Jonathan Kellerman - Capital Crimes

“What sounds good?” Will asked.

“We’re meeting Dr. Williman at an Italian restaurant instead of the morgue.”

“Pasta in place of pancreases, excellent. It’s been awhile since I ate something serious.”

“What constitutes awhile?”

“Depends on my mood.”

The pasta was excellent but Barnes was so hungry, he barely registered the taste until he polished off the plate. Linguini with fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic, smoked ham and fresh parmesan cheese. Williman seemed equally enamored of his osso buco. Amanda nibbled one slice of her mini white pizza and picked at her salad greens.

“Are you going to eat that?” Will asked, pointing to the pizza.

“Knock yourself out,” Amanda answered. “Want a slice, Marv?”

Williman said, “You’re not going to eat it?”

“I’m full.”

“Big lunch?” Barnes asked.

“Just trying to take off a little weight.”

“Where?” both men asked simultaneously.

“I hide it well.” She put down her fork. “So what can you illuminate for us, Dr. Williman?”

The doctor took a gulp of Chianti and set down his wineglass. “Actually I have a couple of important things to pass on.”

“Wait a minute.” Barnes wiped his face with a napkin, appalled at all the sauce it had soaked up, then fished out his notepad and pen. “Okay, go, Doc.”

Williman opened his briefcase and handed Amanda and Barnes a two-page stapled summary of the autopsy. “I haven’t finished the complete transcription but I wanted to give you this right away.”

He let them scan, then continued. “As you can see, the tox screen came up negative for the usual array of street drugs- ”

“Is that blood alcohol level right?” Barnes remarked.

“Ah, you noticed. Very good. Yes, we ran it twice. Did this woman hit the bars last night?”

“I was told she went out to dinner with her mother at the ladies’ club then headed straight to the office. According to the server, they left around nine. Her mother was the last person to see her alive, other than the killer.”

Williman said, “I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t work very effectively with a BAL of.22. Any idea how much alcohol she consumed over dinner?”

Amanda said, “According to the waiter, it was the old lady who was shooting back the booze. Davida just had a single glass of wine.”

“Well, she made up for lost time, later. And her drinking wasn’t a one-shot deal. Her liver was in the early to middle stages of fatty cirrhosis.”

Amanda said, “I don’t recall anyone saying Davida was a heavy drinker. It’s Minette who imbibes.”

Barnes said, “The people I’ve talked to say Davida spent most of her time working, a lot of that alone. Maybe she was a secret drinker.”

Williman said, “She got booze in her system somehow. Chronically.”

Amanda said, “A BAL of.22 could explain why she was napping at her desk and didn’t hear anyone enter her office.”

“True,” said Barnes. “I like that.”

“I’ve got something else to add to the mix,” Williman said.

“Don’t tell me,” said Barnes. “She was pregnant.”

“Close- ”

“She had had an abortion?”

“No- ”

“Willie, you’re fixating on her female parts,” said Amanda.

“Because everyone’s fixated on their respective parts.”

“In this case,” said Williman, “Detective Barnes is on target. Davida had gonorrhea.”

The table went silent. The doctor continued. “Now, I’m not saying it isn’t possible to transfer the disease from female to female, but it’s considerably more likely to transfer the disease from male to female.”

Amanda said, “Did she know?”

“There were no external symptoms,” said Williman. “With women especially it can be like that. Makes it worse, by the time you find out, there’s damage.”

Barnes said, “Did you happen to find semen? Something we can send to the lab for DNA?”

“No semen, just bacteria,” said the pathologist. “And it took an eagle eye to spot ’em floating around.” He polished his knuckles. “So to show your gratitude, I’ll let you pick up the tab.”

The 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.”