Murder in the Collective

by Barbara Wilson

  Hadley led me upstairs—three flights—to a huge attic bedroom with romantic dormers and a skylight. The floor was sheathed in oriental rugs, the white painted rough stucco walls covered with masks and carvings, archeological by-products of her mother’s career, I imagined. Hadley filled and plugged in a small electric espresso coffee maker and got out two fine china cups, setting them on a round, heavy walnut table with clawfeet next to one of the dormer windows. The view was of the back garden with its rows of new vegetables coming up, and of several horse-chestnut trees, cooling the house with hundreds of fresh green fans.

  “It’s really sunny and nice here in the morning,” Hadley said.

  I couldn’t help glancing at her bed, right under the skylight. The mattress was covered with a turquoise and black handwoven spread and looked firm and bouncy on its brass bedstead.

  “It must be nice to look up and see the stars at night,” I said.

  “Oh yes.”

  She looked embarrassed and I suddenly swallowed hard and then the espresso pot boiled over and Hadley rushed to save it, laughing, “I always fill it too full.”

  Although my heart was beating too fast I decided to continue the conversation about her room as if it were a normal subject. I mean, it was a normal subject, wasn’t it? “It seems like you have the best of both worlds up here,” I said, sitting down at the table. “Company when you want it, but peace and quiet too.” I was thinking—I wonder who she’s involved with? I wonder who sleeps with her up here? My limbs were heavy with heat and lust; a more sensual fluid than blood coursed through them, almond oil perhaps, overpoweringly heady.

  Hadley nodded, busy with the little machine. Her face was flushed with the steam. “Yes, it’s nice to have a place to escape to. I’ve lived in collective households where every time I so much as stepped out of my room I had to hear what someone’s therapist told them that day.”

  She set the espresso in front of me and sat down herself. Through the dormer window the sky breathed in, full of the scent of horse-chestnut leaves. It was about four o’clock. I felt very weak. I thought, what if she asks me point blank: Are you interested in me? Have I made a decision? It’s a life-altering decision…I was focused on her face like a drugged person.

  Hadley was indeed looking at me with a question in her eyes but it wasn’t the question I imagined.

  “How can we find out if Zee and Jeremy were involved in something?”

  “What?” I hastily gulped some of my coffee to get my mind functioning again. “I mean—we could ask her, I guess.”

  “Would she tell us?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on if she trusts us…I don’t think she does.” I swallowed more coffee, great doses of it like a bracing medicine. What had I been thinking, after all, that Hadley and I would…right now…no, of course not.

  “You know where Zee lives, don’t you?”

  “Beacon Hill. With her aunt. But Hadley—we can’t just burst over there, demanding to know things. Let’s look at our own position, I mean, are we detectives or what? We’re not really qualified; we might really screw things up.”

  Hadley looked at me as if disappointed. She hooked her gray-blond hair behind her ears. “But what’s a detective except someone who wants to find out what happened? Don’t you? I do. We have a stake in all this. And I want to find how all of it links up, what it all means. We’re certainly more qualified than any old male detective they’ll put on the case. Hell, Pam, we know these people, don’t we?”

  I held my head in my hands. “No,” I said. “I feel like I don’t anymore. There are too many people involved in this whole thing; I can’t keep them straight!”

  “That’s what my mother says about collectives,” Hadley laughed. She removed my hands from my head, one after the other, and held them. Her fingers were long and dry and cool. I felt a change go through them when we touched.

  “Murder’s nothing to play around with,” I said weakly. “I haven’t known you long enough to want to see you bumped off for snooping.”

  “Pam,” she began, but then her head cocked, as if listening. From someplace far below I heard her name being called. “Had-leeee…telllllll-aphone.”

  “Be right back,” she muttered, letting go of my hands abruptly and disappearing.

  There was a pad of paper and a couple of pens on the table. In order to stop myself from rushing madly about looking for traces of her life and loves in the disgusting way my new passion urged me, I began to make a list. An orderly list entitled:

  MOTIVES FOR MURDER

  (I think I had seen this in a book somewhere; if not, it was still a good start for a person who tended to arrange her shopping lists in categories: Vegetables; Staples; Sundries.)

  A. Revenge for sabotage of B. Violet (Fran, Margaret, Anna)

  B. Result of fight between Jeremy & June (June)

  C. Collaboration between Zee and Jeremy—why? (Zee)

  D. Jealousy—male (Ray)

  E. Wrong person killed—Elena (?)

  “You know,” I said to Hadley when she returned. “I can’t help but think we may be going at this ass backwards—trying to figure out the murderer before we know who destroyed B. Violet. They happened in sequence. They’ve got to be connected.” Then I noticed Hadley’s face. “What happened? Who was that on the phone?”

  “Elena. She says she just got a call from Fran. She says she might have some information that would shed some light. She asked if I wanted to come by. What do you think? Do you want to come?”

  “Is Fran coming?”

  “No, Elena says she’s still lying low somewhere.”

  I was unable to restrain a last quick look at the turquoise and black bedspread. I folded up my list and said, “Let’s go.”

  Elena lived about twelve blocks from Hadley, on the poorer side of Capitol Hill. She rented the lower half of an old frame house. It was the most ramshackle of the homes I’d visited today. Part of it had to do with the natural chaos children under ten bring to a house—bikes, toys, dishes and clothes littered the front porch—and part of it had to do with the state of the building itself—the tar-like shingles were peeling off the outer walls at a great rate, the porch was rotting underneath and the door had ominous black scorches along one side.

  It was a depressing place, that not even the new striped curtains at the windows or the pink and purple rhododendrons out front could cheer. It reminded me again how poor Elena had become since she’d lost her teaching job, and almost lost her kids. Once, when we first met, Elena had showed me photos of where she’d grown up, in a college town in Indiana. She’d been standing, an angelic child of six, with her dog, in front of a huge white house with a deep, screened veranda.

  Elena saw us before we could knock, and flung open the door. “I’m so glad to see you.” Her blond curls were greasy and her chocolate eyes rimmed with red. Two kids tumbled out at her feet.

  “Where’s Franny, where’s Franny? I thought you said this was maybe Franny?” said the little girl, Samantha. She was about six, with her mother’s blond curls and turned-up nose. The boy, Garson, tall for eight, dark-haired and dirty-faced, hung back sullenly at the sight of us.

  “How’re you doing?” Hadley asked, taking Elena’s hand. “Did you sleep at all today?”

  “Couldn’t,” Elena said, trying to smile and motioning us inside. “I was so worried, and now this phone call.”

  It seemed dark in the living room, perhaps because of the brightness outside. Gradually the furniture took shape—a cast-off couch and chair set, slipcovered, a couple of tables piled with crayons and fingerpaints. There was an unframed Vermeer print on one wall and a Lesbian Mothers’ Defense Fund poster on the other. The rug was scattered with jigsaw puzzle pieces and Legos that made a scrunching sound under our feet as we followed Elena to the kitchen. Samantha and Garson went back to watching TV.

  Elena pulled three beers out of the refrigerator.

  “Not for me thanks,” I said, trying not to sound too dis
approving. It occurred to me for the first time that Elena might have been drinking a good part of the day. Her movements were rapid, broken and sloppy; her voice was a little slow, as if she were being careful about her pronunciation.

  I looked at Hadley for possible confirmation—hadn’t she said last night that Elena had a drinking problem too?—but she was opening her bottle and asking, “Why don’t you start from the beginning, Elena? What did Fran say?”

  “Well, she was drunk,” said Elena precisely and scornfully, oblivious of her own state. “She started out talking about last night, how she thought I was dead but it was Jeremy. She said…a lot of stupid things…she…”

  “Like what?” I interrupted.

  “It’s not important,” Elena shook her head. “The important thing is that she’s afraid of being arrested about his murder because he wrecked B. Violet. She doesn’t want to turn up until they’ve found the murderer.”

  “You believe her then?” Hadley said. “That he was the one who did it?”

  “Who else?” Elena looked away and I saw her hand tighten on the beer can. “Of course I believe her. I just don’t know what happened when she discovered him.”

  “He was still alive the morning after the sabotage,” I put in.

  “Tell me again about last night,” Elena turned to Hadley. “What did she say, what did she act like, when you saw her?”

  Hadley must have been over this with her several times before. She repeated calmly. “She thought Jeremy was you, then she realized that if Jeremy had wrecked B. Violet the night before and she’d seen him, then she was a likely suspect for his murder. She was drunk but she was fairly coherent. That’s why I gave her the keys. Plus, you know, I was a little out of it myself, what with seeing the guy dead and all.”

  “Who got offed?” asked Garson interestedly, coming into the kitchen.

  “No one you know,” said Elena.

  “When are we going to eat, Mom? I’m hungry.”

  “When I say so,” Elena snapped. “Now beat it.”

  Garson walked out slowly, his shoulders and head expressing the most wounded feelings.

  Elena apologized, “I’m not myself, I…” She sagged back into her plastic kitchen chair and tears formed in and fell from her red-brown eyes.

  “Maybe the kids should go somewhere for the evening,” Hadley suggested, putting an arm around her. “Especially if there’s any possibility Fran might turn up. It’d make it easier.”

  “I could drive them,” I offered. “I’d be glad to.” I’d be glad to get out of there, actually. Elena drunk and self-pitying was not an attractive sight. How could Hadley be so sympathetic—to both of them?

  Elena fought to get a grip on herself, nodding to show she thought it was a good idea. “Take them to Jill and Marie’s,” she said finally. “They’ll understand.”

  “Can you remember anything else Fran said,” persisted Hadley. “You said on the phone…”

  “She said—she was probably making this up, you know—that Jeremy was an informer.”

  “An informer?” I repeated. “An informer for whom? What was she talking about?”

  “She said he was being paid by someone, she saw him being paid…don’t ask me,” Elena stopped abruptly. “I know it sounds stupid.”

  “A spy at Best Printing? Employed by one of our rivals?” I couldn’t help laughing. “Or maybe hired by someone to scope out B. Violet? And Fran discovered him in the act of investigation. Oh, Elena,” I said. “Jeremy, an informer? That’s ridiculous! How could she know? Where did she see him?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Oh god, where is she?”

  Elena put her head down on the kitchen table and sobbed.

  14

  IT WAS JUST AFTER six when I dropped the kids off with Elena’s friends. Hadley had explained the circumstances on the phone and Jill and Marie asked no questions, simply unleashed Samantha and Garson into a herd of kids running around the back yard. We exchanged a few perfunctory remarks and then I was on my way again, driving Hadley’s truck. She’d said she’d just walk home from Elena’s and I could give it to her later. I started home for dinner, then abruptly changed direction.

  I suddenly decided to drive up to Beacon Hill and see what Zee was doing.

  Zee’s aunt’s house was a small neat one overlooking the freeway. The lot had recently been planted with a new lawn; there were stakes and strings all around and a fresh green was just coming up. The drapes were closed and the porch light was on, though it was quite early still. Otherwise the house was perfectly ordinary. I’d only been here once before, to drop Zee off. She’d asked me to come in and I’d stopped for a minute. Her aunt was a beautifully dressed, plump, black-eyed woman. In the Philippines she’d been married to a union lawyer who’d disappeared early in the seventies and was presumed dead. She too had been held for questioning, but had managed to leave the country. She had been in the States for six years and worked as a nurse at a large Seattle hospital. That day she’d offered Zee and me tea and cookies; when she’d gone to get them I’d seen she walked with a slight limp.

  I knocked. There was no answer. Knocked again. Louder.

  A neighbor woman next door poked her head out her window. She was Chinese, maybe Korean. “No there. Ladies no there. Go away.”

  I thought for a minute she was telling me to move on and stared at her in surprise, but then I thought more about it and asked, “They went away where? Do you know where they went away to?”

  “No here, no here. They go morning, they have bag. They go taxi. Go home.”

  “Home? You mean, the Philippines?”

  “No here, no here. Go away, go home,” the woman said and disappeared behind a curtain.

  “Well, Detective Nilsen,” I muttered to myself. “What now? Check the passenger list for the morning flight to Manila?”

  I looked more closely at the house. There was no doubt about it. In spite of the new lawn, the drapes were tightly closed and the house had that indefinable air homes get when their owners plan to be gone for a long time.

  It was always possible, of course, that the two of them had simply gone off somewhere for a vacation. But the timing was a bit awkward, considering Jeremy’s demise, and there was also the fact that Zee hadn’t mentioned anything about a trip last night.

  There was more to all this than met the eye—more than was meeting my suddenly sleepy eyes, for sure. I decided the very best thing for me would be a nap.

  Sam and Jude were in the kitchen making dinner when I walked in.

  “Penny’s asleep,” they told me.

  “That’s just where I’m headed.”

  “Don’t you want anything to eat?”

  The fish stew smelled inviting but I was too tired to be hungry. “Save some for me. I’ll be up again in an hour or two.”

  But once I lay down I was out for good. I hadn’t had more than a few hours last night and today’s sun as well as the feeling of deepening mysteries had knocked me out. I fell quickly into such a deep and dreamless sleep that it was a long while before I was aware that someone was shaking me awake.

  “Pam,” my sister was saying. “Pam, come on, wake up. Something important. Wake up.”

  “Ughnngh,” I groaned. “No, no.”

  She kept shaking my shoulder. “Pam. Pam. Come on.”

  “Goddamn it,” I said suddenly and clearly, my voice infused with the fierce and irrational anger that comes of being dragged into consciousness again. “What the fuck is it?”

  “Zee,” she whispered.

  “Zee what? I could use some more zees.”

  “Shhh,” she said. “Not so loud. Zee’s here.”

  “No she’s not, she’s taking a vacation, she went away,” I muttered. “What the fuck time is it, anyway?” I sat up. The room was dark and so was the window. I must have been sleeping for hours. I felt awful.

  “It’s midnight,” she whispered. “I don’t want to wake Sam and Jude. Look, Pam, I
need your help. Zee and Ray are here and she wants to tell us some things. She wants us to hide her.”

  I was more awake with every sentence. “But she and her aunt left on a trip, the neighbor said….She’s here? With Ray?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Penny said patiently. “Now are you awake or aren’t you?”

  “I think so,” I said, getting up and stretching. “Unless I’m still dreaming.” I discovered, to my surprise, that I was dressed and ready to go. On my feet I didn’t feel so bad. “She wants us to hide her,” I suddenly said, taking it in. “From what?”

  There was one lamp lit downstairs in the living room and Ray sat, black hair and beard glittering like tar, under its glow. Zee was shadowed in a corner, legs curled under her on the big chair, fingers twisting a button of her short-sleeved silk shirt.

  “Zee, what’s this about?”

  “I…”

  Ray broke in. “Zee needs a safe place to stay for a while.” Irritable, concerned, a little too masterful, he was addressing himself to Penny rather than me. “This is the best place, I think.”

  “Why not let her talk for herself?” I said. “Zee, what’s going on? Your next door neighbor told me you and your aunt went away, with suitcases, in a taxi.”

  “My aunt has gone to stay with relatives in New York for a little while.” Zee’s face was composed now and she spoke quietly. “And no, it’s not a coincidence. But all the same, she wasn’t involved and shouldn’t have to answer any questions.”

  “Questions about?”

  “About me and Jeremy.”

  I expected to see more of a reaction on Ray’s face. If not teeth-baring angry jealously, then at least wounded pride. But he was smiling at Penny, who had just yawned uncontrollably and wrenchingly.