Murder in the Collective by Barbara Wilson Page B

must be some explanation. She’s not like that, even when she’s drunk. Verbally hostile, but not destructive. She loves B. Violet; she’s worked there six years. She helped start it.”
    “What was it you found of hers?” Penny pushed.
    Elena gave up. “Her car keys.”
    “Maybe they were an extra pair.”
    “I know she only has one pair. And we drove together to the meeting at Best. And you drove me home, Pam. So unless something is totally crazy, I guess she must have been at B. Violet last night.”
    There was a long silence. Elena put her head down on her arms. “I don’t know what to do,” she said, muffled. “I had her car keys in my hand, but somehow I lost them.”
    “Just now? I mean, at the shop?”
    Elena nodded. “Now you’ll never believe me.”
    I couldn’t figure out whether she was trying to protect Fran or to accuse her. “If the keys are there someone will find them.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Elena said.
    It was after ten-thirty by the time we got to Best Printing. Elena wasn’t with us; she’d decided to go back to Fran’s apartment to see if she turned up. I told her to call if she needed moral support and she pressed my arm gratefully as she got out of the car.
    “So what are you now? The Lesbian’s Home Companion?” asked Penny.
    “Knock if off, sis.”
    “Sorry,” she said. “It’s that jerkface Doug. In a way I’m just as glad the phone rang and everything happened this morning. Kept me from thinking about him. He didn’t stay the night, you know. There we were, having ice cream and everything. Sam and Jude had gone upstairs and things were getting cozy. ‘What time is it?’ he says all of a sudden and jumps up. ‘Why? Got a date?’ I say. And you know what? The asshole did. Shit, was I pissed. You don’t do that to people, eat their ice cream—Haagen-Dazs is expensive you know—and get them all horny, then leave to go sleep with someone else.”
    “That is low,” I agreed. I couldn’t deny, however, that I felt a little pleased. Jealousy isn’t good for the soul and that’s definitely what I’d been feeling last night upstairs with my three scoops of Swiss Almond Vanilla.
    “So you went to a lesbian bar, huh?” said Penny.
    I’d forgotten my little lie. “Uh, well, not exactly. They wanted to, but you know me, too chicken. We ended up at the Bar & Grill.”
    “Too bad,” said Penny. “I’ve always wondered what Sappho’s was like.”
    “You’ve heard of it?”
    “Sure.”
    Even your own twin can surprise you sometimes.
    At Best we were greeted with attitudes ranging from loud scorn to apparent indifference. So we thought we could just stroll in any old time, did we? We were just lucky that it hadn’t been that busy. Before we told them about the sacking of B. Violet, I tried to notice whether any of them seemed different—more tired, more hysterical, more subdued, more guilty—and whether any of them had bandages on their hands. But if any of them were wounded, it wasn’t in obvious places. And even to my practiced collective eyes, everyone seemed much the same: Jeremy vague and spacey; June zippily cheerful; Ray irritated and concerned; Zee—but in some ways I didn’t feel I knew Zee well enough to see a difference, if there was one. She was gloriously turned out this morning as all others, in thin red-and-black-striped pants that were tight around the waist and ankles and full around the knees. With them she wore a short-sleeved red shirt and a black sweater knotted around the shoulders. With unusual silver earrings, many rings and bracelets, her smooth heavy black hair arranged faultlessly as ever, she looked as if she were working at Vogue, not at Best.
    We told them what had happened. About the vandalism, about the cops and the fingerprinting and non-fingerprinting, about Fran being missing and Margaret’s cut finger. The only thing we didn’t mention and I don’t know why, was that Elena had found Fran’s car keys.