Capital Crimes (7 page)

11

T
he Berkeley City Council met in the old unified school district building—an imposing two-story white, Neoclassical structure adorned by Corinthian columns and topped by a cupola with a spire that reminded Barnes of an old-fashioned Prussian army hat. It was next to the police station and the juxtaposition of newer Deco and older Beaux Arts was yet more stylistic chockablock.

By seven forty-five, the auditorium was filled to capacity, with spillover distributed to two additional rooms set up with video monitors.

After going over the list of mock questions, Amanda felt well prepared. Barnes, on the other hand, was nervous. Intellectuals scared him and everyone in Berkeley imagined themselves an intellectual. Using big words when simple ones did the job just fine, going on talking jags and rambling from topic to topic and never making a point.

Maybe that was the idea, to be so vague that the debates would go on forever.

Barnes didn’t deal much with the locals. Homicides in Berkeley were usually drug-related, the bad guys imported from Oakland—Alameda County’s
real
city. Lucky for him Amanda was a great mouthpiece and would be doing most of the talking.

The two of them sat backstage in a room not much bigger than a closet, waiting for their cue to go onstage. The city council was talking about safety issues, trying to calm down a jumpy, muttering audience. Pronouncing profoundly about vigilance, caution and the need for a “supplementary police presence”—which brought on a whole different flavor of muttering.

This part of the meeting had been allotted thirty minutes but had already eaten up an hour. Not necessarily the council’s fault—though every one of them could speechify like Castro. Tonight, it was the public who kept interrupting with pointed questions. Gray-haired guys with ponytails and women in blousy dresses wearing the kind of makeup that resembled no makeup at all. Words like “accountability” and “personalized security” and “Guantanamo-type vigilance” kept cropping up. So did “necessary evil,” countered by quotes from Che Guevara and Frantz Fanon.

Amanda finished her crossword and put the paper down. She leaned over and whispered, “Eventually, we need to compare notes. Every time I have something to ask you, there’s always a third party in the room.”

“Anything specific?” Barnes whispered back.

“For starters, who told you Davida kept long, lonely hours?”

“Her mom complained she worked too hard and too long.”

“That could be just a mother talking.”

“Minette Padgett also mentioned that Davida worked too hard.”

“That could be a lonely lover talking.”

Barnes grinned. “How about this, Mandy: Alice Kurtag, the scientist helping with the stem-cell bill, said
she’d
worked long hours with Davida. Some nights they’d go to dinner, come back and confer in the lab.”

“Hmmm…”

“Exactly,” said Barnes. “She swears there was nothing between them.”

“Was Minette ever with them during these work orgies?”

“If she was, Kurtag didn’t mention it. Let’s ask Minette.”

“Did Kurtag say anything about Davida drinking in excess?”

“No.” An idea was scratching Barnes’s brain. “It’s funny. Minette’s been described as the drunk but Davida’s liver was in trouble.”

“The two of them drank together.”

“Maybe together and in excess,” Barnes said. “Davida wasn’t characterized as a drunk but maybe she was good at maintaining.”

“And Minette’s younger,” said Amanda. “Give her time to develop her own cirrhosis.”

Barnes nodded.

Amanda thought a moment. “If someone knew Davida drank herself asleep, be easy to take advantage and shoot her while she was out.”

“And who would know more about her drinking habits than Minette?” said Barnes. “Minette’s hetero fling, Kyle Bosworth, told me he left the apartment by two in the morning. Kyle’s partner verified Kyle was home around two fifteen. Minette had plenty of time to go down to Davida’s office, share a bottle with her lover, wait until Davida had nodded off and blow her head off.”

“Clear opportunity,” said Amanda. “Clear means if we can connect her to a shotgun. Now what’s the motive?”

“Davida had the clap and Dr. Williman said it was passed easier from man to woman. Maybe she was having her own hetero fling.”

“Still, it’s not impossible from female to female,” she said, louder. Barnes put his finger to his lips and Amanda dropped her voice. “Any indication that Davida had a man on the side?”

“Not yet. No special guy shows up in any of her e-mails.”

Amanda played with her hair. “To my mind, Willie, it makes more sense that Minette got it from Kyle and gave it to Davida. Minette was the one with the free time to carry on an affair and we
know
she slept with a man.”

“Dr. Kurtag thought Davida might have suspected Minette’s affair. Maybe she learned Minette had given her gonorrhea and blew up big-time. When Davida tried to break it off, Minette became enraged, an argument ensued and boom.”

Amanda said, “Minette passed the gunpowder test.”

“All that means is that she washed her hands really well. Man, I’d just love to examine her clothing for blowback blood spray…or powder.”

“Do we even know if Minette ever came near a shotgun, let alone knows how to use one?”

Barnes shrugged, took out his pad and pen, and scribbled some notes.

An assistant to one of the councilwomen poked her head in. “Berkeley PD, you’re on in two.”

The detectives stood. Amanda lifted Barnes’s bolo tie, let it fall back to his chest and smiled. “This and that big-ass belt buckle, pard. Taking out a billboard that says, ‘I’m a shit kicker’?”

“Hey,” said Barnes. “This is the land of tolerance. And you’re doing most of the talking, Ms. Couture. Ready for your close-up?”

Amanda smoothed her black wool skirt and tucked in her white blouse. “Ready as I’m going to be.”

As they neared the stage, she saw Will straighten his tie. Tight jaw; she hadn’t meant to rattle the big guy.

She said, “I like your theory about Minette drinking with Davida and blowing her head off. And I’d love to see Minette’s clothing, too. Unfortunately, a theory’s not enough to get us a warrant to search her apartment.”

Barnes’ss brain ran through a series of possibilities. Now his jawline was a track for ball bearings. “How about this: Minette’s apartment is also Davida’s apartment. We shouldn’t have any trouble getting a victim warrant. If we happen to find bloody clothing and brain tissue in the sink’s drain traps…well, then, that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

“Viva accidents,” said Amanda.

“That and Zapata,” said Barnes. “He’s one of the good guys around here, right?”

As he stepped into his pajama bottoms, Will thought about the town hall meeting and the press conference. Amanda had summarized the investigation better than he could’ve, speaking clearly and simply, personable but terse. Captain Torres did a decent job of easing community fears, keeping his cool under a barrage of questions thoughtful and stupid.

Then there was
him.

Speaking into the microphone with that little nervous stutter in his voice that told the world he was a shit-kicking dufus. The tie and buckle didn’t help either; he could almost taste the contempt.

Made him drawl even more, until he ended up sounding like Gomer Pyle on downers.

What a—he stopped. Self-reflection was for chumps.

The phone rang. Good. Maybe Laura, that new relationship biting the du…Torres’s voice shot over the line. “You know the warrant that you requested to search Davida’s apartment?”

“I haven’t put it in yet, Cap.”

“Don’t bother, you won’t need it. Minette Padgett called in a 911 emergency about twenty minutes ago. The whole damn place has been ransacked.”

“They got me as I walked through the door,” Amanda said. “What about you?”

“I was just about to go to bed.”

Amanda made a sour face. “I wasn’t anywhere near going to bed. This commute is a killer. I really should move.”

“You shouldn’t even be working,” Barnes retorted. “Man, if I had a thousandth of your money, I’d be sailing or playing golf or—”

“Willie, if you quit the force, you’d be cranky twenty-four/seven.”

“I’m already cranky twenty-four/seven!” Barnes looked around at the living space in complete disarray. “What a total shit pile.”

“That’s the bad news,” Amanda said. “The good news is now we can look for evidence against Minette without raising any hackles. So stop sneering, pard, and let’s get to work.”

Barnes took out a camera and began snapping pictures. Had it been tidy, the living room would have felt generous with the wall of picture windows and a high ceiling. But it was hard to look beyond the mess. Craftsman-style seating had been overturned, madras throw pillows were strewn across the floor. Oak bookshelves had been emptied, a couple of cheap glass vases—the kind that come with flower deliveries—were shattered.

The only breakage in plain sight. The open floor plan allowed Barnes a view of the kitchen. Cupboard doors flung open but the crockery within was untouched. The contents of the kitchen drawers, on the other hand, had been emptied and dumped on the floor.

The detectives walked as best as they could, trying not to squash evidence under the soles of their paper-sheathed shoes. The condo had three bedrooms—a master and two smaller guest rooms identical in size. The first of the smaller bedrooms had been converted into a home office; the floor space of the second was taken up with gym equipment.

When you got past the disorder, the master bedroom was a great space—generous and airy with a striking view of the city below and the bay beyond. Davida’s sanctuary at the end of a hectic day?

The room’s current ambience was chaos, clothing tossed on the floor, drawers dumped, bed linens stripped from the mattress.

The first word that came to Barnes’s mind was “staged.” Despite countless movie scenes, most thieves didn’t randomly ransack because disorder made it difficult to find valuables.

He nodded at Amanda and she got it without his having to say a word. The two of them moved to the home office and surveyed a snowstorm of paper through the doorway. Same drawer-emptying, file-dumping mess, books and videos on the floor, the swivel desk chair overturned in a way that suggested calculation. Barnes’s large feet couldn’t manage a baby step without crunching something under his feet and he retreated.

“Someone really did a number,” Amanda said.

Barnes said, “All this disorder and the plates and dishes are intact? A lot easier to clean up paper and upright couches and chairs, much bigger hassle clearing broken china.”

“Why would Minette stage this?”

“Could be her or someone setting her up.” Thoughts were rolling around Barnes’s brain. “Or maybe even the real deal. When I mentioned Harry Modell to Dr. Kurtag, she told me that Davida wasn’t afraid of him because she knew some
things
about him.”

“What things?”

“She didn’t tell Kurtag. Someone crazy, who knows what they’ll do.”

Amanda considered that. “Maybe, but it’s a reach so unless we know Modell’s here in town, he’s low on the list.”

“Minette’s at the top?”

“You bet. Wonder where she is.”

“Torres took her complaint and let her go.”

“Torres is taking citizen complaints now?”

“Significant other of a high-profile vic,” said Barnes. “She’s staying with some friends for a couple of days. Which I like. We can sift through the stuff without her poking around in our business.”

Amanda surveyed the toss. “How long do you think it will take us to go through all this material?”

“Most of the night,” Barnes said. “When’s our flight to LA?”

“Seven
AM.
”

“I wonder if we can move it to eleven without getting someone’s nose out of joint.”

She smiled. “Sneaking in the shut-eye?”

“Both of us. You can bunk down at my place if you want. Save you a trip over the bridge.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

12

B
arnes’s cell chirped just as the garbled PA voice issued a boarding announcement. He fished the phone from his pocket. “Did she just call our flight?”

Amanda looked up from her paperback. “Uh-uh, Phoenix.”

“How do you understand anything she said? It just sounds like static.” He pressed the green button. “Barnes.”

“Sorry to bother you, Detective. It’s Alice Kurtag.”

Barnes wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear, and found his notepad. “No bother at all, Dr. Kurtag, what can I do for you?”

“I don’t know if this is important or not, but you asked me to call you if I thought of anything.”

“What’s up?”

“As I told you before, my relationship with Davida was almost exclusively business. I barely knew Minette and I didn’t know most of their friends.”

“Okay,” Barnes answered.

“I doubt if this is important, but I recall that about a month ago, Davida dropped by the lab with a friend—an old friend. Someone she had gone to high school and college with. They looked…” There was silence for a moment. “I don’t know how to put this. They looked comfortable with each other.”

The implication was obvious. Barnes said, “More than chummy?”

“Well, they were laughing and touching each other. Of course they
were
old friends.”

“Do you remember this person’s name?”

“Jane. I honestly can’t recall if Davida mentioned her last name. If she did, it’s eluding me.”

Jane.
That threw Barnes. Nothing about Jane ever seemed remotely gay. Just to make sure, he said, “What did this Jane look like?”

“Tall, slim, pretty, Davida’s age—long jet-black hair, very striking hair. And maybe a bit…shopworn? I don’t want to be unkind but it was as if she’d been through a lot.”

No doubt who she meant. Jane sure hadn’t had good luck with men. “Could it have been Jane Meyerhoff?”

“Yes, it
was
—now I remember, she
did
use her last name! You know her?”

“She’s indeed an old friend of Davida’s. All right, Dr. Kurtag, thanks for the information.” Tacking on the basic detective’s parting shot: “Anything else you’d like to add?”

“Actually, yes.”

But she added nothing.

Barnes said, “Go on. I’m listening, Doctor.”

“Davida told me that she and Jane were going to be away for a couple of days to do some white-water rafting. Davida told me that she had had an intense week and Jane had been going through a very messy divorce. Both of them needed to unwind and both of them loved physical challenges. She told me her cell wouldn’t be operative, but she gave me a contact number if something important came up in my research. She said the number was only for me and that I shouldn’t give it out to anyone else.”

“Who would you give it to?”

“Since we were working together so often, people would sometimes call me looking for Davida.”

“Which people?”

“At the capital. Sometimes friends.”

“Anyone specific?”

Silence.

“Doctor?”

“Minette called frequently,” said Kurtag. “Eight, ten times a day.”

“That is pretty frequent.”

“In regards to this other woman, it could be totally innocent. Perhaps Davida was taking the trip just to grab a little well-deserved privacy.”

The one-hour flight from Oakland to Burbank was on time and blissfully free from squalling children. As soon as the plane began its descent, Barnes turned to Amanda. “I’ve been thinking.”

She grinned. “That’s always dangerous.”

“That’s why I don’t do it often. In terms of staging, what about that crank letter Donnie Newell showed us? Someone cutting block letters from a magazine and pasting them on a piece of paper. How Hollywood is that? We should really talk to Newell again.”

“Minette’s been harassing Davida for a while?”

“The woman does seem to like her fair share of attention. Maybe she was upset when Davida didn’t take the letter seriously.”

Amanda nodded. “Good point. Now how does it connect with Minette as the murderer?”

Barnes conceded that he had no answer. “There are other reasons to talk to Donnie. He was Davida’s ex-boyfriend in high school before she came out. Remember he said something about Davida being a pistol? How’d you take that?”

“That she was hot in bed.” Amanda shrugged. “So they probably fucked. What’s the big deal? It was a long time ago.”

“It struck me that Donnie remembered the relationship so clearly and chose to mention that aspect of it with Davida lying dead with her head nearly blown off.”

“Men are always thinking about sex.”

“True, but that thing he told you—his wife hating Davida. Obviously, the two of them were still in contact.”

“Minimal contact according to Newell.”

“What’s minimal to him may have seemed like maximal to Minette. Also, from dating her in high school, do you think Donnie knew about Davida’s drinking?”

Amanda laughed. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything,”

“Yes, you are and it seems a big jump.”

“What?”

“You’re seeing Newell as a suspect. First of all, we know he was in Sacramento the day of the murder because she called him.”

“Exactly. And we don’t know the nature of the call…only what Newell told us. Maybe she says c’mon down to the office for a late-night fling and they spent a little time together. Minette told us Davida had planned to pull an all-nighter. Who said it was to work? She and Donnie are alone…drinking and…”

“And what?”

“Dunno, something went awry. You know people can get crazy when they’re under the influence.”

“Do you not like this guy or something? Some kind of high school thing?”

“I barely knew Donnie. I remember him as a skinny blond kid, that’s all.”

Amanda wagged a finger at him. “Your imagination is doing overtime, Detective Barnes. Maybe it’s sleep deprivation.”

“Or lack of useful evidence in the apartment,” Barnes said. “At the very least, I want to talk to Newell about Davida Grayson and Jane Meyerhoff. He inferred they’d both been party girls. Pair that with Kurtag telling me Davida and Jane were going away together, and not to tell Minette, and I’m wondering: is their relationship new or were Davida and Jane picking up where they left off in high school and college? I’m also wondering if Jane was the reason that Davida came out.”

“How does that tie in with Newell?”

“Maybe Donnie did a threesome with the girls and Davida discovered she liked Jane better than him.”

“And…?”

“And, maybe Newell felt threatened.”

“So he decided to pop her after what…twenty-five years?”

Barnes smiled. “Yeah, it’s thin—but think of this. Williman told us male-to-female’s an easy way to transmit the clap. And Donnie’s male.”

“You know what I think?”

“What?”

“You want to interview Newell in hopes he’ll give you lurid details about a threesome.”

“Maybe.” Barnes laughed. Then he turned serious. “No way to bring up gonorrhea with him in a cop-to-cop chat…okay, let’s shift gears: if there was a sexual relationship between Davida and Jane, it could be a motive for
Minette
being jealous. Jane just moved back to Berkeley about a year ago. After three failed marriages, maybe she wanted something from her youth.”

Amanda regarded her partner. “Didn’t you date Jane?”

“Uh, yeah, but not for long.”

“Why not?”

“She was a piece of work. No such thing as a casual conversation, everything was a debate.”

“Did it end badly?”

“No, it just ended. I stopped calling and she didn’t care.”

“Seeing as there’s no hard feelings, why don’t you ask her about her relationship with Davida instead of asking Newell?”

“Because Davida was murdered and I don’t know how truthful Jane will be with me. I can approach Donnie differently.”

“Cop to cop,” she said. “But you can’t bring up venereal disease.”

Barnes grew silent. “Okay, the whole thing sucks.”

“Hey,” she said, “I like the way your mind works, I’m just trying to keep things organized. Are you really suspicious of Newell?”

“Maybe intrigued is more the right word.”

The plane’s wheels hit the tarmac and a flight attendant launched into the usual spiel, pretending they had a choice who to fly with. When the announcements were over, Amanda said, “I like the Davida/Jane thing. I don’t know if it’s relevant but it’s always good to look at close friends first.”

Barnes said, “I reckon we should also think a little bit about what we’re gonna do in LA, especially since the department paid for luxurious transportation. Who’s our contact at LAPD?”

Amanda checked her notes. “Detective Sergeant Marge Dunn. She told me her lieutenant—his name is Decker—is very curious about Marshall Bledsoe.”

“What mischief did that dirtbag pull off there?”

“A local synagogue was ransacked about five years ago and Decker always felt that there was someone behind the scenes.”