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.”
“I remember Hewitt,” said Barnes. “Tall, skinny, dumb.”
“And rich- rich was a big thing to Janey’s parents. Anyway, we were downing shooters and smoking weed and getting high. Hewitt got sick to his stomach and fell asleep on Janey’s bed. The rest of us were feeling no pain. When Davida threw out the suggestion, Janey and I thought she was joking.”
Newell turned grave. His voice lowered. “But she wasn’t. It happened slowly…you know, just kissing and copping feels. Then…bam…” Newell was sweating. “Afterward was the scary part. Jane freaked out. It took the both of us and a lot more weed to calm her down, convince her that it was no big deal, only normal experimentation. A couple of months later, Davida came out. She and Jane remained friends, but I became an outsider real quick.”
“So Davida and Jane hooked up that long ago?”
“I rightly don’t know if they did or didn’t. Eventually, I started dating Jill, ’cause she was hot, too, wanted it all the time. Though looking back it seems like she was…you know, maybe acting? Like she really didn’t like it as much as she pretended?”
“How’d Davida react to your hanging with Jill?”
“Don’t know that she reacted at all. Davida and I were pretty much avoiding each other. Mostly I was avoiding her. I was embarrassed- stuff guys said.”
“I can understand that.”
“Like I couldn’t compete with a carpet muncher, crap like that.” Newell frowned. “Jane and I went our separate ways and she went back to Hewitt, until we graduated high school. Then Jane and Davida went off to the UC and Hewitt went to Stanford and I went to community college. We’re talking ancient history, pal.”
Barnes nodded.
“Willie, the last time I had really anything personal to do with Davida is when I brought her to the senior prom and that’s the truth.”
“You took Davida to the prom?”
“What a dumb-ass thing to do. Jill has never let me forget it.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“Because Davida begged me and I guess I thought I owed her something for the great sex. I’d only been dating Jill for a few months and the girl was a sophomore. I figured she’d have two more chances in her junior and senior year. Also since Davida was a lesbian, I thought Jill wouldn’t care.” He laughed. “Boy, was I one stupid shit.”
“And you haven’t done anything sexually with her since she came out?”
“I believe I already answered that.”
“Don’t get testy, Donnie, I have my reasons for asking. Davida had gonorrhea and it didn’t come from her girlfriend, Minette.”
There was a long silence.
Newell looked up at the black sky. “Did it come from a guy?”
“I have no idea, Don, but we do know that the bug is passed more easily from boy to girl than from girl to girl.”
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “So she was carrying on with a man.”
“Maybe.”
“If she would have asked me for a tumble, I don’t know what I would have done. She was still a fine-looking woman.” His blue eyes focused in on Barnes’s face. “Lucky for me, she didn’t put me in that bind.”
“Where were you the night Davida was murdered? Every minute of the night.”
“Home in bed.”
“Mind if I test any of these shotguns for ballistic comparison?”
Newell thought long and hard. “What, that rifling stuff? Hell, I couldn’t care less but if I agree Jill’s gonna wonder why. I don’t want to give my wife any reason to suspect me of anything, Willie. Even though I didn’t do nothing. You know how it is, sometimes that just don’t matter to the missus.”
More silence.
“Why don’t you see how far your investigation takes you without my guns? If you’re still curious, then I’ll comply. But I sure as hell won’t be happy about it. Who in their right mind would be happy being viewed as a murder suspect?”
20
Lucille Grayson lived in a three-story Victorian, shingle-sided and stately. The curving front porch was set up with wicker furniture, including an old-fashioned swinging love seat. The house had been painted a soft cream and trimmed in a green that blended with the surrounding acreage. Specimen oak, eucalyptus, sycamore and pine dotted the velvet lawn. Flower gardens shouted color, orchards of citrus and peach and plum pumped out fruit well beyond the growing season.
Inland California was flat, hot and dry, but this neighborhood had been bulldozed into hillocks and irrigated nearly a century ago. With Gold Rush optimism and enough trucked-in water, anything could happen.