Jane handed her the drink and Lucille polished it off with astonishing speed. “Ah, that’s good. Take over for me, Janey. Someone has to hold down the fort.”
Jane said, “You’re sure you don’t need me here?”
Lucille waved a dismissive hand. “Go on out there and make sure no one steals the silver.”
Jane sighed heavily and left.
Lucille looked at Barnes. “I’m assuming, Willie, that you and your pretty partner wish to talk to me without her hanging around.”
“You read my mind, Mrs. Grayson.”
“Your mind is not that tough to decipher.”
Barnes smiled. “You cut me to the quick, Mrs. Grayson.”
“I’m good at that.” Lucille’s eyes misted. “Davida was good at it also, though she was patient with me. I’m sure I was a giant pain in the posterior.”
“I’m sure you weren’t- ”
Lucille patted his hand. “You didn’t know her very well, did you, Willie?”
Barnes kept a straight face. “She was younger than me. In Jack’s class.”
“Jack knew everyone…and everyone’s business.”
“True enough.”
“How long has it been since he passed away?”
“Ten years.”
“Really? I can scarcely believe how quickly the time passes.”
“It does indeed, Mrs. Grayson.”
“You can only imagine how rushed life has become for an old lady like myself. I recall all of them as youngsters. Glynnis, Jack…and now Davida. Life has dealt me bins of shit, but I refuse to die.” She waved her glass. “Thank God for alcohol. Get me another, Willie.”
Barnes complied. Lucille faced Amanda. “I’m not being very polite, am I? Going on about old times with which you’re not familiar.” She looked around absently, as if studying the overstuffed room for the first time. “I’ll need to get back to the barbarians shortly. What is it that you want to ask me?”
Barnes rubbed his hands together. “This might get a little prickly…”
Lucille sat and drank and waited, impassive.
“Do you know if Davida was having an affair?”
Lucille’s eyes whipped away from Barnes’s face and settled on the fireplace. She took another sip of whiskey. “I don’t like Minette, never did, and Davida was well aware of that fact. If my daughter had someone else, she wouldn’t have told me because I would have nagged her to dump Minette once and for all.”
“Let me rephrase the question,” Amanda said. “If Davida had someone else, who might it have been?”
The old lady shrugged.
Amanda said, “Is it possible that it could have been a man?”
Lucille didn’t answer right away. “No, I don’t think so. Davida got a lot of mileage out of being a lesbian.”
“All the more reason to keep an affair with a man hidden.”
“A man…” As if considering an exotic species. “No…” Lucille shook her head. “I knew my daughter better than one might think. She wasn’t interested in men.” Another sip of whiskey. She stared at Amanda. A smile spread slowly. “As the saying goes, it takes one to know one.”
Barnes almost choked on his drink although Lucille’s admission shouldn’t have come as a shock. It was well-known around town that she’d treated her husband coldly, had had no use for men since the divorce. He thought that resulted from a bad marriage, but maybe he’d mixed up cause and effect.
“One of the reasons I didn’t like Minette,” Lucille said, “is that she wasn’t real. Just a shallow, stupid girl using my daughter as a meal ticket. Now it’s out in the open…what that little bitch was doing all those nights my daughter was working.”
Barnes rubbed his chin. “I think Davida was doing more than working, Mrs. Grayson. Davida had gonorrhea but Minette is clean. There was someone else in your daughter’s life.”
Lucille took a deep breath and let it out. “I see.”
“That’s why I asked if there was a man in her life,” said Amanda. “The disease is passed easier from male to female than from female to female.”
“Aha…” Lucille nodded. “I see your logic, but I still know my daughter. If she got the disease, it was from a woman, most probably a woman who sleeps around with men.”
“Any candidates?” Barnes asked her.
Lucille smiled. “You’re wondering about Jane.”
“Jane moved back to Berkeley. She and Davida reignited their friendship.”
“That silly boat ride. Why anyone would subject themselves to bumping and…” Lucille checked herself. Finished her second drink. “Could Davida and Jane have had a thing? Oh, yes, definitely.”
Sitting back and enjoying the look on the detectives’ faces.
Amanda said, “Definitely.”
“I know it for a fact, dear. Not that either one would tell me. But I’m able to recognize love when I see it. Davida always loved Jane. It just took Jane twenty years and all those ridiculous marriages to decide she loved Davida.”
21
Excusing herself, Lucille left them alone in the parlor. Barnes steadied his hand with more bourbon.
Amanda drank water and said, “Well that was earth-shattering.”
“Jane and Davida. Just like the old days. I told Jane about the gonorrhea when we met up a couple of nights ago. She was pretty casual about it, suggested Davida had gotten it from Minette. Now I’m thinking she was out to make a point: this has nothing to do with me.”
“Maybe a diversion, but maybe also the truth, Will. No matter what Mother says, Davida could’ve been flinging with a Y chromosome.”
“We’ve gone over all of her e-mails for the last three months- personal and business- haven’t found anything hinting at a secret male lover.”
“Nor have we found anything linking Jane to Davida.”
Barnes conceded the point. “Maybe Jane’s still in denial about her own sexuality.”
“Or Lucille has it all wrong.”
“It’s not just Lucille, it was Alice Kurtag, too.”
Amanda’s turn to concede. “Jane wanted the relationship but wasn’t ready to come out.”
“Mandy, what if Jane was all thrilled about hooking up with Davida and Davida wanted to go public? Jane wasn’t ready for that. She goes to Davida’s office to beg her to hold off on any announcements, but Davida refuses.”
“She visits with a shotgun in hand?”
“So they drank together and had an argument. Jane left and returned to do the deed. Donnie Newell told me that Jane freaked out big-time after they did a threesome. If Davida threatened to out her, she could’ve freaked out again.”