Murder in the Collective

by Barbara Wilson

  I ignored it and buried my head deeper.

  When I finally got up it was almost six and I was the only one in the house. Jude had left a message: Hadley called. We’ve gone for a swim. See you at dinner?

  I made myself some iced tea and called Hadley. Earlier we’d talked about taking a picnic dinner to Lake Washington. No answer. Well, she wouldn’t want to waste a nice day by waiting around for me to call. I had a headache and still felt out of sorts. I wandered into the living room, looked at magazines, did a few stretching exercises.

  I was just getting ready to go up and visit Zee when Penny walked in the front door.

  “Hi,” she said, and looked uncertain. Then she came into the living room and sat across from me.

  “Still mad at me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Remember that David in junior high? That was really a rotten thing to do, asking him to go steady.”

  Penny nodded. “I know. You got back at me though, remember. You told that slimy Roger that you, ‘Penny’, had had a crush on him for a long time. I had a hard time getting rid of him.” She paused, laughed, and then when I didn’t laugh back, said, “Are you planning to get back at me for this?”

  Then I did laugh. “Like put a slug in your bed? God, Pen, we don’t even look alike anymore—I wouldn’t even know how to play a trick on you—not the same kind of trick anyway.”

  “If you cut your hair I bet you could.”

  “Actually I’ve been thinking of it…for other reasons.”

  “Do it,” she said.

  All of a sudden we were friends again.

  “You don’t really mind,” she said. “About Ray and me? I mean, really mind? It’s making me happy right now.”

  “I’ll get used to it. Besides, he’s about a thousand times better than Doug.”

  “You’re not kidding. And Pam, I’m sorry if I was weird about you and Hadley…well, all I want you to know is that I like her, she’s nice.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” I said, then added, “It doesn’t upset you, that I might become a lesbian?”

  Penny shook her punk head. “I might even envy you. It’s often seemed a far more sensible course.”

  “In that case, what do you think about dinner?”

  “Anything but fresh vegetables,” she said. “I’m getting sick of them. Can’t we go out and get Chinese food, take it up to Zee? We could have a little party before Sam and Jude get home. I persuaded them not to come back for dinner, said you were in a bad mood…”

  “Sounds good. Is that the door?”

  “I’ll get it.”

  I was close behind her when she opened it. On our porch stood two uniformed Seattle policemen, one of whom was holding a piece of paper.

  “I have a warrant here, for the arrest of Zenaida Oberon Plaice,” he said, self-importantly.

  “What?” said Penny and I in shocked unison. “Who?”

  “Mrs. Jeremy Plaice, wanted on the charge of murdering her husband.” And when Penny and I still didn’t respond, the cop added in a slightly more human voice that they knew she was here because they’d seen her just a few hours ago.

  Hanging out the attic window.

  23

  THE MURDER OF JEREMY Plaice had merited one short paragraph on an inside page of the newspaper the day after it happened: “Man, 25, found dead of a gunshot wound at 9 p.m. in Seattle print shop. No immediate suspects.” We’d wondered a little then how June had escaped a publicity blitz, but laid it all to the speed with which Marta Evans had acted.

  This time there was no such luck. The main headline in the Sunday paper the next morning was something to do with unemployment, but the second headline announced in bold: FILIPINO WIFE SUSPECT IN MURDER CASE. And below it “Secret Marriage Revealed.” The article went on to inform us of all sorts of new things. Jeremy Plaice had spent three years in the Navy at Subic Bay. His parents in California suspected his wife, Zenaida Plaice, née Oberon, of using their son to stay in the United States. There was mention of Zee’s prominent “opposition” family, of her nursing studies and of her involvement in a local anti-Marcos group. No mention of forging and no mention of what the cops actually had on Zee, but plenty of insinuation. And there were our names too: “Penny and Pamela Nilsen, owners of Best Printing where the two were employed, were hiding the murder suspect in their attic.”

  “I wonder why we’re not being charged as accomplices,” I said.

  “Employees!” said Penny. “Can’t they ever get it straight?”

  “I’m sure we’ll have lots of opportunities to explain to the press just what a collective is,” I said, glancing out the window. A man with a camera and notebook was walking up to the porch. “But I’d rather not bother.”

  We didn’t answer the doorbell.

  “In your attic?” Marta had said last night. “Pam, you haven’t been playing fair.”

  “We never thought she’d murdered Jeremy,” I protested. Of course we never imagined that she’d married him either.

  “If you’re suggesting that I defend her, a murder suspect,” Marta said. “I’m afraid I don’t have the resources.”

  “What about June? You were ready to help her.”

  “That was an emergency. And they hadn’t charged her with anything either. It was procedural, a civil rights issue. This is different. His wife, they said? Now you’re talking murder.”

  “Marta, I’m going to call you later. Think about it. We really need some help, your help.”

  I didn’t have to call her back. She called us.

  “Saw Zee at the jail,” she said briskly. “She’s all right. Don’t talk to anyone and meet me at my office tomorrow morning. Jeez,” she added. “How do you girls get into these things?”

  There were others besides Marta and various reporters who wanted some explanation. Hadley, for instance.

  When we got back from Marta’s office Sunday morning she was waiting on the doorstep. She sputtered when she saw me, “Married! Attic! I’ve got to talk to you.”

  Penny gave me a reassuring look and passed into the house. Penny thought she understood—but she didn’t really. Hadley had thought she and I were in this together. She felt betrayed.

  “You could have told me, you could have mentioned that you knew a bit more than I did.”

  We’d started walking. I wanted to touch her but was afraid to. “I know,” I said. “But Zee had asked us to keep her whereabouts quiet. And besides, I didn’t really know anything. Zee came over in the middle of the night Thursday and said she needed a place to stay. It was Penny who figured out what she and Jeremy had been doing.”

  “What?”

  “Forging documents for aliens. The cops or FBI must have been on to them somehow and when Jeremy got killed it was an easy deduction that one of his partners must have done it.”

  “But there was nothing about that in the paper,” Hadley protested. She had her gray-blond hair behind her ears and was beginning to look interested rather than mad.

  “The detectives are probably trying to put together the pieces and round up the suspects or whatever they do. They probably haven’t said anything to the reporters—and the newspapers are making do with the racist angle: Filipino woman kills white husband after using him to stay in the country. Though they might start using the jealousy motive too if they find out about June. I bet they will…Christ, what a mess.”

  “But what about Zee—do you think she could possibly have done it? Have you seen her since she’s been arrested? What are they charging her with? What’s the proof?” Hadley was her old self again and walking quickly now; I had to jump to keep up with her long strides.

  “The proof is just circumstantial, I think. The marriage, her disappearance after the murder, hiding—and of course, her being Filipina. No fingerprints or weapons yet, no witnesses, though you and I and Penny will all be on the stand, I’m sure.”

  We’d reached the point where the park dipped down into the ravine. Lush green trees carpeted the
sides; down below on the path joggers ran back and forth like missionary ants.

  “What about you?” asked Hadley in a low voice. “Do you think she did it?”

  I stood staring down. “I don’t want to think that,” I finally said. “I’m afraid sometimes it’s hard not to.”

  We sat down close together on the grass. I felt hopeless and depressed. I was remembering the sight of Zee being escorted down our attic steps and out the front door, handcuffed. I’d felt like we were handing over Anne Frank to the Nazis. And all because of stupid sisterly jealousy, stuff we should have given up twenty years ago. I had wanted to hug Zee, to at least touch her as she went by, but the cops quickly forestalled any displays of emotion. She was a dangerous murderess in their eyes, not our friend and co-worker. Zee had managed to smile though, as if she were thinking, So what? In the Philippines I’d be dragged off by my hair and mutilated.

  She was in the King County Jail now, though tomorrow after the hearing she’d probably be out on bail. Marta hadn’t been all that encouraging, could only say she’d do her best to help me and Penny to find a good trial lawyer for Zee. She’d warned us again not to talk to anyone but her right now; and then made us tell her and write down how we remembered the last week, starting with the merger meeting on Tuesday.

  I’d left out a certain amount. Kite flying and softball and Sappho’s—and breaking into Jeremy’s apartment. Even so, there was more than enough. Marta had kept shaking her frizzy head.

  “There are so many confusing things here. This sabotage, for instance—how can it be related? But it happened just before the murder. There must be some link.”

  But what link? Zee hadn’t been involved in the wrecking of B. Violet. She’d hardly paid attention during the whole discussion of the merger. We had only Fran’s word that it had been Jeremy who destroyed everything—the word of an alcoholic on a binge.

  Hadley broke into my thoughts. “But if Jeremy was informing on someone to someone, spying…”

  I interrupted her. “We have only Fran’s theory that he was spying on us or on anyone. It’s based on her seeing him give a package to two men. It could have just as easily been dope as secret papers.” I was thinking, Fran again. Strange how someone so piss drunk could have been so many places and concluded so much.

  Hadley was musing. “Who was Jeremy? Really? I still don’t know, even after having been through his things. Porn, earrings, new wave music, dope—what else, Pam? Subic Bay, the Navy in the Philippines. Is there a connection?”

  I remembered suddenly the small stack of clippings about demonstrations in the Philippines. I’d forgotten to look at them as closely as I’d wanted to, to see if I could remember where I’d seen that one came from. I’d never managed to show them to Zee either.

  “If this were a movie,” I said, “We’d be on the next plane to L.A. to talk with his parents—and from there it’d be a quick cut to the swarming, steamy streets of downtown Manila.” I sighed. “Real life is always so low-budget.”

  “If we went to California,” Hadley said, “We could pretend we were sleazo detectives…”

  “Seedy motels and luxurious estates…”

  “Dazzling blonds answering the door in negligees…”

  “Just trying to corrupt us.”

  “Yeah!” said Hadley enthusiastically. “What about the telephone?” she added in a more thoughtful voice.

  “The telephone?”

  “You know—long distance after five p.m., before eight in the morning…More our speed.”

  “Call his family? Find out more about him?”

  “It’s someplace to start anyway,” she said.

  We returned to the house to find June had arrived. She looked furious, holding the newspaper front page in her hand.

  “This is true? They were jesus fucking married?”

  “I think it was just convenience,” I said. “To help Zee stay in the country.”

  “That motherfucking two-timer,” June said, with some measure of wonder in her voice. “No wonder she offed him.”

  “Hey, keep it down, June,” I said nervously. “Come inside.” No telling anymore who was lurking around the neighborhood. The three of us went inside to find Penny and Ray sitting on the living room sofa.

  “I didn’t know we were having a collective meeting this morning,” I tried to joke. “Or else I would have made some coffee cake.” I still wasn’t sure how at ease I could feel with the reality of Penny and Ray as a couple. In deference to my sister I could no longer malign Ray as an ex-boyfriend or even ignore him. I would have to start making some effort at friendly co-existence.

  “Since we’re all here,” said Ray, “Maybe we should discuss this latest event.” I noticed he was looking only at June, or possibly at my left ear, too. I wondered if Penny had told him about me and Hadley and what he thought. The idea of them discussing me made me flush, first with embarrassment, then with anger.

  I said, instead, coolly and calmly, “We’re not all here.”

  “But Zee,” Penny began.

  “I was thinking of Elena.”

  Penny looked almost blank for an instant and I thought how easily Elena had stepped back from the collective. Essential neither at work nor at decision-making.

  “This is just informal,” said Ray.

  “Then you don’t mind if Hadley stays too,” I said smoothly.

  There was a slight pause. Hadley obviously was supposed to back down at this point, to say, “Oh, I’ve got to be going, thanks anyway.” But she didn’t.

  “It’s fine with me,” said June. And then Penny and Ray nodded too.

  “Look,” said Hadley. “I don’t mean to be too obvious, but we’ve got a murder on our hands, and every one of us is under suspicion in some way. Every one of us is going to be questioned and every one of us has the chance of being called to the stand. June because she was lovers with Jeremy, Pam and I because we found him, Penny and Pam because they were hiding Zee, and Ray because he also worked at Best Printing and was the last one there that night. I know we all have a horror of getting involved, but it seems like we don’t have a choice. At least we should get our stories straight and make some general agreement not to talk about ourselves to people who are going to use it against us. At best we might possibly work to help come up with a defense for Zee…”

  “But no one here thinks that she actually killed him,” Ray burst out of his black beard. “It’s impossible. She’s not that kind of person at all…” He stopped just as abruptly and looked around. “You don’t, do you?” He asked June. “After your experiences…”

  June bent her small, close-cut head. “Mistakes happen,” she said, almost inaudibly. “They could have been arguing, maybe he pulled a gun and she…I don’t know,” she said. “Don’t want to conjecture. People’s reasons are their reasons, sometimes no rhyme or reason at all.”

  Penny also shook her head. “It’s not important to me to know the answer. I’ll support her either way.”

  “Pam,” Ray said, almost imploringly, staring at me. I almost replied the way he wanted, for old times sake. But I said nothing. I just didn’t know.

  “Well, I don’t think she did it,” said Hadley firmly. “And I want to find the person who did.”

  24

  AN HOUR LATER WE’D come to some decisions and divided the responsibilities in what seemed a suitably collective way. Ray would stay in touch with Zee’s Filipino group, especially Benny and Carlos, and help rally support for her; Penny would be the link to Marta and the new lawyer and everything judicial; Hadley and I, with June’s help, would keep conducting our private investigation into Jeremy’s life, as well as X’s motives for killing him. We also agreed that, for now, nothing was to be said publicly about the merger idea or sabotaging of B. Violet. That would only confuse things.

  Although I agreed to this, I couldn’t help feeling that Fran was getting off too lightly. Hadley and I would probably have to testify how we’d found Jeremy; Fran wouldn’t. Fran h
ad been the one who said she saw him destroying B. Violet, who’d supposedly seen him being passed a parcel by two men. But Fran wasn’t being held responsible for any of this, by any of us.

  Finally, we decided that we would start back to work tomorrow for sure and that, at least temporarily, Hadley would take over Jeremy’s job in the darkroom.

  “What about Elena?” June asked, standing up and stretching her compact body. Her round, hazelnut eyes looked tired; she yawned.

  No one answered. Penny and Ray were halfway out the door to buy food for the barbecue here later this afternoon; Hadley was talking about going swimming, and I was thinking about Hadley in a bathing suit. I didn’t know whether June meant we should tell Elena about our plans or to get her to start coming into work again too. Personally I felt that Elena had had more than enough to cope with lately; she wasn’t really needed anyway.

  “So you and Hadley are going to do some investigating,” June said suddenly. “What kind of help do you want from me?”

  It felt awkward. In dividing up the tasks, no one had wanted to acknowledge one painful fact: That until a few days ago June and Jeremy had been lovers. In spite of her anger she must have cared about him. Maybe a lot. Maybe a lot more than she was willing to let on.

  June had dropped back into the chair and was regarding us. “Or do you want any help at all?”

  “Of course we do,” I said. “You knew Jeremy better than we did. How he spent his time, with whom, what kind of stuff he might have been playing around with…It’s just a question of whether you want to talk about any of it to us…”

  I trailed off. I had the sudden feeling that June had put up a wall against me, that I’d said something wrong. She was tapping a sneakered foot in a complicated rhythm on the carpet, containing something.

  “You’re just curious, that it? Think I might have the key, not even know it myself?” June paused, then looked directly at me and her look wasn’t friendly. “Listen. I may not be proud of being with a guy who was screwing other women, a guy who was married to someone else. I may even think there was something pretty nasty about that guy—yeah, there was for sure—and I may want to find out why he was killed as much as you do, maybe more…But I don’t want to be your negro doing your work for you. And I’m not about to go confessing my private life so you can figure out the mystery and take the credit.”