Lark

by Forrest, Richard;

  “I can hear his assurance come over the radio,” Lark said.

  “So does everyone. He can intimidate people. You ought to hear some of the interviews, or the way Johnny cuts people down on the phone. If he doesn’t like your call, he hangs up. He’s not afraid of anyone or anything.”

  “If you can turn Johnny on when you sit before a microphone, can you bring him back anytime you want?”

  “Well, almost anytime. There’s times when I’m home that he just isn’t there.”

  “But you could now, for instance?”

  “Of course.”

  “I want to hear Johnny. Bring Johnny Gross in here and let me talk to him.”

  It started with a sly smile that gradually widened into a full grin and continued changing until the open smile had contorted into a snide grimace. With the facial changes, the vitality behind Maurice Grossman’s eyes increased and the full facial impact was that of another person. Lark was watching Johnny Gross appear.

  “You’re a horse’s ass, cop, you know that? You guys wouldn’t last ten minutes in the real world. You need the government tit to suck on and a horse pistol strapped to your belt in place of a prick. You nauseate me, buster.”

  “How many girls has it been, Johnny?” Lark’s voice was still in the deep registers of sympathetic understanding. “You can tell me. As a matter of fact, you want to tell me all about it.”

  “I don’t keep track, pig. And there’s no laws against fucking girls as long as they aren’t jailbait.”

  “I’m not asking about screwing them; I’m talking about killing them.”

  The Gross facade crumpled. “What?” There was true fright in the voice. “That’s what you’re getting at. You’re accusing me of murdering those women on the tapes.”

  “Sometimes there’s two parts to all of us, Johnny. Call one part the dark and the other the light. The dark part does things that might ordinarily horrify us, but it’s still part of us. Now, I know you did these things, and you know you did them. It’s time to talk and get everything out in the open so that you’ll feel better. And you will; I promise you that once you tell me, you will feel a great burden leave you. It will be miraculous, almost an instant cure.”

  “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Lark was on unfamiliar ground. He had read some of the literature on multiple personalities, and he had read a popular book or two that recounted cases, but he had never dealt with the phenomenon in his law-enforcement career. He was treading unknown territory and didn’t know what might drive Johnny Gross so far back into Maurice Grossman so that he would never reappear. He did know that he had to get some admission from the man sitting on the bed beside him, some physical revelation that could be used as hard and objective evidence. “We both know you killed those girls, you’ve as much as admitted it. I need details on at least one of the cases.”

  “I was talking about doing it to them, not killing them.”

  “Maybe it’s all tied together in your perception of what happens to them.”

  Johnny/Maurice leapt from the bed and pressed his back against the wall. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  Lark knew he was losing him. He had to find out something that he could verify. “You made the tapes and brought them to me. They were never mailed to you. You made up the voice of the man on the tape. We know how well you do voices. You want to be caught, because the last tape was blank. You want to be stopped before you kill more.”

  “No!” It was an anguished cry.

  “The girl in the Nahug Forest was in your camper and somehow broke loose and ran into the woods. You followed her—”

  “No!”

  “You mutilated her until she bled to death. I might understand that, Johnny. She hurt you and ran away. She made you angry and you had to kill her. That’s the way it was.”

  “I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill any of them.”

  “Can you prove that, Johnny?”

  “I don’t know. When was the last one killed?”

  “We know that nearly to the second. The tape had two planes on it, and we know when they passed near to each other. She died at exactly three-twenty-eight.”

  “Three-twenty-eight. My show is on the air until three-thirty. I was on the air then. I was broadcasting and the station logs will prove it.”

  Maurice huddled at the far end of the pickup’s front seat and probably would have ridden in the truckbed if Lark had permitted it. He shrank away from the police officer as if deathly afraid of contamination.

  Lark drove to the shopping mall that contained the radio station. He was in a state of confusion. He had been certain that he had the serial killer and that it was only hours until Maurice/Johnny cracked and gave him enough physical clues to verify the facts. A radio show heard by thousands would, needless to say, be an excellent alibi.

  Most of the store lights were dimmed at the mall, but floodlights in the parking lot cast broad swatches of light across the now-empty spaces. As he parked in front of the main entrance, Lark could see the reflected lights from the glassed radio booth. As they approached the door, he saw that the DJ known as Mad Dog was at the console.

  Mad Dog waved at them as Maurice fumbled with his key to the front door.

  “Where are the logs kept?” Lark asked when the door was opened.

  “The ones for the time we’re talking about are still in the book, and Mad Dog has it.”

  “Get them,” Lark said sharply. “Now.”

  The station was empty except for the lone announcer at the console, although Lark could hear the wire-service machine clank in the newsroom.

  “Well, kiddies, lookee who’s here,” Mad Dog said to his audience. “Johnny Gross—up to no good, I’m sure—has dropped in for a visit. Say something to us, Johnny.” He turned the microphone toward Maurice, who was frantically flipping through log pages in a loose-leaf binder on the counter. “Come on, Johnny, gross us out.”

  Maurice bent over the mike and emitted a long belch.

  Mad Dog laughed. “And thank you, Johnny Gross.”

  Maurice scurried from the announcer’s booth clutching the log, which he thrust at Lark. “See. Take a look, Lieutenant. It shows exactly when I was on the air, what songs we played, the commercials I gave, and even the exact times for the news and weather breaks. It’s all there.”

  Lark ran a finger down the long columns with their barely legible notes. The Gross Out Show was logged, and in the time sequence after its slot the notes continued for the next segment as logged by Bear Claw.

  Mad Dog leaned back in the DJ chair as a network feature fed the station. “Where’s Gross?”

  “He went to the can,” Lark said. “What does PR penciled in the log mean?”

  “Prerecorded.”

  “Explain.”

  “It means that Johnny had it all on tape and we just fed it through. We do that sometimes when we want time off.”

  Lark tucked the log under his arm. “Then he wasn’t here at all?”

  Mad Dog shrugged. “Look, knowing Johnny, he could have been here, there, or anywhere. His mind is out to lunch half the time anyway.” He smiled at his own joke.

  Maurice/Johnny came back into the booth. “Are we through now, Lieutenant? I don’t feel so well and I’m late getting home.”

  “This crap was prerecorded.”

  Maurice turned ashen. “Who told you that?”

  Lark jerked his head at the other DJ. “He did, and it’s in the notes.”

  “There’s got to be a mistake.”

  “No mistake. Where in the hell were you during those hours?”

  The return of Johnny Gross was revealed by the smirk on Maurice’s face. “Humping a harlot.”

  “You want to translate that?”

  “Do you know what humping means, cop?”

  “I’ve heard the term.”

  “I was jumping a bimbo, and that was the only time I could get together with her, so I did the show in advance.”

>   “Does this girl have a name and address?”

  He shrugged. “They call me anonymously. She told me to call her harlot and do dirty things to her. I obliged.”

  “You’d better come up with a real name fast or you’re in deep shit.”

  “Fuck off.” Johnny Gross started for the door of the station. “I’m going home.”

  Lark took the three steps necessary to catch up with the retreating radio announcer and laid his arm on the man’s shoulder. “We’re going for another ride, Johnny. To my place of business.”

  Lt. Horn scowled, as was his way, as Lark guided Johnny Gross, aka Maurice Grossman, through the crowded lobby of police headquarters. Fractured Spanish filled the air as a bevy of Puerto Ricans argued with the desk sergeant over a domestic fight that had turned into a neighborhood brawl.

  Horn blocked their forward progress. “Are you booking this man, Lark?”

  “No.” Lark jerked his shoulder toward the far hall and a row of small interrogation offices. “We’re going to have a conversation.”

  “This man doesn’t look so hot,” the watch commander said.

  Lark looked at his prisoner. The DJ’s forehead was beaded in perspiration and his face had turned an unnatural chalky white. The open mouth and rapid chest movements indicated that Grossman was on the verge of hyperventilation.

  “He’ll live,” Lark said as he pushed him down the hall. “I can use you in a few minutes,” he said over his shoulder to the large black lieutenant.

  He chose the far room. It held a metal table, two bridge chairs, and was four feet by seven feet in dimensions. The glass door was reinforced with steel mesh. A mirror was embedded in the far wall. It was a depressing place.

  Grossman sat on the far chair and bent his head between his legs. “I don’t feel well.”

  “You’ll feel better after we talk it out. Give me a statement on just the two girls, then you can rest if you like, or I can get you something to eat and we’ll pick up on the others later when you feel better.”

  “Am I under arrest or something?”

  “Let’s not worry about that, Johnny.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “In a few minutes. Just as soon as we wrap things up. Come on, Maurice, let’s get it over with so we can both get some sleep. Now, let’s start with the girl whose body we found on Mark Street. Where did you put the gun you killed her with? In the woods someplace, at your house? Wait a minute, I bet it’s hidden in your camper? That’s right, isn’t it, Johnny?”

  “I don’t have any gun.”

  “The twenty-two you shot her in the head with.”

  “I didn’t shoot anyone.”

  “Come on, we have it all.” Lark’s voice was still low, soothing, caressing. “You have a camper and we know the girls were killed in a rec vehicle. You lied to me about where you were, and then there’s the others who died near cities where you were working. Now, Johnny, we may not be the smartest men in the world, but we aren’t stupid. Look at how it all adds up, and I haven’t even gotten to the tapes yet. The tapes where you conveniently lost the wrapping paper, the tape with the guy’s voice you created, the tape that you accidentally erased … It really adds up. It’s what the state’s attorney will call an airtight case. Now, the best thing for you to do is to tell me about it. I’ll make sure that the powers-that-be realize how cooperative you are. Go on, now.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.”

  Lt. Horn’s massive bulk appeared in the dim hallway outside of the interrogation room. Lark rose from the chair, one hand still on Maurice’s shoulder. “Think about it for a few minutes. I have to do some paperwork and will be back later.” He left the room to join Horn in the hallway.

  “What’s going on?” the watch commander asked.

  “I think I have the killer of the girls,” Lark replied. He quickly ticked off the evidence.

  Horn gave a low whistle. “Nice collar, Lark.”

  “I need some good-guy/bad-guy. Why don’t you go in there and scare the living shit out of him for a few minutes?” Lark laughed. “I have this feeling that Maurice in there is scared to death of black guys, particularly big ones like you.”

  “Did you read him his rights?”

  “He isn’t booked yet. I need this, Horn. Give me your presence in there for just a couple of minutes.”

  “I don’t like it. I’d rather we did everything by the book. This is too important a case to blow by treading on the ACLU toes.”

  “I need physical evidence. I have to have something in hand to give the state’s attorney. There’s over thirty of them, Horn, young women tortured and killed, and he’s the bastard.”

  Horn looked toward the isolated interrogation room at the far end of the hall with a faraway look in his eyes. “I have a daughter eighteen.”

  Lark gave him a gentle shove toward the room. “Do it for her. Just a few minutes, to soften him up for me.”

  Lark sat on a high stool in the room behind the interrogation chamber and looked through a one-way mirror into the confined space. Maurice Grossman had his head on his arms and was splayed across the bare tabletop. Their voices, as picked up through the air duct high on the wall, would have a hollow quality, but the words would be clear enough. He steadied the pad on his knee and prepared to take notes.

  Horn’s entrance startled Lark, even though he was aware it was coming. The effect upon Maurice Grossman was positively electric. The disc jockey’s arms were instinctively drawn to his face as his body recoiled across the room away from the large man looming in the entrance.

  They had played this game countless times in the past. It was particularly effective with middle-class whites who, Lark suspected, had an instinctive fear of large black men, whether they wore a police uniform or not.

  Horn was menacing. He had taken off his tie and gun and unbuttoned his shirt to his navel. His massive neck seemed to flow into his pectoral muscles like a tree trunk growing from rocky soil. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal nineteen-inch biceps that bulged as if they had recently been flexed.

  Horn took two steps into the room and pointed. “You the sucker been wasting those girls?”

  “No, I promise you. It wasn’t me.”

  “One of those girls was my woman. You know that?”

  “Please don’t hurt me.”

  Lark was always amazed at how much potential violence Horn could impart to a prisoner without ever uttering one word of an actual physical threat.

  “I am not pleased,” Horn bellowed.

  “Please …” The voice was a whimper.

  “Have you made your statement yet?” Horn made it sound like a request for a last will and testament.

  “Don’t hit me.”

  “We don’t lean on people; it leaves marks and the lawyers love that. We have other plans for you.”

  The way he said “plans” evoked images of something midway between castration by coat hanger and a gang rape.

  “I’ll do whatever you guys want. Get Lieutenant Lark back in here.”

  “First give me your belt and shoelaces.”

  Maurice immediately bent to unlace his shoes and then whipped off his belt and handed them over. “Why are you taking them?”

  “We don’t want you hanging yourself on us, now, do we?”

  Lark slipped off the stool and left the room behind the mirror. It was time to talk to Maurice now that Horn had him in a cooperative mood. “Lay off my prisoner, Horn,” Lark said icily as he burst into the interrogation room. He was gratified to see the look of relief in Maurice’s eyes. That was the way it should be at the changing of the guard.

  “I was only trying to get to know him better,” Horn said.

  “Out,” Lark commanded.

  Horn sulked out. “Call me if you need me. Little wimp messing with girls. I’d like to get my hands on him—alone,” they heard him mumble as he went down the hall.

  “Cigarette?” Lark asked as he straddled a chair facing his prisoner.
>
  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Come to think of it, neither do I anymore.” He gave a tight smile. “Ready to talk it out?”

  “I’ll confess to anything you want, Lieutenant. I cheat on my wife, I cheat on my expense account, I cheat on my tax form. I felt up my best friend’s sister once, and when I was a kid, I used to look through a hole in the wall and watch my aunt undress. I’ve done other things too, give me some time to think of them. I can’t confess to something I didn’t do.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to, Maurice. Do I have to go over it all again: the camper, the tapes, the prerecorded broadcast, the voice of the man?”

  “You told me all that.”

  “And we do know that you like kinky sex and sometimes get mad at the little ladies.”

  “She made fun of me, the goddamn slut.” The veneer had changed and Johnny Gross had returned. The stare at Lark was now more belligerent. “I want a lawyer.”

  Lark gave an involuntary start at the man’s use of the word “slut.” He remembered too vividly the slashed abdomen of the first victim. “Perhaps Johnny Gross does these things and Maurice doesn’t know anything about them.”

  “You dumb, stupid cop. What half-assed psychology course did you take? I may be weird, but I’m not nuts. I want a lawyer. I demand to make a phone call.”

  Lark left the room and made sure the door latched shut behind him.

  Horn was waiting for him at the end of the hall. “What’s up?” the watch commander asked.

  “He’s crying for a lawyer.”

  “Are you going to book him?”

  “Dammit! I don’t have enough yet. I don’t have anything physical that ties him into any of the killings.”

  “We can’t keep him locked in there much longer without doing something.”

  “I know that,” Lark said in irritation as he strode toward the elevator. “I want him to stew a little longer before I take a final crack at him.”

  His holstered Python and his badge were centered neatly on his desk. A memo note that announced that it came from the desk of Frank Pemperton was under the holster: “You’re not a quitter. Finish this one and then we talk, Frank.”

  Lark strapped the gun on and shoved the badge into his back pocket. He sat at the desk and assumed his thinking position of feet on the radiator and hands clasped behind his head.