Duplicate Keys by Jane Smiley Page B

“You could say there’s been contact. Hardly more than that.”
    “So you were with your friends.”
    “With one friend, yes.”
    “Who?”
    “You don’t know him, I believe. Honey talked to him.”
    “I’ll bet,” said Susan.
    “What are you saying?” Noah tried to speak judiciously.
    “You always leave your keys lying around, don’t you, Noah? Once you even lost the whole bunch and Denny gave you a brand-new set to our apartment.”
    “I used to keep a lot of stuff there.”
    “Didn’t everyone?”
    “Any band—”
    “So, who’s had access to your keys?”
    Noah shrugged. “No one, I don’t think.”
    “But you don’t know! Very careless! People get hurt!”
    “If you—”
    “Anyway, you were there that night, weren’t you?”
    “Where?”
    “At my apartment, the night Denny and Craig ‘got killed,’ as it were.”
    “Of course not.” Noah met her gaze.
    “Well, where were you?”
    “I was at home. I answered all these questions from Honey, Susan.”
    “With Rya?”
    “Rya didn’t get home till late that night.”
    “By yourself? No one there to swear to your presence?”
    “Well, where were you?” His voice came out too loud, and diners at the table behind him turned slightly and leaned over their plates. “Where were you? Alone in the woods?”
    Susan smiled and shrugged.
    Alice piped up. “Where was I? I was asleep in my bed. None of us has an ironclad alibi, if that’s what you’re looking for. Most people don’t three-fourths of the time. So what does this prove? Susan, I think—”
    Susan poured herself another glass of wine. “I know you were in bed. I know you had nothing to do with it.”
    “How do you know? You can’t know.”
    “You’re drunk, anyway,” said Ray.
    “Fuck you,” said Susan. With an exchange of significant glances around the table, Ray, Noah, and Rya all stood up in unison, laid down their napkins, and turned from the table. Susan said, “Don’t bother to finish!” Alice saw Ray step up to the captain. She speared Noah’s last medallion of veal and lifted it onto her own plate. Susan was panting. The diners at the tables around them were resolutely attending to their own business. Alice’s head began tothrob. “Hey,” she said. “What’s going on? They’re our oldest friends!”
    “Sometimes I don’t think you understand what’s happened.”
    “I admit it’s rather hard to take in.” She raised a bite of veal to her lips, paused to inhale the aroma, then put it on her tongue. Lemon, pepper, parsley, the tender, milky flesh, a velvety sauce mysteriously seasoned. Susan said, “You act as if things haven’t changed, as if nothing has taken place. Where do you think Denny and Craig are? How do you think they got there? Our group of friends isn’t just going to roll supportively along, patting and kissing and eating together.”
    “All kinds of people had those keys! Honey seems to think—Well, you can’t tell me that Ray or Noah or Rya—”
    “That’s what Denny always wanted, too. Lots of patting and kissing and holding hands. Nestled in the bosom of the family. Craig on one side, me on the other, everybody embracing.”
    “You didn’t seem to mind.”
    “What do you know?”
    “I know that I can’t stand this. I think I’d better leave, too.”
    “I bet you think I don’t cry enough. I bet you think I’m wonderfully brave. That’s what Denny’s mother said I was. My mother, too. Those exact words. Did I want her to come and I was wonderfully brave. I bet you think that after all these years together, I’m not reacting to Denny’s death quite right, that I’m a real bitch to recognize that my apartment’s a good deal even after this.”
    “In New York, any apartment—”
    “I bet you think there’s something wrong with me, you can’t quite put your finger on it. I’m doing all the proper things, but, well, you don’t want to say it. Even think it. You’re a very loyal person. I bet you’re