Capital Crimes

3

The call came in at eight twenty-two AM, just enough time to interrupt Will Barnes’s treadmill torture. Every day, he blasted his joints into oblivion with the faint hope that the mindless machine would increase his life expectancy. Will’s father and grandfather had died of heart disease in their early sixties. Will’s cardiologist said his ticker looked great, but the unspoken message got through: take special care.

He slowed the pace, said, “Barnes.”

The Loo said, “Davida Grayson was found dead in her office.”

Barnes was so stunned that he almost tripped. Hopping off the machine, he wrapped a towel around his thick, sweaty neck. “What the hell happened?”

“That’s what you’re supposed to figure out. I’ll meet you at the crime scene. Amanda is also on her way. Lucky for you, you’ve got a pard who knows how to work the media, because this is going to be high profile. Cap has scheduled a press conference at eleven. Town hall meeting will be at seven tonight. We need a quick close, Will, before the community goes haywire.”

“Can I put my pants on first?”

“Sure. You can even do it one leg at a time.”

William Tecumseh Barnes was a wide-shouldered guy with a football-flattened nose and soft blue eyes. Prone to a beer gut and a double chin, he sometimes reckoned himself over the hill. But women liked those baby blues and he had his own hair, most of it still brown with a dusting of pewter at the temples. He’d gone from high school halfback to the army to law enforcement, spending fifteen years at Sacramento PD, ten as a homicide detective, until family matters brought him to the Bay Area.

Will’s only sibling, Jack, was a gay man who made a living out of being a gay man. Jack had moved from Sacramento to San Francisco at sixteen and by twenty had been a “well-known activist,” a fanatical in-your-face kind of guy who’d managed to offend everyone.

Will knew the abrasiveness went beyond idealism; he’d spent half his youth cleaning up Jack’s messes. But family was family, even if Will hadn’t ever really understood his brother.

When Jack was murdered, their parents were long gone and Will faced his grief alone. As the case grew cold, he knew what he had to do. Recently divorced with no kids or baggage keeping him in the capital, he requested a temporary leave of absence. That turned into two years as he searched for his brother’s killer. Bit by bit, as he probed into Jack’s death, he came to know Jack’s life. Jack’s friends grew to trust him, confided in him, related snippets that came together like the squares of a patchwork quilt. In the end, Jack’s death turned out to be one of those stupid homicides: an argument with the wrong person.

When it was time to return to Sacramento, Will discovered that he loved the beauty of the Bay Area, and had grown to respect- albeit in a begrudging way- the political diversity. He applied to Berkeley PD because a detective position had just opened and because chasing down his brother’s killer had left him drained and exhausted and it seemed like a cushy, small-town job.

Not this morning, with Davida Grayson a vic.

Will showered and shaved and locked up his piece of California real estate- a two-bedroom, one-bath, eight-hundred-square-foot bungalow. When Will plunked down a thirty-five-thousand-dollar deposit on it fifteen years ago, it had been a dump. Now his mess was fixed up and prettified and damn if it wasn’t the best investment he had ever made.

The area around Grayson’s district office on Shattuck was roped off with yellow tape. All the magpies were in place: local TV, radio, the papers. Barnes spied Laura Novacente from the Berkeley Crier and gave her a wave. They’d dated a couple of years ago and though it had ended, it had not ended badly. Laura weaved and elbowed herself through the throng and sidled up to him, making sure to give a little hip-to-hip contact.

“What’s going on, Willie?”

“You tell me, Laura.” Barnes looked around for Amanda Isis. His partner lived in San Francisco, in a twenty-three-room Pacific Heights mansion overlooking everything. It would take her at least another half hour to make it over the bridge. “You got here before I did, lady.”

“You don’t listen to your own scanners?”

“Not at eight in the morning, I don’t.”

“I heard she was shot in the head.”

“Then you heard more than I did.”

“Give me something, Willie.”

He sized Laura up with a swift sweep of the baby blues. Ten years younger than him, with long gray hair that flew in the wind like the mane of a galloping horse. Still that trim figure; he wondered why the two of them had gone south. “Captain’s arranged some kind of press conference- ”

“I thought we were friends.”

He loved the urgency in her voice. Had heard it many times before in a different context. “Your number is still lodged in my brain, Laura. If I find out anything, I’ll give you a ring, maybe we can meet.”

“The usual place?”

“I’m a creature of habit, Laura.”

Davida was slumped over her desk, face cradled in the crook of her arms as if she’d been napping away her last moments on earth. Detective Amanda Isis preferred to think that the transition from a temporary sleep to a permanent had been painless. The nape of Davida’s neck was blown wide open, pellets hitting with enough force to shred her spinal cord. Just about decapitated.

Amanda was medium-sized, slim, thirty-eight, delicately beautiful with honey-colored hair layered short and enormous brown eyes. She had on a charcoal pantsuit that didn’t show the dirt. Armani Couture, but tailored to look run-of-the-mill.

The scene was gruesome and bloody with crimson spray all over the desk and the walls. Not at all the kind of murder that Amanda was used to seeing. When BPD dealt with homicides, they were usually drug killings confined to the dark alleys of the West Berkeley region, brutal but ultimately mundane crimes that often germinated in Oakland.

Amanda studied the body again. Someone had been serious. When she looked closely, she could see shotgun pellets embedded in flesh. Brushing honey-colored locks from her eyes, she turned to Will. “This is nauseating.”

“Lots of spray…a couple of partial shoeprints.” Barnes pointed to several spots. “If the past is any predictor of the future, someone somewhere is dumping bloody clothing. But the idiots always think twice about tossing the shoes.”

“Who called the murder in?”

“Jerome Melchior- Davida’s chief aide. I’ve got him stowed away in a cruiser, drinking coffee, hoping we can steady his nerves. I’d like to interview him while his memory is fresh, get him away from the magpies before the press conference.”

Barnes checked his watch. “We’ve only got about an hour, Mandy. Ready to hustle?”

“Go interview him, I’ll take over here. Then, while I’m working the microphones with the brass, you can have a look around and we’ll compare notes.”

“You got it.” His perfectly organized partner. After a year they synched well, like a nicely tuned clock. Will hadn’t been thrilled to work with someone who’d married into a hundred million bucks, had heard the ice-queen dilettante chatter, figured how could it be otherwise. But Amanda worked as hard as anyone. Harder. Maybe those lottery winners who claimed they’d never quit their day jobs were righteous.

She smoothed the jacket of one of those designer pantsuits with gloved hands, took another look at Davida and shook her head. “You ever have any dealings with her, Will?”

“Not professionally.” Barnes sighed. “She’s a Sacramento girl. I knew her.”

“Well?”

Barnes shook his head. “Her older sister, Glynnis, was a couple of years younger than me. She died when Davida was a kid. My brother, Jack, knew Davida in high school. They ran in different circles, but I know when she came out in her senior year, it had a big impact on Jack.” He turned to face her. “What about you and Larry? You guys go to parties with pols.”

“Good deduction, Detective Barnes. Yeah, I’ve run into her a few times but no extended conversations. She came across as a reasonable person. Not pro-police but not as antagonistic as some of the others we’ve had. When she talked, though, she got animated. I guess that was passion about what she believed in.”

“If you’re passionately for something, chances are there’s somebody that’s passionately against the same thing.”

“The stem-cell deal, that egging last week,” said Amanda. “Wonder if SPD has anything on that.”

“I still know people over there. I’ll check.”

“Maybe we should visit the capital,” Amanda suggested. “Scope out her enemies and her friends.”

“At the capital, they can be one and the same. Sure, good idea, but I think hobnobbing with those in the know is more up your alley, Mandy.”

“What’s your forte, compadre?”

“Talking to her folk.”

Amanda knew he meant the gay and lesbian community. Of all the contacts that a detective might cultivate, she couldn’t have thought of a more odd combination than Will and gays. But he got info from them like no one else could. Perhaps they trusted him because he was the last person in the world to be condescending or patronizing. “Sure you don’t want to take on the Gray Suits, Willie? It was originally your territory.”

“My territory, but never my people.”