Free Duplicate Keys by Jane Smiley Page B

her to see him. It was tempting not to think about it. A life of never thinking about it was quite easy to imagine. She thought of how the police had their own methods, much more reliable than gossip or speculation. She shivered, then walked down the hall toward her room.

4
    A LICE ’ S Monday morning at the library was well advanced by the time Susan called, her voice furred with sleep. Alice had been cataloguing, rather peaceful, impersonal work that gave her a spurious sense of distance from the events of the weekend. On her coffee break, she could not bring herself to mention the murder to Laura, Sidney, and Howard. When they asked her what she had done during her two perfect days, she didn’t answer.
    At the very sound of Susan’s voice, her heart swelled painfully in sympathy. Didn’t she remember with absolute clarity how the moment of awakening was the worst moment of the day, a hole of a moment out of which, some days, one never even climbed? Susan, however, said that she felt much better, strengthened by her fourteen hours of sleep and by the task Detective Honey, who had just called, had given her. She needed Alice’s help in remembering everyone who would have or could have had access to a set of keys. Alice groaned.
    “I know,” said Susan. “Can I meet you for lunch so we can brainstorm it? He sounded so disapproving. I have this vision of us flinging keys out of a basket like flower petals at a wedding.”
    “Bring some pastrami sandwiches,” said Alice. “We can eat on the steps of the library. I only have half an hour today.”
    The list filled two pages of lined secretarial paper. Two pages! thought Alice. “Only two pages,” said Susan. It included people Alice had never heard of as well as people she had not only heard of, but whose records she owned and played. “I didn’t know he was a friend of Denny’s.” She pointed to a name on the first sheet of paper.
    “He wasn’t.” Susan pursed her lips angrily. “Craig met him in California and gave him a set of keys, in case he ever needed a place to stay in New York. As if the record company wouldn’t put him up at the Waldorf. Craig just wanted to be able to say that ‘Kenny had keys to my place.’ Except that it wasn’t his place.”
    Alice counted the names on the list. “Do you really think you gave away forty-seven keys?”
    “There were only six or eight sets that we ever had made, but any key can be duplicated. Honey said we should write down the names of anyone who might have had one or might have borrowed one.” After a moment of regarding the leisurely lunchers and eager pigeons on the steps of the library, she went on, “And I don’t even know who Ray’s friends are. Talk about a doorway into the void.”
    “Say!” exclaimed Alice, but then she hesitated. Had Ray really been to see her in the middle of the night? The incident was so brief that until Susan started talking about him, Alice had forgotten it. She said, “Ray wouldn’t give away keys to your apartment, would he? He’s always kept those people separate from us. He’s not crazy. I mean, he may like the sense of danger he feels with them, but he does recognize the danger. Anyway—”
    Susan interrupted her distractedly. “That’s the way it seems, or at least, it did seem.”
    “Listen to this—” How would she state it? Alice paused.
    Susan filled the pause, warming to an angry glow. “I know that’s where he got the cocaine. Who’s to say that somebodydidn’t get impatient about waiting for the money? Who’s to say that Ray, having failed as the go between, didn’t hand over the key for an evening, so that the dealer could impress upon Craig how much he wanted his payment? It’s not exactly Ray I distrust. But Craig was always dismissive and belittling with Ray. He liked him, but he always teased him and patronized him, and he never saw that it hurt Ray’s feelings. So, what if some guy was pressuring Ray and threatening him, why should