Vermilion

by Aldyne, Nathan

  They finished the buns in silence, watching the snow blowing against the bay window.

  Clarisse pushed the last bit of pastry into her mouth, licked her fingers, and sat up. “Nearly forgot. Guess who called this morning?”

  From the tone of her voice he knew. He closed his eyes, dropped his head against the back of the sofa, and groaned. He lifted his head, opened his eyes, and said, “Mark.”

  “He called at seven-thirty. Seven-thirty in the morning, can you imagine? To chat?!”

  “Clarisse, he works at a logging camp. He was probably already on his second morning coffee break. Why did he call?”

  “Because your number is unlisted. He fell in love with you and you wouldn’t even give him your phone number.”

  “Only two people in the world have my phone number. You and my father.”

  “Why are you so mean to Mark?”

  “I’m not mean to him.”

  “Yes you are. All he wants is to see you once in a while. It must be lonely up there in the wilds of New Hampshire—”

  “—surrounded by three hundred lumberjacks—”

  “Yes,” said Clarisse, “but he’s not in love with them, he’s in love with you.”

  “Clarisse,” said Valentine, with hard-got patience, “he stayed here two weeks last summer. If you’re generous, I suppose you could call that an affair. It began in August, it ended in August. How can you take seriously anything that begins and ends in August? Hot nights and steamy days for two weeks, and then he asks me to marry him. I could have accepted I suppose, but my heart wouldn’t have been in it. Mark is hot, Mark has the body of death, Mark is just about the handsomest most rugged man I’ve ever come across in my life, and he’ll make somebody a great wife, but not me!”

  Clarisse smiled condescendingly. “He’ll be here tomorrow to renew the proposal.”

  “What?!”

  “I promised him I wouldn’t tell you. He wanted to surprise you. I swore on my mother’s grave I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Your mother’s not dead.”

  “She’s got her plot. Anyway, he said he’d be in about dinnertime.”

  “How can I get away from him?”

  “We could go to Ibiza,” suggested Clarisse. “He wouldn’t find us on Ibiza.”

  “Call him back,” said Valentine, “tell him I have infectious hepatitis. Tell him—”

  “Eat the third roll,” said Clarisse, “you’ll feel better if you’re fat.”

  Valentine tore open the bag and devoured the pastry.

  Neither said anything for a few moments.

  Clarisse pointed to the discarded newspaper. “Don’t you want to know what the new clue is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a lipstick smear.”

  Valentine looked up. He brushed sugar and crushed walnuts from his moustache and beard. “That kid wasn’t the type, not even for clear gloss.”

  “It wasn’t on him. It was on a handkerchief.”

  “And?”

  Clarisse looked at him blankly. “That’s all. It was in his back pocket.”

  “And?” Valentine demanded again.

  “Maybe Billy was with a woman that night. Maybe a woman killed him and then kissed him in the handkerchief.”

  “Maybe,” said Valentine doubtfully. “Maybe she could have bashed his head in with a single blow, but she’d have to have been built like Catherine the Great.”

  “Billy was just a scrawny kid, so maybe it was just a lucky hit. Or maybe it was teamwork—a man and a woman.”

  Valentine crumpled the bakery bag. “What are you getting at?”

  “Maybe Searcy is looking in the wrong place. The dead kid was a hustler and so the police are looking for a gay killer. But maybe, if it was a woman…”

  Valentine stood and walked to the bay window. He stared at the snow. He turned and stared at Clarisse. “Maybe a hooker kissed his handkerchief. Maybe he lent it to a drag queen in the bus station. If the police had thought it was an important clue, they wouldn’t have released it to the press.”

  “Maybe it was leaked, maybe the police didn’t want the information to get out. The Globe’s against Scarpetti, and they’d probably like to see it turn out that this kid was murdered by a straight couple out for sleazy thrills.”

  “That’s a bit involved for the Globe, don’t you think? They have enough trouble deciding whether they’re for or against fresh water.”

  “Have you talked to that good-looking cop yet?”

  “Searcy?”

  Clarisse nodded.

  “I called. He wasn’t there. I left a message.”

  “You’re making excuses, Val, you—”

  The telephone rang.

  “Must be your father,” said Clarisse, “I’m already here.”

  “I gave my number to the cop to call back.” Valentine picked up the receiver.

  It was Searcy. “I got your message just this minute, I—”

  Valentine heard two telephones ring on Searcy’s end.

  “Just a minute,” said Searcy. The line went blank.

  Valentine sighed and leaned against the cold glass of the bay window. “I love it. First man I’ve given my number to in two years, and he puts me on hold.”

  Clarisse leaned forward over the coffee table. She had taken a small plastic contact-lens holder and a bottle of wetting solution from her leather envelope, and was snapping the lenses into her eyes. The left one went in immediately, but the second popped off her finger into the high pile of the carpet.

  “Hang up, hang up!” she shrieked.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Searcy demanded. Valentine had not heard the line reconnect.

  “That was Clarisse,” said Valentine.

  She had dropped to her hands and knees on the carpet.

  “Who?” said Searcy.

  “The woman in Bonaparte’s.”

  There was a pause. “In the checkroom…?”

  “That’s Irene. Clarisse, the one with the big—”

  One cheek against the carpet, Clarisse glared at Valentine.

  “—big fur coat,” said Valentine.

  “I remember,” said Searcy.

  Valentine gave Searcy a circumstantial account of meeting Golacinsky on the Block.

  “Well,” said Searcy, “I’m glad you decided to come clean—”

  “What!”

  “You’re sure you didn’t take Golacinsky back to your place for a quickie? You could have afforded what a kid like that was charging. He wasn’t—”

  “Lieutenant, I told you what happened.” Valentine gripped the receiver hard. “There was nothing else.”

  “Well,” said Searcy then, “it won’t do me much good. I was hoping that you had called about something important. I’ve talked to a number of people already who saw him after you ran into him on the Block. What you’ve given me isn’t much help.”

  “You told me to call if I had any information.”

  Searcy, ignoring the apparent anger in Valentine’s voice, said, “Did you show that picture around?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything?”

  “No.”

  “Nobody recognized the photograph?”

  “Of course not. I told you, we don’t let that kind of cheap hustler in.”

  “You found him quick enough on the Block,” said Searcy coldly, “but the next—”

  Valentine didn’t hear the request. He had dropped the receiver softly in its cradle.

  Chapter Seven

  IT WAS THE LAST quarter hour of a beautiful cold dusk when Searcy pulled up in front of Professor Lawrence’s house. He hurried up the sidewalk and stood on the front porch; a frigid wind swept out of the luminous blue sky and froze all five fingers as he pushed the doorbell.

  He looked through the leaded-glass panels beside the wide oaken door, and saw that the rooms in the rear of the house were softly and warmly lighted. Waiting, he pulled his collar high up on his neck, and turned toward the Scarpetti hou
se, large and iridescently white beneath black trees. The snow in the yard was dirty and trampled, and the dead lawn had been whipped up into frozen waves of mud near the sidewalk.

  A coupe of locks were slid back. Searcy turned to the door as it was pulled open.

  Professor Lawrence was evidently not pleased to receive a caller. Though his eyes were politely blank, his mouth was set in an irritated crease. He wore a carefully ironed green flannel shirt, carefully pressed brown trousers, and shiny brown leather slippers. Over this was a large white chef’s apron, the breast of which was smeared with blood.

  “Professor Lawrence?” Searcy asked.

  Lawrence nodded. “Are you a reporter?” he asked.

  Searcy reached inside his coat and pulled out his wallet. When he flipped it open, the plastic crackled in the cold.

  “I’m not going to ruin my eyes trying to read in this light. Are you the police?”

  Searcy introduced himself. Lawrence smiled for the first time. “That’s very clever,” he said.

  “What?” demanded Searcy.

  “The name. Circe. Patroness of Pigs.”

  Searcy cringed. “It’s S-E-A-R-C-Y.”

  “Pity,” said Lawrence. “Well, please come inside. My apron’s getting stiff in the cold. What can I do for you?” They moved into a long hallway, wood-paneled and lighted from above in dim yellow. The floor was soft with thick Oriental runners.

  “I’m sorry to be bothering you now, but I was wondering if you might answer some questions?”

  “Two men came over and ruined my morning, I typed out a statement myself, I signed it in triplicate. It had down everything I know about what happened, and my little part in the drama. What more is there?”

  Searcy seemed embarrassed. “I—I, ummn…haven’t seen your statement…”

  Lawrence said, wearily, “Come in back, then.”

  They moved past the darkened living room into the dining room, where a hardwood fire burned evenly in the hearth. The warm light was caught and flashed off the heavy crystal glassware on a formal table set for six.

  Lawrence passed through this room into a narrow L-shaped kitchen. He picked up a Chinese cleaver and continued to slice thinly a large slab of pinkish-brown meat on a thick cutting board. Searcy stood in front of the fireplace, warming his hands behind him. He could see the professor easily, and so did not move nearer the kitchen.

  “Would you like a drink, Lieutenant Searcy? It’s still a good name,” he added, apparently to himself, “even if it’s spelled differently.”

  Searcy hesitated. “Coffee, if you have it.”

  “With cognac?” Without waiting for a reply, Lawrence disappeared around the bend in the L. Searcy removed his overcoat, and laid it carefully over the back of a chair. He turned down his collar, and rubbed his hands gratefully in the warmth of the fire.

  He glanced back toward the kitchen and started. At the cutting board stood a Chinese boy, no more than twenty-one, who had silently taken up the chore of slicing the meat. His black hair was worn fairly long, and shone almost blue. He wore black pants and a black sweater, and his blue-veined feet were shod in thick black sandals with black velvet straps and woven grass tops. He did not look at Searcy.

  Lawrence came around the corner of the L again, carrying two large cups of coffee. He stood at the threshold to the kitchen. The Chinese boy carefully wiped the cleaver and disappeared.

  “Here you are.”

  Searcy crossed and took the cup from Lawrence, who returned to the cutting board, and sipped from his cup as they talked. Searcy leaned in the doorway.

  “I didn’t know that a professor’s salary could afford a houseboy,” said Searcy casually.

  “Houseboy?”

  “The Chinese kid.”

  “Oh. Neville’s not a houseboy. He lives here, with me.”

  Searcy swallowed hard. “Oh, I’m sorry…Jesus Christ, isn’t anybody straight anymore?”

  Lawrence raised the cleaver high. “In Boston?” He brought the cleaver down and neatly halved a morsel of meat. “Well, there’s Scarpetti, who claims to be straight. That’s one. Are you straight?”

  “Yes,” said Searcy.

  “So, that’s two,” said Lawrence. He scooped up the meat and dropped it into a shining steel bowl. He lifted the cutting board and held it out beside him. Neville suddenly was there to take it to the sink. “Have you scraped the ginger?” Lawrence asked.

  Neville nodded once, said nothing, did not look up from the sink.

  “Now, Lieutenant,” said Lawrence, “I know you have a job, and a murder to solve, and a state representative to exonerate, but I have a dinner party for six, and I haven’t even salted my ducks. So, if you don’t mind, could we get on with it?” He took the cutting board from Neville, and set it back on the counter. Neville then handed him two long stalks of pale green vegetables, that looked to be a cross between celery and lettuce, and which Searcy was sure he had never eaten or even seen before. Deftly, with the cleaver, Lawrence began to chop them to shreds.

  “That night,” said Searcy, after another swallow of the coffee, “did you hear anything at all outside? You know, loud voices, a car, anything?”

  “You know, the Boston police have a reputation for efficiency, but maybe that’s only in months that don’t have an r in them. Why didn’t your superior let you see my statement before you drove out here?”

  “My superior didn’t send me here. I came on my own.”

  “How aggressive of you. All right, though.”

  Lawrence set aside the cleaver and wiped his hands on a part of the apron not stained with blood. He picked up his coffee and crossed past Searcy into the dining room. On either side of the fireplace stood a carved high-backed armchair. Lawrence settled himself into one and motioned for Searcy to take the other. He did. The firelight played off their faces as they looked at one another across the bright hot hearth.

  “Now, Lieutenant Searcy, I’m going to do for you what I don’t do for anybody: I’m going to repeat myself, tell you what I told your friends in the force this morning. But that will be it.” He smiled blandly.

  “I understand,” said Searcy.

  “Nothing,” said Lawrence, “I heard nothing that night. No car prowling through the predawn hours, no voices raised in anger, no sickening thud, no car doors slamming. I slept well that night, and dreamt of Coney Island. When I went out that morning, there was only one set of tire tracks in the snow. It came up to the hemlocks, and then repeated itself going back down toward Route 60.”

  “You must have thought that was strange if you noticed it…”

  “I notice everything,” said Lawrence. “I assumed that someone belonging to the Scarpettis had parked there for a while. Scarpetti often has ill-dressed men visit him in the middle of the night.”

  “What about the car door opening and closing?” Searcy said.

  “Someone trying to dispose of a dead teenager is not going to slam all four doors going about it. At night anyway, this is a quiet neighborhood. I would have heard it if it had been at all loud.”

  “Are your storm windows up?”

  “Not in the bedroom. I believe in fresh air. I would have heard,” he said again.

  “You were in all evening?”

  Lawrence nodded. “Neville and I went out for a walk about midnight, but the snow wasn’t sticking then. Why are you bothering with these details anyway, since the boy wasn’t killed out here?”

  Searcy raised his eyebrows. “Why do you say that?”

  “No blood. Or very little. He had been lying out there for several hours, because the footprints of the killer had been covered up entirely, if there were any to begin with, so he must have been dumped not long after it began to snow. If he were still bleeding then, there would have been more blood. I imagine he got killed in the car, blunt instrument—as they say—and then the murderer drove around until he found just the right set of hemlocks to push him under.”

  “It’s sort of dangerous thoug
h, isn’t it, driving around with a dead man in the car?”

  Lawrence shrugged. “Evidently not as dangerous as being a hustler. And, whoever it was did a smart thing in dumping the kid on private property rather than in a park somewhere, or dropping him off the bridge into the Mystic River.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it confuses the issue. You drop a body onto somebody’s lawn, and there’s confusion, especially if the lawn belongs to somebody who has Connections with a capital C. That’s what makes me think that whoever it was knew exactly where he was going. He may not have known Scarpetti personally, but he knew where he lived. On the other hand of course, you probably wouldn’t be so down on all of this if Scarpetti weren’t so important, so it may have been the stupidest thing to do, too. It could work either way.”

  “You’ve really thought this thing out,” said Searcy with reluctant admiration.

  “Murder is a hobby—at least since I moved in across from Mr. Scarpetti. It’s just too bad that things had to work out quite the way they did—”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, it would have been better for everyone, I think, if instead of a faggot being found dead on Mr. Scarpetti’s lawn—” Professor Lawrence paused pregnantly.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Scarpetti had been found bludgeoned to death on the Block. Scarpetti’s not going to rest his head on his greasy pillow until he proves that this thing was a plot of the entire Boston homosexual community against him. He actually had the effrontery, when I first moved in here, to warn me to keep away from his fat pimply-faced cretinous twelve-year-old boy, as if I wouldn’t shoot the child on sight, to the lasting benefit of humanity.”

  Searcy hesitated, consternated. “We’ve talked to the neighbors,” he resumed after a moment, “but none of the others live as close as you. They didn’t hear anything, didn’t see anything, don’t have any ideas. I was just wondering if you had.”

  Searcy stood and placed his cup on the edge of the table. Lawrence stood also, and followed Searcy into the hallway.

  As Searcy was putting on his coat, Lawrence said, “There’s one thing you can tell me about all this.”

  “What?”

  “Newspaper this morning said the boy wasn’t robbed—he had money in his back pocket.”