Duplicate Keys

1 "I had a key. I was there to water Susan's plants, but I've always had a key. Each of the guys in the band would have one, and other friends, too." Across from Alice, Police Detective Honey jotted something on a pad. When he moved his hand, Alice read, upside down, ? keys out. She said, "Once on the subway I overheard a guy with a suitcase say to someone else, 'Richie knows a place where we can sleep. He's got a key.' I didn't know any Richie, but I can't say I was surprised when the guy on the subway turned up at Susan's apartment a day or so later, and let himself in. He wasn't a bad kid. I mean, he came to Manhattan to take management trainee job with RCA, but nobody knew him, and he did have a key." Detective Honey looked at her attentively, but didn't write anything down. In the years Alice had lived in New York, she had never actually spoken to a New York cop. Although reassured by his wide, bland face, she wondered if he was on the take. She coughed into her hand, which was trembling, and went on as if with a psychiatrist. "It took a long time for the implications of that to faze Denny and Susan, and by that time everyone had a key. Then they talked about changing the locks, but it was a lot of money and trouble, and anyway, Denny was afraid of seeming hostile." Detective Honey grimaced and shook his head. Alice said, "I thought it was stupid, too." "You were watering the plants, Miss Ellis?" "Mrs. I was supposed to. I told Susan I would come every three days, even if the, uh, men were around, because she didn't really trust them to keep everything watered. Maybe you saw that she has beautiful plants." Thinking of the plants made her think of Denny and Craig. She winced. Detective Honey said, "And Miss Gabriel is where?" "In the Adirondacks. She should be home tomorrow night." "In the Adirondacks in May?" "She usually goes at odd times of the year. There's a cabin she rents, and it's too expensive in the summer." "Have you accompanied her to this cabin?" "No one has. It doesn't even have a telephone, and you have to hike in about three miles. Anyway, she hasn't ever really invited anyone. I think she likes the break." "The break?" Alice sat up straighter. "Well, getting away. You know. She's a very busy person, dealing with customers all day, and--" Her voice faded. Detective Honey touched the tip of his pencil to the notepad, then suggested, "So you were there on Wednesday, and came back today?" All of his questions were mere suggestions posed with studied casualness that convinced Alice she was a suspect and make her feel craven. "I was there on Tuesday, actually, but I couldn't get back till today." She cleared her throat. "I left my place about ten or ten-fifteen. I walked down Broadway, and bought a paper at Seventy-ninth Street. The vendor knows me. It's ten blocks from my place, so it must have taken me about twenty minutes. I didn't see anyone. I let myself in, because there isn't a doorman, and went up the elevator to the sixth floor. I've been in that building almost more than I've been in my own, so I'm very familiar with everything about it. Nothing was different. I mean, out of place or anything." Honey drew his left hand across the paper and wrote behind it. "I opened the door. Everything was very neat." With the light streaming in, arrowing among the spikes of succulents, the ivy vines, the heavy, glossy leaves of avocados, the silvered masses of cyclamen, the rosy coleus. Drapes open, skylights blue with sunshine. Alice swallowed, but something in her throat would neither go down nor come up. The detective said, "Did you step into the room before you saw them?" "They were sitting in chairs. I didn't expect to see them aSmiley, Jane is the author of 'Duplicate Keys' with ISBN 9780449908792 and ISBN 0449908798.