Murder in the Collective (22 page)

I thought, if this is what she told the reporter, then the account in the paper was mild.

“Mrs. Plaice,” I interrupted. “When was this, when did you meet her?”

“It was Christmas,” she said. “Christmas before last and Jeremy called down and said he wanted to come home and could he bring his girlfriend and of course I was just tickled pink, he’d never brought a girl home for the holidays before, and of course I was worried about him, I was working again, his brother and sister were married and there was just Jeremy. I used to worry about him and then he just up and joined the Navy, gone three years…so it wasn’t like we were used to him bringing girls home…”

She paused for breath and her voice took on a tone of betrayal.

“…And then we went to pick them up at the Ontario Airport and you know he hadn’t said one word about her being a Philippines girl, he could have at least said something. Well, we’re not rich people but I’d decorated the house up something special and cooked a ham and a turkey and there were all kinds of relatives and some of the neighbors…oh, it was downright embarrassing.”

“How long did they stay?”

“Well I just asked her what they did in the Philippines instead of Christmas and she said they celebrated the birth of Christ, they were Catholic there, but how was I supposed to know that, they look like Japanese practically, over there in Asia somewhere with those slanty eyes I thought they had Buddha or something. I was just trying to be friendly and so I started telling her about Uncle Joe being stationed there during the war and somebody else said something about the Philippines always wanting to be the fifty-first state and someone else said they thought it was better with just Hawaii, though the Philippines people made really nice baskets, she’d bought some on sale…”

“And Zenaida left.”

“They both left, first her, in a huff, then Jeremy. Then Jeremy came back and we told him it was all for the best, a girl like that could have never fit into American life, he’d be feeding all her relatives before he knew it…”

“Well, thanks, Mrs. Plaice,” I said in as neutral a voice as I could manage. “I just wanted to say I was sorry.”

“My husband and me we’ll be coming up there when the trial starts,” she said. “I want to make sure justice is done, that everybody knows what a good boy Jeremy was to be murdered by that little…”

I hung up and turned, shaking, to Hadley. “I’m sure glad we didn’t fly down to Fullerton,” I said. “Or I think there could have easily been another murder. By strangulation.”

L
ATE THAT AFTERNOON ZEE
was released on bail. Hadley and I were waiting for her when she and her aunt arrived home.

“I see you want some explanations,” said Zee tiredly when she saw us sitting on the front steps.

“This isn’t the right time,” Mrs. Reyes said, unlocking the door and making a kind of sweeping movement as if to drive away flies. “Go away now, girls, can’t you see Zenaida is exhausted? She has just spent a night in jail.”

“Come on in,” said Zee. “We’ll have some tea. And a talk. I enjoyed talking to you, you know, Pam, up in the attic.”

“We didn’t come just to interrogate you, Zee,” I admitted. I was recognizing for the first time how very bad the situation was for her and how well she was taking it. She couldn’t be guilty, I knew that. I knew it. “We also wanted to ask what we could do to help.”

“Thanks,” she said, catching my hand and pressing it. “But I guess I need to tell you some things, things I didn’t tell you before.” She sat down in the living room and brushed her thick black hair with both hands. Mrs. Reyes went into the kitchen without another word.

“When did I marry Jeremy and why? Is that what you have been asking yourselves? Well, I have too, you know. For months. I knew Jeremy first from his interest with one of the Filipino groups. He was liked, at least he was accepted. No one could very well understand what he was doing with us, but he explained that he had been in the Navy in the Philippines and that was making him completely anti-Marcos. We all said okay to that. If you believe in something so much yourself you don’t need so much convincing that other people believe it too. And well, you know, this was all around the time I was quitting the nursing school and trying to switch into graphics. My English still had some problems—Jeremy offered to help me—just as a friend. I thought he was a very good kind of person in some ways. And then I was having trouble with the immigration, you know, and suddenly he says to me, I will marry you if you want to—to help you—it won’t be serious.

“I don’t know why it seemed like such a good idea. I guess I had known some other people who had done it, mostly political men who did not want to be deported, with white women. And it seemed like a permanent solution. No more forms and waiting in lines, and always being afraid of having to go back to the Philippines. This time if I went back I would be the wife of an American. I would have some
rights
!”

Zee
laughed scornfully. “That is the state of things there, you know, no rights as a Filipino, every right as an American. I had to ask myself how I felt about Jeremy and the answer was he seemed very kind and anyway I never planned to marry anyone else—not me! So we did it, without anybody but a few people knowing. And then it was funny, I don’t know, maybe just the fact of being married made us fall in love a little bit. There is so much
solemn
attached to it, this marriage thing, you can’t help but feel. Ah, we were sleeping together then and Jeremy wanted me to meet his family. That was when—his family weren’t so very nice to me. And I came back feeling like I could have nothing to do with a white man again, you know? There is always some way they try to make you feel dirty…”

I almost asked her about the porn magazines and if he’d ever…but Zee looked so uncomfortable already that I didn’t push it.

“I came back from Fullerton,” she repeated, “and I fell in love with Benny for some months. Then I didn’t want to say a word, a word about being married. And later, with Ray, the same. Now Carlos, but of course he knows…Jeremy was okay about it, I was surprised. He said he understood, he wanted only to help me and be my friend…”

I didn’t believe it had been so simple. “And he never pressed you…?”

“No,” said Zee quickly. “Never like that. We were friends.”

Like what? I wondered, but said only, “And so you told him about the job at Best Printing.”

“Yes,” said Zee, embarrassed, explaining, “He didn’t have a job right then so when Kay quits, quit, I just called up and tell him.”

“But you never told us you knew him.”

“I know…it was just a funny situation. And then, pretty soon, I didn’t like him so much anyways.”

“How do you mean?” Hadley asked.

“He wasn’t always that way,” Zee burst out, “that spaced-out way. It was only something he did, maybe to make people to trust him, I don’t know. But he could be different.”

“How different? Calculating, threatening…?”

“Just different.” Zee retreated.

I said, “Jeremy started about a year ago at Best. When did the forging start?”

“Six months ago.”

“And it was his idea.”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t force you?”

“No.”

“I know you did the camera work at Best, but who did the typesetting, who did the printing?”

“Some people, another place,” Zee looked panicky. “We don’t need typesetting, we just get a form and copy it. And…some people, they’ve got a little press in their garage, they can run it.”

Suddenly Zee had become guarded, distant. I hesitated to push her, but I wasn’t satisfied.

Hadley spoke up, “I don’t believe you killed him, Zee. But do you have any idea who did?”

“I’ve thought and thought,” said Zee, looking down, not at us. “But it gets so complicated. Somebody maybe whose papers were wrong—who gets caught. Maybe they killed Jeremy and make it so I’m punished.”

“But if Jeremy were informing on Filipinos in the community,” I said. “And if someone found out…”

I pulled out the newsclippings I’d found in Jeremy’s room. “Do any of these names look familiar to you?”

Zee regarded them closely. “But yes, there’s Rodrigo Villaron, and Maria Gallego too, listed as members of the student group from some years ago, they’re in San Francisco now…And Amado, that’s Benny’s brother I was telling you about—the one who was killed when he went back. Where did you find these?”

“Jeremy’s apartment.”

“I didn’t want to think it, Pam, that he could really do this to us.”

“But you did think it, on occasion.”

Zee’s voice sank low. “The questions he asked me sometimes—like personal questions about people. I didn’t understand why he wanted to know.”

“Did you know he had hundreds of dollars in his pocket when he died?”

Zee just stared at me.

“He wasn’t blackmailing anyone, was he, Zee? He wasn’t blackmailing you?”

“No!”

“Threatening to talk to the authorities about what you were doing?”

“No. No. No.”

“I think,” said Mrs. Reyes, appearing at the kitchen door without the tea we’d been promised. “That this is enough.”

“Guess you watched a lot of
Perry Mason
as a kid,” said Hadley as we went down Mrs. Reyes’ driveway to her truck.

“Was I that bad?”

“No, you were rather good, in fact. It just seemed hard on Zee. That style of questioning, I mean.”

“Well, we found out a few things,” I said, stung. “Do you really think I was too brutal?”

Hadley paused. “You know, she didn’t exactly admit to anything you were asking.”

“Nope. She denied everything I suggested. Very convincingly. But I’m sure now that Jeremy was informing on them and that he was probably blackmailing Zee and possibly others to keep quiet. That doesn’t mean that’s why he was murdered of course…”

“So how’re you going to find out?”

“I think we should start with Benny and Carlos tomorrow.”

“You don’t think you’re getting a little too carried away with this?”

“What do you mean? I thought you liked being a detective?”

“I do—sort of. On the other hand, have you noticed that car down the street with the two men in it, watching us?”

“Jesus Christ,” I said, breaking out in a sweat. “Let’s just act normal, get in the car and…”

We jumped into the truck like star athletes and roared off down the street. The car stayed parked where it was.

We were still shaking by the time we pulled up in front of my house. All the thrillers I’d ever seen were playing in technicolor in my brain: shoot-outs on the freeway, free-falls from the forty-ninth floor, bombs under the car…We’d better get some guns if we were going to continue this investigation. But I didn’t want to shoot anyone!

“Hey, we haven’t had dinner yet,” Hadley remembered.

“You can
think
about eating?”

“I can always think about eating.”

“I want to call Zee and tell her there’s two men watching her house.”

“Okay, and then we’ll go out to eat. Maybe a pizza—do you like pizza?”

There were some people in the living room when we came in: Penny, Ray and a couple I didn’t recognize.

“Pam,” called Penny.

“Just a sec.” I ran to the phone and dialed Zee.

“She’s in the shower,” said Mrs. Reyes.

“Mrs. Reyes, there’s a car with two men parked near your house. They may be watching you. I just wanted to tell you.”

There was a pause while she looked out the window. “Oh, yes, thank you, Pamela.”

“You’re not worried?”

“It’s Benny and Carlos,” she said. “Keeping an eye on things.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, that’s good, just checking…”

“Thank you, Pamela. Now good-bye.”

“Benny and Carlos,” I muttered to Hadley.

“Our latest suspects,” she said. “Maybe we should go back and invite them out to dinner.”

“No way. Tomorrow’s soon enough.”

“Pam,” called Penny impatiently from the living room. “Come on.”

I went in, followed by Hadley. The woman on the couch looked vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t place her. Blond curls and pretty like Elena, though with a considerably pudgier figure. She looked like the housewife Elena had never become—kindly, cheerful, a little martyred. The man next to her was probably her husband, a blue-collar worker with thick arms and a hardbitten face.

“This is Jeremy’s sister and brother,” said Penny. “Karen and Don.”

“Oh.”

From the way Jeremy had talked about his older siblings I’d imagined them looking like Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. These two were obviously down-to-earth regular types whose favorite group was probably the Beach Boys.

“Nice to meet you,” I remembered to say and introduced Hadley. “Jeremy used to talk a lot about you.”

“We came up to collect the kid’s stuff,” said Don, as if he hadn’t heard me.

“We thought you might have some things you could tell us,” said Karen apologetically. “Seeing you worked with him and everything. I guess you were the ones who found him—maybe you’ve got some idea who killed him.” Her voice turned pleading. “He was such a good kid.” She pulled out a photograph of a seven-or eight-year-old boy on a horse. Jeremy with a smile of sweetness and pride. “I’ve always kept this…Jeremy was the youngest, you know, he was really the pet. I got married and moved away when he was eleven but I always thought of him.”

“I know,” said Don gruffly, “that I didn’t always treat him seriously. Hell, I was eight years older and who wanted a little kid tagging along everywhere? But I liked him too, took him to his first baseball game.”

A mood of melancholic nostalgia was palpable in the room, as if a funereal hymn were playing softly somewhere overhead. Hadley snapped us out of it.

“We think Jeremy might have been into drugs, maybe a dealer,” she said matter-of-factly. Did we? I stared at her.

But Karen and Don didn’t look that surprised; embarrassed and defensive maybe, but not surprised.

“We knew he had a drug problem in the Navy,” Karen said. “Over there in the Philippines. It was so easy to get stuff there, you know. A lot of people took drugs, I guess.”

“But Jeremy got caught,” said Hadley, in the same matter-of-fact tone, as if she knew the whole story and was only asking confirmation.