“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.
Pathology would analyze forensic information taken off the body. Amanda had gone through Davida’s cell phone and her BlackBerry. That left Barnes with the onerous and time-consuming task of scouring Davida’s computer, desk calendar, business files and written correspondence.
With Melchior’s password list in front of him, he sat down, flexed his fingers and began. Several screen names appeared but none of them looked to be an official representative address with the.gov suffix. An hour of trial and error later, he hit the winning combination. Screen name: DGray, password: LucyG.
Her mom as entry to cyberspace.
Forty-eight e-mails.
He printed them all out. The vast majority were what seemed to be inconsequential communications from friends and community members. A few were personal- mostly from “Mins,” two of those graphically sexual.
Lovers hot to trot. There didn’t seem to be anything overtly hostile in any of the exchanges with Minette Padgett although in two of the letters, Mins complained about the long hours that Davida was keeping.
So did Lucille.Grayson@easymail.net. Mom was very unhappy about Davida’s lack of attention to her own well-being. Her latest one implored her daughter to be careful. Something beyond the egging? Mom was a must-interview.
Barnes felt someone looking over his shoulder. Max Flint, the CSU computer guy. “You got into her e-mail. I’m impressed.”
“I had a cheat sheet.” Barnes gave Flint the list of passwords.
“Should I be looking for anything specific?”
Barnes checked his notes. “Dig up whatever you can find regarding the victim and Representatives Alisa Lawrence, Mark Decody, Artis Handel and Eileen Ferunzio…” He spelled Eileen’s last name. “She was doing political battle with all of them and I heard some of it was intense. Plus, there’s a guy, Harry Modell, executive director of Families Under God. See if he wrote anything threatening to her. Finally, give me anything that might’ve been sent by the White Tower Radicals. Looks like they were behind the egging and possibly a threatening note.”
“Lots of enemies,” Flint said.
“She was a politician.”
6
When the woman stepped outside of the silver Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, both Barnes and Amanda took note of how dignified she looked. Head held high, shoulders back, thin as paper in a black suit, white silk blouse, seamed stockings and orthopedic pumps straining to be fashionable. Atop her gray coif was a black pillbox hat fronted by a small veil. A uniformed chauffeur held her arm and propelled her forward. Taking her other arm was a rawboned, stoop-shouldered man of medium height and weight. His tightly waved hair was equal parts sand and salt but his handlebar mustache was completely white.