Read Online Vermilion by Nathan Aldyne - Free Book Online Page B

phone number.”
    â€œOnly two people in the world have my phone number. You and my father.”
    â€œWhy are you so mean to Mark?”
    â€œI’m not mean to him.”
    â€œYes 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—”
    â€œâ€”surrounded by three hundred lumberjacks—”
    â€œYes,” said Clarisse, “but he’s not in love with them, he’s in love with you.”
    â€œClarisse,” 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.”
    â€œWhat?!”
    â€œI promised him I wouldn’t tell you. He wanted to surprise you. I swore on my mother’s grave I wouldn’t tell you.”
    â€œYour mother’s not dead.”
    â€œShe’s got her plot. Anyway, he said he’d be in about dinnertime.”
    â€œHow can I get away from him?”
    â€œWe could go to Ibiza,” suggested Clarisse. “He wouldn’t find us on Ibiza.”
    â€œCall him back,” said Valentine, “tell him I have infectious hepatitis. Tell him—”
    â€œEat 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?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt’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.”
    â€œIt wasn’t on him. It was on a handkerchief.”
    â€œAnd?”
    Clarisse looked at him blankly. “That’s all. It was in his back pocket.”
    â€œAnd?” Valentine demanded again.
    â€œMaybe Billy was with a woman that night. Maybe a woman killed him and then kissed him in the handkerchief.”
    â€œMaybe,” 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.”
    â€œBilly 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?”
    â€œMaybe 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.”
    â€œMaybe 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.”
    â€œThat’s a bit involved for the Globe , don’t you think? They have enough trouble deciding whether they’re for or against fresh water.”
    â€œHave you talked to that good-looking cop yet?”
    â€œSearcy?”
    Clarisse nodded.
    â€œI