Lark

by Forrest, Richard;

  He scanned the boxes down the page and placed an X in one next to, “constitutes evidence of the following crime.” He typed in, “Said concrete form contains bloodstains of unknown origin and is located four feet from the place wherein a victim of homicide was discovered.”

  He completed the remainder of the paper and inserted the second form into the typewriter. This one was going to be hairy. He would indicate on the form that they wished to search the house on Mark Street for personal possessions of the deceased. He’d have to be more specific than that, so he would narrow it down to purse, wallet, pocket belongings, and/or backpack of the deceased. Still too broad, but perhaps a lenient judge would let it through and not question them as to how they would know what belonged to the deceased, since they didn’t know who the deceased was.

  Lark continued typing and cursed high-court judges.

  He finished his warrants and confiscated a patrolman to take them over to the courthouse after lunch. He specifically directed the young officer to look for a judge who appeared to have had a couple of good belts at lunch.

  He was working his way through the printouts when the phone rang. “Lark here.”

  It was the medical examiner. “INFORM has no similar burn wounds with wedge-shaped markings of that size in their computer, Lieutenant. The deceased had no disease and expired from a twenty-two-caliber bullet wound. The bullet has been sent over to the state police lab. Evidence of vaginal and oral rape are present, and we’ll have the semen typed for blood groupings in a day or two. The other toxicology exams aren’t complete, but a preliminary blood run doesn’t show any evidence of drugs or other toxic substances.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Lark said automatically.

  “You’ll get the full report shortly,” the ME said as she hung up.

  “Sure,” Lark said to the dead phone. “In about six months.”

  “There’s scuttlebutt over at City Hall, Tommy,” the voice from the doorway said.

  Randall Lambert, police reporter for the Middleburg Times, lounged against the door frame. He was a rangy man of indeterminate age whose suits always seemed as rumpled as the shock of pale-brown hair that hung over his forehead. He had a wry grin that bordered on the sardonic.

  “Not interested, Randy,” Lark said.

  “You will be when I tell you.”

  “I’m busy.” Five years ago Lark had made the mistake of getting very, very drunk with Randy Lambert. The result had been a feature story filled with comments that Lark was sure he never made or did not remember making. The article’s conclusion accused Lark of stating that everyone under thirty was a “scum bag.” The story hadn’t helped his image.

  Undaunted, Lambert pressed on. “They’re saying the dead girl was a druggy, and you were slapping her around for her contacts.”

  “I’m off the streets.” Lark tried to ignore the reporter and angrily flipped through the sheaf of printouts.

  “They’re saying that you killed her, Lark, and that’s why you’re being pulled into the office. The stink of cover-up hovers around this place like a big-assed bird.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it, Lambert.”

  “You see my article on the front page?”

  “You misspelled my name.”

  “Like hell.” Lambert thought a moment and then laughed. “Then I’m sure you noticed the missing item.”

  “You know we always leave something out.”

  “Like how she was killed.”

  Lark pushed aside the mass of paper. “Listen, prick. You know that any release out of this office comes from the chief himself. That’s the way it’s done.”

  “He’s an old buddy of yours, isn’t he?”

  “Go to hell with that insinuation.”

  “How did she die, Lark?”

  “No comment.”

  “Maybe it was what they call multiple contusions. You leaned on her and went too far.”

  “Talk to Frank.”

  “I just checked and he’s not in his office.”

  “I’m right here, Lambert.” Frank Pemperton pushed into the office. “I’ve just been down to City Hall putting out the fires that you started. You’re a troublemaker, Lambert, you know that?”

  “How did the kid die?”

  “She’s being autopsied today,” Frank said.

  “You can tell him,” Lark said. “We turned up something else that will be our missing detail.”

  Lark’s and Frank’s eyes met a moment and then Pemperton turned to face the reporter. “She died of a single gunshot wound to the head.”

  “Same caliber that Lark carries?”

  “Knock it off!” Frank yelled. “She died of a twenty-two-caliber bullet wound to the rear of the head. Is that enough? Got your story now?”

  Randall Lambert gave them a mock salute and slipped down the hallway.

  “Weasely bastard, isn’t he?” Frank said. “What did the ME turn up that we can use?”

  “The girl’s body is a mass of burns. She was tortured.”

  “Oh, Christ. For God’s sake, keep that from Lambert. Sensationalism I don’t need. What else do you have?”

  “I had men interview everyone on the block except the house on the property. We didn’t turn up a damn thing.”

  “What about the house on the scene?”

  “I’m taking that myself as soon as the warrant comes through.”

  Frank Pemperton nodded and gestured to the mass of computer printouts covering the desk. “Any leads as to her identity?”

  “Nothing. I went through her clothing and it’s everyday discount-store stuff except for her boots, and they came from L.L. Bean.”

  “She’s not from town, is she?”

  “We don’t think so. Her description doesn’t match anyone in our files; we circulated a picture to the high school, and no comparable runaways or missings are listed here.”

  “Okay. Stay on it. If you’re going to need anyone to help, keep it down. I’m already over budget on this year’s overtime.”

  “I need one guy assigned to me.”

  “Anybody in mind?”

  “I’d like Najankian.”

  Pemperton looked incredulous. “Horse? He’s a clodhopper, for God’s sake. He’s been on the force for sixteen years and never taken the sergeant’s exam.”

  “He’s the one I want.”

  Pemperton went to the door. “Take him. He’s yours. Don’t kill yourself on this one, Lark. The kid was probably a hitchhiker who picked the wrong guy to ride with. A druggy from nowhere going nowhere.”

  “You’re a nice guy, Frank,” Lark said.

  4

  “I don’t do overtime,” Horse Najankian announced in Lark’s office on the following morning.

  Lark glared over the personnel folder at the big, ruddy cop sitting uncomfortably in the peeling straight chair. Horse’s head erupted from his stiff collar, and the slight reddish rash at the neckline created the impression of a man alien to shirt and tie, even though Lark knew that he had worn one every duty day for the last sixteen years. The uniform pants were shiny and the seams around the pockets showed several repairs. He was a seedy-looking officer.

  “You’ll work overtime when I assign it,” Lark snapped. “What kind of name is Sylvester Najankian?”

  “Armenian.”

  “Sylvester’s Armenian?”

  “Everyone calls me Horse.” The man’s florid face reddened even further and Lark wondered if he were a boozer. “I didn’t ask for this, Lieutenant. I like it on traffic.”

  Lark glanced back through the officer’s personnel folder. “Jesus, you’ve got six kids. How in the hell do you support them on a patrolman’s salary?”

  Horse’s smile tightened. “Badly.” He shifted his bulk, but still kept his large hands clamped over his knees. “My wife works. She’s a checker at Waldbaum’s Supermarket. The kids help out the best they can with paper routes, baby-sitting, that sort of thing.”

  Lark slammed down the folder. “I�
��ve seen your test results taken when you joined the force. You’re bright enough to have taken the sergeant’s exam, you could have even gone for lieutenant, but you never even signed up.”

  “I don’t want the responsibility.”

  Lark thought about his own bank accounts. “What about the money?”

  Again the uncomfortable shifting of weight as Horse Najankian chose his words carefully. “There are a couple of ways to do your time on the force, Lieutenant. You know that. You can put yourself completely into it and suddenly you’ve got no outside life or time to spend with the kids. You take it home with you, you live with it until all your friends are cops and you can’t ever get away from it. I have always worked traffic, the hours are regular and I get home when my wife does. It works out just fine.”

  “How did you end up out at Mark Street where the body was found?”

  “The watch commander was short that day and pulled me into a patrol car.”

  Another glance back at the personnel folder. “You got a commendation back in seventy-two.”

  “It was pure chance. I stopped a guy for running a stop sign and had to disarm him when he threw down on me. It turned out that there was paper out for him.”

  “And you did it without drawing your service revolver?”

  A long pause. “There wasn’t time.”

  “Well, I only get one man for this case and you’re it.”

  “With all due respect, Lieutenant, you can use one of the men from narc, or there’s a lot of ambitious guys in plain clothes—”

  “I want you, Horse.” Lark had a sudden gut intuition. “Let me see your service revolver.”

  “What?”

  “Hand over your piece.”

  Najankian’s eyes widened, but he slowly withdrew the weapon from its holster and handed it, butt first, across the desk.

  Lark swung the cylinder away from the chamber and peered into it. It was as he suspected. “Has it ever been loaded?”

  “Once a year, when I have to go to the range. We got little kids at home. I can’t have a loaded piece hanging around.”

  Lark spun his chair and plunked his feet on the sill as he looked out the window toward a leaden sky filled with fast-scudding clouds. The day outside matched his inner mood. He was faced with trying to solve an impossible case. There was no identification on the victim, much less any solid clues; and as a partner, he had picked a traffic cop who carried an empty pistol.

  He jolted the chair forward and stood up to hand Horse a five-dollar bill. “Let’s go down to Manny’s Sporting Goods and buy a box of shells. I don’t give a damn what you do at night, but when you’re with me, I want you to carry a loaded piece.”

  Najankian reluctantly took the money and reholstered his pistol as the phone rang. Lark snatched it from the cradle. “Yeah.”

  “Sergeant Soho at the state crime lab, Lieutenant. Negative on the blood sample on that pedestal you sent up here yesterday. As a matter of fact, the stains aren’t human blood.”

  “Any idea what they are?”

  A pause on the other end of the line. “Believe it or not, we think it’s bat blood.”

  “Bats? Like that fly at night?”

  “The same. Negative also on the girl’s fingerprints. She’s not on file here or with the FBI in Washington.”

  “Thanks.” Lark hung up. It was going to be the hard way.

  Lark parked the pickup in front of a fire hydrant by Manny’s Sporting Goods. He sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as Najankian lumbered from the truck and entered the shop. Horse had passed up a beer with the laconic comment that he didn’t drink. This gave Lark further doubts over his choice of partner: a nondrinking, unambitious, traffic cop who carried an unloaded piece. It didn’t matter, he was stuck with Horse. He’d requested him over Frank Pemperton’s objections, and he’d be damned if he’d admit to a mistake.

  Horse must be pouring his own bullets, he thought impatiently as he flicked on the radio.

  “All right, all you studs and babes, we’re down to this week’s Gross Out contest. I want tapes. That’s right, cassette tapes of you guys and gals out there doing it. Now, you know what I mean by it, and no dirty words. Just sounds for Johnny Gross …”

  Lark snapped off the radio so vehemently that the button broke in his hand.

  Najankian walked slowly out of the store carrying a small paper bag. He sat next to Lark and slowly loaded his pistol, taking care to leave an empty cylinder under the hammer.

  Lark pulled the truck away from the curb and drove toward Mark Street. “I have a search-and-seizure warrant for the house.”

  “What’s it cover?”

  Lark gave a short sigh of relief. Traffic cop or not, at least Horse had listened when the rules concerning search warrants had been discussed. “It’s as broad as I could make it and covers personal belongings such as wallet, purse, or back-pack of the deceased. This really gives us carte blanche to toss the whole damn house, but for God’s sake, don’t take anything that isn’t covered in the warrant. If we find anything else, we’ll have to go for a new warrant before we grab it.”

  “I know.”

  “There’s one thing in particular we want to look for: a room that looks soundproofed.”

  Najankian looked puzzled. “How’s that?”

  “The girl was tortured without being gagged. There would have been one hell of a lot of noise.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Horse mumbled, nearly to himself. The large traffic patrolman was morosely silent during the remainder of the drive to the house on Mark Street. He finally spoke when Lark braked to a halt at the curb. “Question, Lieutenant. What about those threads we found on the bush? If they came from the victim’s clothing, that means she was probably carried from the highway and dumped where we found her.”

  “Maybe. Or someone could have wanted it to look that way. Let’s see what our friends in white have to say before we make up our minds.”

  Lark had expected at least a minimum amount of squalor in the house, since it was inhabited by a group of weird young people. At his knock, the door was opened by a flaxen-haired young woman whose slightly frayed prom dress was pulled high above her knees and tucked around her waist. Lark’s eyes were drawn to her legs. He noticed bare feet and knees that were red with slight abrasions. In the hallway behind her was a scrub bucket and brush. It was obvious that she had been doing the floor on her hands and knees.

  She averted her eyes and her voice was distant and faraway, as if she were a recalcitrant child. “Yes?”

  “I’m Lieutenant Lark of the police and I have a search warrant for this house.”

  The girl immediately turned and fled down the hallway. Near the bucket she skidded on the wet floor, caught herself, and continued running through a swinging door at the rear of the house.

  “Want me to cover the rear?” Horse asked.

  “I don’t think she’s running. I think she went to get someone.”

  Winthrop Rutledge, splendid looking in a suit the color of vanilla ice cream, scurried through the door and hurried to them. “You can’t come in here!”

  Lark took two steps further into the house. “We’re in, Winthrop. I have a warrant signed by a judge.” He offered the search-and-seizure warrant while simultaneously nodding toward Najankian to begin the search.

  Winthrop looked at the legal paper with a blank expression. “Does this mean I have to let you in?”

  “It does.”

  “We’re very private here.”

  “We won’t disturb anything unless it pertains to the murder.”

  “She was never in here.”

  “I’ll want to talk to the girls.”

  “I speak for them.”

  Lark stepped closer to the man in the white suit. “Listen, there are two ways we can do this: the easy way or the hard way. The hard way is downtown, and that means paperwork, reading your rights, and all that other jazz that makes me unhappy. The easy way is your cooperation. Well?”
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br />   Winthrop hesitated only a moment. “I’ll get everyone together in the kitchen.” He started back down the hall and called over his shoulder. “That is, everyone except for Reba. Reba is a new probationer and is concentrating in the green room.”

  “She what?”

  Winthrop sighed. “You’ll find her when you go through the house.”

  “Uh huh,” Lark said as he nodded again to Horse. “Let’s go.”

  The room to the right of the front entrance, which had once been the parlor, was spotless and held only a few pieces of furniture: a worn couch covered with a homemade afghan, and several straight chairs. A lobster pot had been varnished and was now used as a coffee table. It held several books and Lark examined the titles: Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, Wheatley’s The Devil and All His Works, and Wood’s Black Magic.

  Najankian efficiently looked under cushions and in back of furniture. The sparse room was quickly searched. “Whatcha looking at?”

  “I think we have ourselves a cult,” Lark said. “Let’s go across the hall.”

  What would have been the dining room was entered by pushing back heavy double doors. “Oh, boy,” Najankian said when the open doors revealed the room.

  “What did I tell you? A goddamn cult.”

  The floor and walls of the room had been painted black and heavy black drapes covered the windows. A lectern, covered with a dark blanket, was in one corner of the room and held a polished brass candelabrum. A single white circle in the center of the floor with a diameter of seven feet was the only color relief in the dark room.

  “Oh, boy,” Horse said again.

  “Boggles the imagination,” Lark replied. “Well, easy enough to toss. Check under the blanket covering the pulpit.”

  Najankian placed the candelabrum carefully on the floor and pulled the blanket from the pulpit. “Nothing.”

  “Okay, let’s check the rest of the downstairs. Then I’ll take the cellar and you can check the attic crawl space.”

  The single bedroom, and the only other room besides the rear kitchen, was also furnished simply. Two large double beds were pushed together along one wall, and were covered with a mass of sleeping bags. Two worn dressers contained women and men’s clothing and undergarments, but held nothing that could be specifically connected to the dead girl. A few jackets and boots were in the single closet.