite pump gun. “Nice piece of equipment. Didn’t know you were a hunter.”
Newell gave him a chance to hold it, then took it back and placed it on the gun rack, locking the bar into place. “Oh, yeah, for some years now. Life can get tedious, Willie. A man needs a hobby.” He turned to Barnes. “You’ve been itching to get me alone all evening. What do you want to talk about?”
“What do you think?”
“Don’t turn that question with a question shit on me,” Newell said. “I’ve been a cop long enough for you to respect me. Now either spit it out or go home.”
Barnes said, “Fair enough. You need to tell me about your relationship with Davida Grayson and you need to be honest.”
Newell smiled and shook his head. “I knew this was coming.”
“So you’ve had time to think about it.”
“Nothing to think about, Willie. Davida was an old friend and a controversial politician. If she needed police help, I was happy to give it to her. Buddy, that’s it.”
“What about your past with the woman?”
“That’s what it is, Will. It’s a past.”
“I need to know about it, Donnie, because this case seems to revolve around it.”
“How so?”
Barnes was caught in his lie. “Wish I could tell you, but you know the drill.”
“Am I considered a suspect?”
“You were one of the last people to talk to her. I only have your word what the conversation was about.”
The men were silent. Newell shrugged. “Like I said, there’s been nothing between us for the last twenty-five years. Not that I would have minded, because at one time, I was crazy about that girl. She fucked like a bunny, you have no idea. When you’re seventeen, that’s all a girl’s got to do to make you crazy about her.”
“I know all about that,” Barnes said. “So you had no idea she was gay.”
“I don’t think she had any idea she was gay.”
Barnes was silent.
“All right, maybe she did know,” Newell told him. “She was the one that suggested doing a threesome with Jane Meyerhoff. I was a normal, red-blooded American teenage stud and that meant I was horny all the time. When she suggested a threesome, man, I thought I died and went to heaven. I guess looking back at it, she used me to get to Janey.”
“How’d it happen?”
“It was one of those pivotal moments, Willie. We were double dating and went back to Jane’s house because her parents were never home…always off to some fancy destination. There were four of us- Jane’s date, some loser, Derek Hewitt.”