Murder in the Collective (8 page)

“Shall we go?” she said.

For some reason I felt close to tears. “Ready when you are.”

We figured out the check, said good-bye to Sally, paid the cashier and went out into the balmy evening without saying much more than “So long.” Only as we reached our separate vehicles in the parking lot did I hear her voice.

“Hey Pam. I’m sorry. I hurt your feelings.”

I turned and saw her tall figure silhouetted against the Doghouse sign.

“Me too,” I said. I heard my voice carry strangely in the suddenly still evening air. “I guess I was, you know, baiting.”

Her truck door closed. She was crossing the parking lot, and her boots made a light firm clacking on the asphalt.

“I want to tell you something,” she said when she reached me. “I
have
known Margaret a long time, but Margaret and Anna together is a different story. They’ve gotten funny together about some things, reinforced each other’s ideas. The merger is one. I’m sure they didn’t wreck the place, but I wouldn’t be completely honest if I didn’t say that they seem sort of pleased about all this. It’s true too—they only want to work with women and they haven’t gotten along with Fran for months.”

“Listen,” I said. “It’s early.” I looked at my watch. “Not even eight-thirty yet. And I think we need to talk through some of this stuff. I’m glad you said something. I didn’t mean to be such an asshole in there.”

“I guess I could go with a beer or something after all that java.” Hadley smiled a bit wickedly. “Ever been to Sappho’s?”

I gulped a little. “No, but I’d love to.”

“Great,” she said, turning back to her truck. “Just follow me.”

“Wait,” I said. “Could we go by Best first, just for a minute? I want to raid the petty cash until tomorrow.”

“Oh, I’ve got plenty,” she said, but she seemed pleased when I insisted. “Okay, see you there in a minute.”

That’s funny, I thought, pulling up in front of the print shop on its quiet sidestreet near the Kingdome. Who in hell left the light on in there? I couldn’t imagine that anyone was working late. The whole week we’d been short of business; there were no rush jobs of any kind. Besides, it wasn’t the front light, but one way in the back. It made a dim red glow. The darkroom, the goddamn darkroom. When was Jeremy going to learn?

The door was locked. Just as I put my key in, Hadley pulled up.

“There’s a light on,” she called out.

“Yeah, Jeremy left the darkroom light on, I bet. He’s done it before.”

“I’m going in there with you.” Hadley leapt out, holding a softball bat. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“Don’t tell me you play ball,” I said.

“Hell, I’m the captain of the team.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, unlocking the door and striding boldly in. “All saboteurs out in the open.”

It was quiet. Everything was in its place, of course. There was only the red glow coming from the darkroom, through its partially opened door.

“I’ll kill Jeremy,” I said. “When the fuck is he going to learn?”

I went to the back and opened the door to the darkroom wide. Whatever Jeremy was supposed to learn was unnecessary now. As was my threat to kill him.

Someone had done it for me.

A
RED LIGHT IS USED
in the darkroom so that you can see to develop your film without exposing it. Jeremy had apparently been developing negatives, for the pans of different chemicals stood in the broad sink, the water was still running, and square and rectangular pieces of film had been hung like tiny negative laundry on a clothesline to dry; some pieces still had droplets of water clinging to them.

The red lightbulb gave an extra dimension and feel to the small room, making it seem both warmer and more sinister. Jeremy, lying cross-angled on the floor, his eyes open blankly and his mouth twisted in a deplorably silly grimace, was as if bathed in red blood, though there was only a small sticky hole in his temple.

Hadley and I stood clenching each other’s arms without saying anything at first. Then I started to sob. He looked so young lying there, with his angelic blond curls and empty wide eyes, skinny as an orphan. His Sony Walkman was still attached to his belt, but the earphones had fallen, loose and soundless, to the side.

“Why did he do it?” I cried.

“I don’t think he did,” said Hadley.

Her normally relaxed voice came out dry and breathless. We clutched at each other again. The shop suddenly seemed to vibrate with our fear. We were all nerves, in the state when any noise will make you jump a mile.

The office door in front swung open with a bang and Hadley and I both bit down hysteric screams.

“Who’s there?” I shouted.

“I saw your truck, Hadley, and I wanted…” The voice walked unsteadily towards us. It was a loud, shaky, deep voice that I almost recognized, but not quite. Hadley knew it, however; she turned as if to protect a view of Jeremy, but she wasn’t quick enough.

Fran came barreling through the door screaming, “Elena.”

She’d thrown herself down by the body’s side before she realized it was Jeremy. “Oh god,” she said, scrambling up heavily again. “I thought…”

Like Jeremy’s, like ours, Fran’s face now had a softening red glow to it. It seemed like we were all moving in a film where clay models were used. Spatial distance was different and facial expressions dramatic and simple.

“Did he kill himself or what?” she asked, stupefied.

“We don’t think so, we think…”

“…murdered? But who would?”

“Why did you think he was Elena?” I asked.

“I don’t know, the hair, I guess. In this weird light.” Fran shrugged me off, gradually preoccupied with another thought. “But that means the cops will be here, and oh, goddamn it. What am I going to do?”

“What are you talking about, Fran?” Hadley asked sharply.

“Last night. B. Violet,” she said impatiently. “It was
him
.”

“Jeremy trashed the place out?” I said. “Jeremy? No.”

“I’m telling you, I fucking found the guy there last night. After you and Elena went and left me, I decided to go back down to B. Violet and get something I forgot.”

“What was he doing, Fran?” Hadley asked. She was calm but worried now, and trying to draw us out of the darkroom’s red light.

“He was in the back. Most of the damage had already been done. He was cutting the type fonts into little pieces.”

We’d moved into the other room and I’d switched on the office light. The fluorescent illumination didn’t make the situation any more real. I kept thinking, we have to call the police, we have to call the police, but Hadley was trying to get Fran’s whole story.

“The little wimp tried to get away; he was terrified. I said I was going beat the shit out of him for what he did to our shop and…then…I think I picked up a piece of glass and…” Fran shook her head. In the cool white light of the office she looked exhausted and old, with bloodshot dazed eyes and a tremulous shake to her hands, one of which had a cut between the index finger and thumb. “I just don’t remember. When I sort of came to myself again, I had some blood on my hand and he was gone. I guess he knocked me out. I didn’t know if I’d done anything to him or not…” A big flannel shoulder jerked towards the darkroom door. “But I sure as hell didn’t do that.”

I wasn’t so sure, but the very thought of it gave me the creeps. “If you didn’t do it, why are you afraid of the police?” I asked.

“I’m not afraid of them,” said Fran venomously, while beginning to back away to the front door.

“Listen, Fran, let me get this straight,” Hadley put a restraining hand on her arm. “You went to B. Violet last night. Around what time?”

Fran shook her head.

“We left her at the Bar & Grill about ten-thirty, I think…” I said.

“So it was probably between eleven and twelve, closer to twelve, maybe, when you found him there.”

“Look, what is this? Just leave me alone,” Fran muttered. “Isn’t it bad enough that our whole fucking shop was destroyed? He deserved what happened to him.” She looked frightened at what she’d said. “I don’t mean that. Oh god, if the cops figure out I was there with him, they’ll think I wanted revenge.”

“You probably passed out or were knocked out before you touched much of anything but that piece of glass, but you did leave your keys,” Hadley said.

Fran flinched. You could tell she’d been desperately worrying all this time about what had happened to them. “And the cops have them?”

“
I
have them,” said Hadley slowly. She reached into her pocket and drew them out, tossed them with a tiny clink to Fran. I wanted to tell her no, Fran had to be here when the cops came, so she could tell them about last night, but Hadley and Fran seemed locked in a private stare.

“I’m getting out, I’ve got to,” mumbled Fran.

“Wait,” I said, but Fran was already headed out the door, and Hadley didn’t try to stop her. “Hadley, why’d you let her go? They need her information.”

“Cause she’s drunk,” said Hadley. “Talking to them wouldn’t help her or the cops.”

“She didn’t seem drunk now. That was last night.”

“When Fran gets drunk, she stays drunk for awhile. You probably saw her in her offensive my-father-was-a-logger stage. But she’s got others. I’m telling you, she was drunk yesterday, drunk last night, and she’s still out of it today. She’ll keep on for the next few days probably.”

“Except for last night, she hasn’t acted it.”

“If you knew her, you’d know that’s how she acts.”

“But why isn’t anybody helping her then, if it’s that bad?”

“You don’t think anybody’s tried?” Hadley looked both bitter and amused.

“You mean Elena?”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Elena’s a bit that way herself, attached to the bottle, I mean. That may be the source of their attraction.”

I couldn’t understand her attitude at all. “How can you be so…calm about it?”

“Calm!” she laughed abruptly, looked at me as if I were crazy, then said, “Don’t you think it’s time we called the police?”

They arrived remarkably quickly, while I was still on the phone to Penny, trying to explain what had happened.

“Now, start again, you’re completely worked up, Pam. Jeremy was in the red light and Fran didn’t remember what had happened. But Jeremy, Pam, is Jeremy all right?”

“I have to go now,” I said. “It’s the sirens.”

“Pam, is Jeremy all right? I have a reason for asking.”

“Can you just come down here, Penny, please?”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.

Horror has a way of settling in layers, like dust in an old house that you can’t brush off just once. Delayed shock, I guess, the body’s way of softening the blow. It amazes me in retrospect that Hadley and I were so cool, first at finding Jeremy and then at dealing with Fran, especially since I did suspect her of being more involved than she let on. I didn’t think she “murdered” Jeremy, but that was partly because I wasn’t thinking “murdered” any more than I could help it.

I hadn’t brushed off that final layer of dust called death.

The six cops who turned up (three patrol cars full) were a lot different from Officers Bill and Alice this morning, just as homicide is quite a different crime than breaking and entering. They were all men and all enormous, striding with their heavy boots into the office, into the back of the shop to the darkroom.

I began to feel confused and very tired, after my burst of adrenalin. They wanted to know so much, they were everywhere. Outside, through the open door, the blue lights of their cars turned in quick pirouettes and you could hear the crackling, mysterious authority of their radios.

I showed them the darkroom. They asked me to turn off the red light, turn on the white, and I did so immediately, without even considering if there was any film or photographic paper that might be exposed. In the harsh brightness of the 100 watt, Jeremy looked even more pathetic. The cop was asking me what his name was, where he lived, who should be called.

“Jeremy Plaice. P-L-A-I-C-E. He worked here, yes, in the darkroom. I don’t know why he was here so late, it’s unusual…He lives in the U-District, on 18th, in an apartment, I can get the exact address…He’s got a family in California, I’m pretty sure…”

The cop was turning Jeremy over gently, searching for a wallet. He pulled out keys, rolling papers, and a small tin of grass from one pocket of his jeans. From the other one came a wad of bills and some change. There was no identification.

In the other room I could hear a cop interrogating Hadley. “Did you notice anything different when you came in? Just the red light on? About what time was this? Did you touch anything? Any idea who might have…Did you hear a shot, see anyone?”

One of the cops in the darkroom was counting the bills. “He sure carried around a lot of money,” he said noncommittally. I saw the flash of a hundred-dollar bill. Jeremy, with money? But before I could mull it over, another cop was asking me, “Any reason you can think of he might have been killed? Trouble with a girlfriend, married woman, a triangle? Was he involved in dope dealing or any other funny business?”

“Are you sure it wasn’t, you know, suicide?” I asked.

The cop looked at me. “People don’t usually put a revolver to their head and then manage to get rid of the gun.”

I winced, and suddenly I had to get out of there before I threw up. I knocked past a cop with a camera, past another dusting the sink and door with powder. I rushed into the other room, past Hadley and her questioner, out the front door and straight into the arms of my twin.

“What’s happening here, Pam?” she said. “I got a call from June, she was practically incoherent. She said she’d had a fight with Jeremy and…”

I tried to put my hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Hadley’s cop was at the door. “What’s June’s last name?” he asked professionally. “And how can we get in touch with her?”

T
HEY ARRESTED JUNE THAT
night. No doubt they’d punched one of their computer buttons and found that four years ago a husband of hers had been accidentally shot in the forehead by his wife.

As soon as we got home Penny started to look up lawyers in the phone book. It was almost midnight but Penny didn’t want to wait.