“Motherfucker.”
“Mark Decody and Alisa Lawrence- ”
“Motherfuckersss.”
“Artis Handel- ”
“Turncoat.” Minette looked up. “She expected grief from the others, but Artis…he’s a Democrat, she was especially upset about him.”
“Anything more you can tell me about any of them?”
Minette thought a moment, then slowly shook her head. “They were just giving her a hard time. Politics.”
“Anybody else I should know about?”
“I don’t know…I can’t think- my head is…I can’t think.”
“What about personal relationships, Minette? Did she have any problems with friends or relatives?”
“Her mother’s a profound pain in the ass, but that’s just the usual mother-daughter thing. She doesn’t have any sibs. Her father lives in Florida in case you want to talk to him.”
“Why would I want to talk to him?”
“Because he’s an asshole and deserted Davida emotionally after he remarried.”
Amanda wrote that down. “Anyone else?”
A pretty brow knitted, then returned to youthful serenity. “Look, I just can’t process right now.” A big sigh. “Has anyone called her mother?”
“We’ll take care of that.”
“Thanks, ’cause I sure don’t want to do it. The old bitch doesn’t like me, never did no matter how hard I tried.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know. If I did, I’d work on it. Sometimes it’s like that, you know. People take an instant dislike to you. Sometimes I take an instant dislike to someone. In Lucille’s case, I think we took an instant dislike to each other.”
“Tell me about your relationship with Davida.”
Minette snapped her head up. “What about it?”
“I know this sounds insensitive but I have to ask it, Ms. Padgett. Were there any problems between you two?”
The young woman shot her a look of disgust. “No, there weren’t any problems between us two!”
“I’ve been married for ten years, Ms. Padgett. There are always ups and downs. Please don’t take it personally.”
Minette didn’t answer but it was clear from the look on her face that she wasn’t mollified.
“So things were fine- ”
“I think I already answered that.” Minette faced Amanda. “So you’ll call the old lady?”
“Yes.”
“Good, because I got a lot of shit to deal with and someone has to start making arrangements. It might as well be her.”
“My God! Davida Dead?” Don Newell’s voice bellowed through the phone. “That’s fucking crazy! What the hell happened, Willie?”
“You know how it works, Don. I wish I had more details but I don’t.”
“Davida…oh, man, that’s- at least tell me how she died.”
Barnes figured there was no sense being coy. “Twelve-gauge shotgun.”
“Oh, man- a typical shotgun thing?”
“It was ugly, Donnie.”
“That’s insane…fuckingshit almighty- does her mom know?”
“It’s being handled, Donnie.”
“If Lucille Grayson hasn’t left for Berkeley, I’m taking her personally. Even if she has left, I’m coming down.”
Newell’s basso was rimmed with a weird, almost hysterical tension. Even allowing for the shock, Barnes wondered what the connection was between a married Sacramento homicide cop and a gay representative. Now wasn’t the time to press.
He said, “Donnie, everyone knows she had enemies in the capital. That egging may have been more than a prank. We could use you on home turf. Unless we get a quick solve down here, my partner and I will be coming your way soon, anyway.”
There was a long pause. “Will, I’m not dumb and I know what you’re thinking because if things were reversed, I’d be thinking the same thing. There was nothing between Davida and me other than a casual friendship. Nothing. Get it?”
“Sure do,” said Barnes, lying smoothly.
“Why would there be anything, Will? Davida’s gay. Sure, once we were close- yeah, yeah I’ll stay out of your business but I will talk to Lucille. Two kids and now she’s lost both of them.”
“Don, do me a favor, assemble everything on Davida that you can. When I see you next, it’ll be nice and official.”
“It is official, Will. I mean it’s personal, but it’s official too.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Barnes. “Now I need to get this out in the open, Don. You talk to her last night?”
“Checked her cell?” said Newell. “Yeah, sure, I called her because we arrested a couple of White Tower boys for the egging. Brent and Ray Nutterly. But I know it wasn’t them who killed her because we put their asses in jail.”
“What about their buddies in the organization?”
“We were just starting to work that angle, as a matter of fact, because of other things.”
“What other things?”
“A couple of months ago, she got an anonymous threatening letter. Low-level stuff- you know, letters cut out of a magazine. We could never could trace it to anyone specific but I wanted to do more. Davida said no, didn’t want me making a big deal about it. She said too much of that kind of publicity gave the bastards what they wanted and made her look bad.”
“Look bad how?”
“She was big on her public image, gay and progressive but above the fray- her words. She also didn’t want anyone to think that she wasn’t accessible. Looks like she was too fucking accessible- I should have been more insistent! Damn it, just last night I told her to think about hiring a bodyguard. She blew me off.”
“Tell me more about her political enemies.”
“Enemies is too strong a word. I’d call them opponents. No one crazy enough to kill her, Will.”
“Did she ever talk to you about specific people she was afraid of?”
“First of all, we didn’t talk on a regular basis. Second, if she did, don’t you think I’da told you? Paranoia wasn’t Davida’s style. Just the opposite; she minimized danger. When this letter thing came up, she was blasé. To my eye, the woman was never afraid of anything.”
While the Loo, the captain, and Amanda Isis fielded questions from the fire-stoking press and strident community activists ready to be outraged about anything, Barnes went through the evidence picked up by CSU. Doorknobs had been wiped clean- a tell, in itself, that supported premeditation- but a partial bloody thumbprint was found on an interior jamb. Bloody shoeprints were of interest, as were multiple red fibers, stray hairs, a used coffee cup, and a cigarette.