Vermilion (25 page)
Authors: Nathan Aldyne
“Why not?”
“Searcy's a cop. You don't think he'd be stupid enough to be in a car that was circling the Block and the bus station at three in the morning, with police headquarters a block away, and squad cars going through there all the time?”
“I guess not,” admitted Valentine. “But maybe if he had wanted to get rid of the kid bad enough, if he thought his whole career depended on having the kid out of the way⦔
Clarisse nodded. “I wasn't sure till she came out of the bedroom the second time, putting on her makeup.”
“What? She didn't say a word thenâshe just said she wasn't going to need a lawyer.”
Clarisse pointed over Valentine's shoulder.
A policeman was leading Boots out the door, and Valentine regarded her closely. Her hair fell across her forehead, and the light eye shadow she'd applied was already streaked. She stared at them with vague unemotional eyes, and took a short noisy breath. Her lips were bright with vermilion lipstick.
“She must have got the lipstick on him sometime that night, either playing around with him or by accident, and then he wiped it off on his handkerchief, or maybe she just borrowed it when she was putting it on,” said Valentine.
“Who knows?” shrugged Clarisse. “But when I saw that, I realized that she had been with Billy that night and that she had lied to us. And if it had been Hougan who killed the boy, then Boots wouldn't have lied to us about being in the car. She must have thought she was going to get away with it.”
“Well,” said Valentine, “I guess we have to go down to District One, and clear all this up. I'd love to be the one to break the news to Scarpetti that the âhomosexual conspirators' in this case were a straight couple and a Boston cop.”
“That's some comfort,” said Clarisse, standing. She put an arm around Valentine's shoulder. “Let's do something.”
“What?”
“After we finish things off at the police station, let's go have a few stiff drinks, cry over our plight, and then call TWA and book ourselves on the first flight to Key West.”
“I am not about to put this bruised and broken body out on the beach for all those tanned good-looking
uninjured
men to laugh at.”
Clarisse sighed and pulled her coat up. A policeman waited to escort them down.
“You still want the drinks though?” Valentine said.
“Honey, I just got a pistol fired at my face!” She shoved the leather envelope under her arm. “In the immortal words of Mildred Pierce, âLet's get stinko!'”
All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious
.
VERMILLION
A Felony & Mayhem “Traditional” mystery
PUBLISHING HISTORY
First print edition (Avon): 1980
Felony & Mayhem print and digital editions: 2013
Copyright © 1980 by Nathan Aldyne
All rights reserved
E-book ISBN: 978-1-937384-89-0
For the two Donalds and Louis
You are reading a book in the Felony & Mayhem “Traditional” category. We think of these books as classy cozies, with little gunplay or gore but often a fair amount of humor and, usually, an intrepid amateur sleuth. If you enjoy this book, you may well like other “Traditional” titles from Felony & Mayhem Press, including (available as print books):
S.F.X. Dean
John Norman Harris
The Weird World of Wes Beattie
Marissa Piesman
Daniel Stashower
Peter Watson
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