Vermilion (24 page)

“No. I want to put a dress on.”

“You think you ought to go back to the apartment?” asked Clarisse. “What if Frank shows up?”

“He won't. He was just about to take off when I left. He always spends the day in Jamaica Plain. He won't be back till dark. He never is.”

“OK,” said Clarisse, “but Val and I are going with you, and wait with you while you change.”

“You don't trust me?”

“Of course we do, going to the police is in your best interests,” said Clarisse with a smile, “we just want to make sure that you're all right.”

Boots smiled weakly and rose, jamming her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “Will your friend back me up?”

“Who?” said Valentine.

“Your friend who saw Billy get in the car with Frank and Bill. Will he back me up?”

“Yes, of course,” said Valentine.

V
ALENTINE AND CLARISSE stood silently while Boots searched her pockets for the keys to the main entrance of the building on Commonwealth. When the woman began checking each pocket a second time, Clarisse rummaged in her leather envelope and brought out the office keys. Just at that moment, Boots Slater found her own in her back pocket, and she held them up smiling.

Valentine and Clarisse followed her closely up to the third floor. As Boots turned her own key in the door, she said, “Come on in and wait, I won't be more than half a second.” Valentine nodded and went in right behind her. Clarisse followed and pushed the door closed.

The living room was large but sparsely furnished. A soiled hemp rug covered the floor, and on this were a lumpy sofa with dingy cream-colored upholstery, and two matching armchairs. Several movie magazines and recent copies of
Popular Mechanics
were strewn across a wooden coffee table. Some marijuana was scattered over the open pages of one of the magazines, and a crumpled plastic bag lay to the side.

Clarisse glanced up at the ceiling. “You didn't soundproof this room.”

Boots tossed her hat onto a library table that was pushed up between the two windows overlooking Commonwealth Avenue. “Just the workroom,” she said. She waved toward the closed door in the back wall.

She stepped toward the bedroom, but stopped when the door to the workroom suddenly shuddered as a large weight was thrown against it. Boots glanced at Valentine and Clarisse with wide frightened eyes. She bolted for the door into the hallway, but Valentine caught her arm. He pushed her toward Clarisse and pointed at the wall.

The doorknob of the closed door rattled as it was turned.

Clarisse grabbed Boots and pulled her to the wall on one side of the door. Valentine pressed against the wall on the other side.

The door flew open and Frank Hougan ran into the room, his chin bloody from a gash in his lower lip. He headed straight for the door to the hallway.

Lieutenant William Searcy stumbled into the room after him, only a couple of feet beyond Clarisse. His revolver was raised and he aimed at Frank with an unsteady and white-bandaged hand. He pulled the trigger, and the explosion was horrifyingly loud. Jerking backward and buckling at the knees, Frank smashed against a chair. He fell to the floor, and blood from his wounded thigh poured out over the hemp rug.

Searcy aimed the gun again.

Boots screamed and pressed her face against the wall.

Searcy snapped his head around; his eyes were bloodshot, his hair rumpled and damp, and a heavy shadow of beard streaked his face. In one swift motion Clarisse swung her envelope up, hitting Searcy's hand with such force that the gun whirled into the air, clunking to the floor behind him. The latch of the envelope broke and papers flew up around his face.

Valentine dove at Searcy, driving his shoulder hard into the policeman's back. Searcy fell forward, stiff-legged, his chest and face slamming into the hemp rug. Clarisse jumped out of the way, bruising her shin badly on the corner of the coffee table.

Valentine jumped on the policeman's back, driving his knees into Searcy's sides. He grabbed the man's wrists and twisted his arms back and up, grinding them between his shoulder blades. When Searcy tried to push up, Valentine yanked his wrists violently. The man cried out in pain, and collapsed.

Clarisse limped over to the revolver and picked it up. She held it before her with both hands, aiming at Searcy's head. Valentine looked up.

“Don't point that thing at me!” cried Valentine, staring into the barrel of the gun.

Frank jerked convulsively and Clarisse fanned the gun toward him. Grabbing the arm of the chair he struggled to pull himself up. Blood poured out of the wound high up on his right thigh. The pain was too great and he let go, falling back onto the floor and groaning.

There were loud footsteps in the hallway, and a female voice called out, “Marjorie, call the police! My phone's out!”

Boots twisted against the wall. She drew her trembling hands down slowly from her face. “They have a witness,” she gasped, “they have a witness and they saw you pick up Billy!”

Frank raised his head from the floor. He tried to shout something, but the effort was too great and he fell to bleating again.

“They can prove you did it!” Boots cried. She pushed away from the wall and darted toward the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” shouted Valentine, and pulled at Searcy's arms, so that he cried out again.

“The cops are coming!” Boots yelled. “I got to change clothes.”

“No!” Clarisse shrieked. “You don't have to change now!”

“I'll be right back!” She ran into the bedroom. Valentine sighed and tried to make himself comfortable on the small of Searcy's back. “She's stoned out of her mind,” said Valentine softly.

“I didn't kill anybody!” Searcy gasped, and tried to raise himself.

Valentine leaned close to his face. “It hasn't been for want of trying,” he said. “You just put a bullet in Hougan's leg, and you gave me a taste of your technique last night, but it looks like your only success was a nineteen-year-old kid—”

“I didn't touch that kid!”

“Don't try to convince me—” said Valentine. He broke off, and turned to Clarisse. “I've got him, Hougan can't do anything, call the police, but don't put the gun down.”

Clarisse nodded, and edged toward the phone, which was on a small stand beside the door into the bedroom. She punched “911” and stuck the receiver between her shoulder and her ear.

Hougan was arched over the arm of the sofa, gnashing his teeth in pain.

“You may not have killed Billy Golacinsky,” said Valentine to Searcy, “but you sure as hell knew what really happened to him.
That's
why your investigation was so rotten. You weren't trying to find out who did it—you were just making sure that no one knew that
you
had any connection with it. That's what Professor Lawrence—”

“How'd—” began Searcy, but when Clarisse began to talk on the phone, Valentine jerked the policeman's arms, so that he broke off in pain.

“My name is Lovelace,” said Clarisse loudly, “there's been a shooting. One man is injured, and the other is being held down. We need police and an ambulance as soon as you can get them here.” She gave the address and the apartment number. She hung up after a moment and said. “They're on their way. Good old Marjorie upstairs must have already called in.”

“You fags—!” breathed Searcy.

“Anyway,” Valentine went on lightly, “Professor Lawrence said that you seemed more interested in finding out that he didn't see anything New Year's night, than in hearing what he
did
see. And it's also why most of your investigation has been done when you were off duty, and alone. We assumed that it was just Scarpetti, down on your back, but you were out to protect yourself. Were you even on this investigation at all?”

“Yes—”

Valentine twisted his arm again, and went on. “But then you started looking around to see who you could pin this on easiest, trying to find some squishy faggot who knew Billy, but it turned out there weren't any more squishy faggots in Boston. You—”

Boots appeared in the doorway. She'd removed her leather jacket. Her arms were raised as she pulled a brown woolen dress over her head. She had not taken off either her leather pants or boots. She stared at Frank as she feverishly worked with the button at the back of the collar. “I'm going to turn state's evidence! Just like Linda Kasabian! I'm going to—”

Frank yelled inarticulately.

Sirens wailed outside on Commonwealth.

“Here come the cops!” cried Boots. “I'll be ready as soon as I get on my makeup!”

“Boots, for Christ's sake…” Clarisse sighed.

Without bothering to hook up the zipper, Boots retreated to the bedroom. “I won't need a lawyer or anything!” she called out.

“Get out here!” demanded Valentine.

“Just a minute!” she cried.

Boots appeared again in the doorway. She held a comb in one hand and a tube of lipstick in the other.

Clarisse glanced at Boots for a second, and then swung the gun about and aimed directly at her. “Get over by Frank,” she said.

“What…?” Boots stammered.

Clarisse pulled back the hammer. “Do it,” she said coldly. She held the gun steady as she tracked Boots with it. The woman stepped carefully around Searcy to stand beside Frank.

“You said I could be state's evidence!” she cried. “I—”

“Clarisse…” Valentine asked, confused.

“It was you in the backseat New Year's night,” said Clarisse.

“No! It was Frank and Bill. I was—”

“No!” cried Searcy. “I wasn't there!”

“You killed Billy,” said Clarisse, staring at Boots.

The comb dropped out of her hand. Frank swatted at her legs maliciously and then doubled up in pain. Boots stepped wildly back, and fell onto the couch.

“It was you who killed Billy,” said Clarisse again.

“It was an accident! Billy was yelling and hitting Frank and screaming about wanting money and those Polaroids and…” She gulped air. She stared down at Frank's wounded leg and seemed for a few moments to forget herself. She picked up more calmly then. “…and I was speeding my brains out, and Billy was hitting Frank, and we nearly ran off the road, and Frank grabbed Billy and shoved him back over the seat, and then Billy started screaming at me, telling me to give him money, and he reached out and grabbed me, he grabbed my shoulders, and he started shaking me, and…” Boots seemed to lose herself again.

“And
what
?” demanded Valentine.

Frank continued to groan loudly.

“…he grabbed me and he was hurting me, and the crook-lock was on the backseat, so I picked it up and swung it at his face to make him let go of me, and then there was all this blood, so I threw the crook-lock out the window and then we had to go back and pick it up because Frank said he wasn't going to buy another one and—”

Searcy abruptly jerked his legs up. Valentine lost his balance and fell sideways. Searcy's wrists slipped from his grip as he tumbled backward.

Confused shouts filled the hallway outside and a high-pitched voice yelled “Police!”

As Valentine came to his feet, Searcy pushed him hard against Clarisse. The gun fired toward the ceiling as she fell back against the door, Valentine tripping over her feet. Searcy grabbed the gun and stepped back, pointing the barrel point-blank at them. Both jumped aside in opposite directions. He fired and the door splintered just above Clarisse's shoulder.

Boots screamed again. Searcy turned toward her, the gun still raised. Valentine threw the hallway door open wide.

V
ALENTINE STOOD on the landing with his back to the open apartment door. Clarisse sat sideways on the stairs leading to the top floor. She leaned her head against the wall and smoked, a little nervously. The runner beneath their feet was littered with splinters of wood. Another door on the hallway was open a crack and two young women peered out, neither saying anything. Two policemen had just disappeared around the stairs that led down, with handcuffed Searcy between them.

A woman with long blond hair leaned far over the railing above. “Clarisse!” she hissed, “what the hell happened down there?”

Clarisse looked up. “Domestic quarrel,” she answered shortly. The woman whistled and disappeared from the stairs.

Clarisse nodded in the direction of the door behind Valentine, and he turned around. Two paramedics angled a stretcher into the hallway. Frank Hougan's leg had been hastily bandaged and he lay with one arm flung across his eyes; it was apparent he had been given some kind of painkiller.

“How'd you know it was Boots who killed Billy?” demanded Valentine.

“I didn't,” said Clarisse, “I only knew it wasn't Frank.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was the right side of Billy's head that was caved in. If Frank had hit the boy while he was driving, he would have hit him on the left side.”

“But if the kid had been turned around screaming at Boots in the backseat then his right side would have been toward Frank.”

“But Frank couldn't hit anybody hard enough to kill him at the same time he was driving, so it had to be whoever was in the backseat.”

“Yes,” said Valentine, “but what if they had stopped the car, and gotten out, and that's where Frank hit him over the head and killed him?”

Clarisse paused. “I didn't think of that.” She brightened. “But I was right, so it doesn't matter really, does it?”

“But the question is, how did you know it was Boots in the backseat and not Searcy?” argued Valentine. “Trudy said she saw two
men
in the car.”

Clarisse laughed. “Val, even
you
mistook Boots for a man, and that was at pretty short range. Besides, it didn't make sense for Searcy to be in that car.”