Read Online Murder in the Collective by Barbara Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

skydiving together if you can believe it. As for me, I’m a total physical coward…anyway, June’s about the same age as Jeremy, but what a difference. She grew up in Seattle, went to Garfield High and got married right after. To a nice guy, I guess, a really nice guy. But he was shot, in one of those weird freak accidents. June says a bunch of them were fooling around, they were still teenagers, someone had an ‘unloaded’ gun and somehow it went off. I think June was holding it, though she’s never been able to say it.”
    “Christ.”
    “There wasn’t a trial, just a hearing. No one was blamed…but June was left with a one-year-old and then found out she was pregnant again.” I paused to take a bite of my burger. “She worked days, went to school nights and did a printing course. She’s been working with us for three years, almost since the beginning.”
    “Well, count June out of the sabotage. Zenaida too. I can’t imagine her wanting to scratch her fingernail polish.”
    “Don’t underestimate Zee. She’s a cool character. Sometimes I wonder if she hasn’t got more guts than any of us. But she’s working with the anti-Marcos group and has more important things on her mind. She wouldn’t have time to think about B. Violet.”
    “She’s got a thing with Ray, am I right?”
    I nodded without saying anything. I still didn’t find it easy to talk about somehow, but Hadley didn’t notice. She said, “What about him? He’s definitely physically capable of wreaking havoc. Where’s he coming from?”
    “Straight from the arms of pacifism. His parents are both doctors for the Red Cross. His mother’s Japanese, her parents died in Hiroshima. His father’s Mexican-American, but one of those people without a strong national identity anymore. They moved around a lot, Ray with them sometimes, in school in California other times. I know he’s got a temper, but he’s heard enough about violence and destruction to last him a lifetime.”
    “He didn’t want a merger though.”
    I tried not to remember Ray’s comment earlier about ‘Now, at least, we don’t have to merge,’ and defended him. “You heard his reasons. It wasn’t misogyny, but the racism issue, the starting all over again with a bunch of white women. He’s had to do a lot of educating—he likes having Zee and June there…”
    Sally filled our cups for the fourth time with the dark, bitter brew. I was beginning to get a nervous, unpleasant buzz—a reminder of why I didn’t seek out the Doghouse more often.
    “I hear you,” nodded Hadley. “I guess I don’t really suspect him, but then…?”
    “There’s always me and Penny.”
    “Or Elena.”
    “Elena was the one who suggested the merger in the first place. And Fran’s her lover. You could never get me to believe that Elena would destroy B. Violet.”
    “Stranger things have happened,” said Hadley, but without conviction.
    “But Margaret and Anna could have,” I persisted.
    “Now let me do my defender bit,” Hadley smiled. “I’ve known Margaret for about six years. We’ve worked on a lot of issues together, put out a newsletter once for two years, lobbied for gay rights in Olympia, spoke on lesbian topics all around town. Margaret is absolutely true blue. Sarcastic sometimes; bad-tempered occasionally, but not violent. It’s impossible, I can’t picture her touching anything at B. Violet.”
    “But isn’t she, aren’t she and Anna, you know, separatists?” I asked, wading into dangerous water. “I mean, more than you?”
    “Me?” Hadley laughed, mocking a southern belle. “Why, I just love men, honey.”
    I pursued it doggedly. “That’s what’s behind this whole thing somehow. That’s what I think. Margaret and Anna might have preferred to wreck B. Violet rather than merge. To punish Elena and Fran maybe.”
    “They’d only be punishing themselves.”
    “Why did they seem so gleeful then this morning?”
    Hadley shook her head. “I wouldn’t