Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 44, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1999

The Taste of Black Lipstick by Sherrard Gray

Lieutenant Dean March stared at Lacy DeBeck lying facedown on the rug in his library, a red stain spreading out from his chest. A few feet from DeBeck was a leather armchair and a small table with a half-finished glass of whisky and a magazine, Tennis. A second armchair with its own table and glass stood opposite the first chair. Dean’s chief, Bunk Cummins, was measuring the body’s position with a tape.

Dean left the body and went to a tall woman standing by a set of french doors that led onto a balcony. She had introduced herself as Trish Hazelton, a name that rang a faint bell in the back of his head. White-haired and straight-backed, she stared bleakly across the lawn toward a red clay tennis court. “Poor Tiffany,” she murmured.

“Tiffany?” said Dean.

“That’s my granddaughter. She’s supposed to meet me here any minute. She has Wednesdays off from her regular job at Brooks Drugs and was going to help me clean. When she sees this...” Mrs. Hazelton sighed. “Tiffany isn’t much for violence. Well, who is?”

“Someone was,” said Dean. “Was the house unlocked when you came to clean this morning?”

“Oh no. But I have a key. When Lacy didn’t answer my ring, I let myself in. Came upstairs and—” She stopped. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

“Sorry. I was thinking of something else.”

Hazelton? Didn’t a recent case involve that name? Something small but bizarre, even comical in a way, but he couldn’t place it. He’d ask Bunk when he got the chance.

Moments later the medical examiner and two plainclothes from the state crime lab showed up. Sketches were made, photographs taken, and the body rolled over. The M.E. confirmed death by a single bullet to the chest, and estimated time of death between eight P.M. and midnight the previous evening.

“No powder bums,” said the M.E., “so it wasn’t point-blank. The perp was probably sitting in this other chair.”

One of the lab technicians, a large man with bushy red hair, holding a magnifying glass, nodded. “Cosy scene, huh? The killer’s sitting in this chair having a drink and a smoke with DeBeck, chatting, maybe laughing, all of a sudden pulls out a gun and pow! I’ll tell you something else about the perp. He, she, was one careful dude. You can see where he wiped his prints off this glass and off the ashtray. We’ll take it all to the lab, though — glass, ashtray, cigarette butt.” With tweezers he picked up the lone butt, bent and long as if only one or two puffs had been taken, and placed it in a cellophane evidence bag. “And this book of matches from the Blue Note in Manhattan — hey, I’ve been there, great jazz club — and the magazine.” Bushy Head wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and looked around. “Well well well.” He walked to a wall mirror between two bookcases. Leaning against a shelf beside the mirror was a black tennis racket and two golf clubs. “The guy wasn’t too vain, was he? A full-length mirror in his library?” He had started to reach for one of the clubs, a driver, when a female voice sounded on the stairs.

“Gran? Are you up there? What are those police cars doing—” A young woman in soiled bluejeans with a yellow bandana wrapped around her head stepped into the room. “Oh my God.”

Dean thought he had seen her around town, but that wasn’t why he was staring at her. He sensed Bunk watching him and looked away.

Mrs. Hazelton gave the newcomer a hug, patted her on the back, and turned toward Dean and Bunk. “This is my granddaughter, Tiffany.”

Something clicked inside Dean’s head. “Snoop Doggy Dogg,” he said.

Everyone looked at him. The lab people and the M.E. exchanged glances.

“A CD, right?” said Dean.

The granddaughter narrowed her dark eyes at him while Trish Hazelton blushed and then laughed.

“You remember.”

Tiffany might not have been much for violence, but she and her grandmother seemed fascinated by the crime scene. Tiffany at least stood off to one side, but Mrs. Hazelton got in the thick of things, peering over the M.E.’s shoulder, even getting on her hands and knees to look for clues. At last Bushy Head said pointedly, “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you working for the Elizabethville PD?”

After the lab people had left, and while the M.E. was overseeing the removal of the body, Dean went over to Tiffany. “I’m sorry you had to see this.”

“You’re not as sorry as I am.” They stood by the french doors, where she had gone to smoke. Next to the doors was a wet bar with a bottle of Wild Turkey on its counter. She put the ashes into her palm and then into her jeans pocket. “Messy habit, huh?”

Dean was taking in her dark eyes and high cheekbones, her curving neck. He remembered now that her grandmother’s shoplifting case had been handled by another officer, T. J. Davison.