“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.

Barnes and Amanda were almost a half hour early and they secreted themselves under an oak whose boughs hung so low they nearly touched the ground. Sipping the Peet’s coffee they’d picked up along the way, they watched visitors arrive and leave.

During the entire drive, Barnes had slept. Now he yawned and blinked himself awake.

Amanda had stayed up just as late, then made the drive back to San Francisco. She’d ended up talking to Larry, then cuddling, then more, and hadn’t slept much at all. What a doll her husband was, but she knew eventually fatigue would beat her to the ground. Right now, though she felt amped. “Good morning. So what do you think?”

Barnes said, “About what?”

“About Barry Bonds taking steroids. About your old homeboy Donnie Newell. Still suspicious of him?”

“Haven’t ruled him out, but he said we could test his guns and he didn’t give off any obvious tells. Honestly, I don’t know, Mandy.”

“Well, I’m liking Jill Newell. She’s always resented Davida, she doesn’t trust her husband and she knows how to shoot. If Don and Davida rekindled their passion and Jill found out, she’d be major pissed.”

“I don’t think they were doing the nasty.”

She took in her partner’s eyes. “Why not?”

“When he told me they weren’t, he seemed straight.”

“And you believe him, just like that.”

“He was upfront about everything, Mandy, not a trace of edge. When I told him about the gonorrhea his reaction was resentful, almost outraged, but not nervous. It was more like: if Davida was going to fuck a guy, it should have been him.”

“Ah, vanity, vanity, the male species is thy name.”

“I don’t think that’s the quote, pard. Anyway, he started reminiscing and it sounds like he and Davida had quite a thing going before she came out.”

He filled Amanda in.

She said, “All the more reason for wanting to start up again.”

“I guess…yeah, he was bragging, but it had more of a…wistful quality. Like life was better back then. We’re talking over twenty years ago. I’m not saying Don’s been an angel but if he cheated, I don’t see it with Davida. Because I think he would’ve told me.”

“Stud talk, guy to guy.”

“It’s what we do.”

“On the other hand, maybe that was a ploy, big fella,” Amanda said. “He confesses to what you already know so he doesn’t have to tell you anything new.”

“You could be right.”

Amanda smiled. “So we’ve basically reversed positions. I’m liking Jill and possibly Don, and you’re not.”

“That’s what we do, right? The old open-minded waltz.”

Moments later, when he’d finished his coffee: “I’d feel a whole lot better if we had some kind of forensics.”