Mark the Sparrow

by Clark Howard

  “Why have you come here?” she said. “My job—” Cloud noticed that even her full, wide lips had paled. “No one knows who I am—”

  “No one has to,” Cloud said quickly. “Let’s walk over here,” he said, leading her across the lobby.

  “What do you want with me?” she asked almost fearfully. “Did Weldon send you?”

  “He doesn’t even know I’m here,” Cloud assured her. “I wanted to find you for my own reasons.”

  “If the people who know me here find out I was married to Weldon, I’ll have to leave. I couldn’t bear to be looked at and talked about the way they’d look at me and talk about me—”

  “Please try to calm down,” Cloud said. “I promise you no one is going to find out. I’m not here to do anything that will jeopardize your job. All I want to do is talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “About Weldon. I want to talk to someone who’s been close to him, who knows him—”

  “There is no such person,” she said bluntly. “No one knows Weldon except Weldon. And no one ever will.”

  “You must have come close,” Cloud ventured. “Closer than anyone else.”

  “Why? Because I was married to him? That didn’t mean anything.” She wrung her hands briefly. “Look, I’ve got to get back upstairs—”

  “Let me meet you after work,” Cloud urged. “Just for a little while. Anywhere you say; someplace public, anywhere. It’s really important—”

  “To who? You? Weldon?”

  “Maybe both of us,” Cloud said. “Maybe you, too.”

  “Me? How could it possibly be important to me?”

  “Because you’ll know you helped. Or tried to.”

  Carol Carter sighed and shook her head in exasperation. “All right,” she said firmly. “I’ll let you come to my apartment tonight for one hour. One hour. You can come over at six and you have to leave at seven sharp. That’s because my boyfriend is coming over at seven-thirty, and he usually gets there a little early.”

  “Six to seven,” Cloud agreed. “One hour.”

  She gave him an address on Montana Street there in Santa Monica, then hurried back to her job.

  At the stroke of six he rang her doorbell. She lived on the second floor of an L-shaped two-story building that occupied a deep, narrow lot in a neighborhood of apartment houses. There were eight apartments in the building: four up, four down. Hers was the last, number eight, upstairs in the back. Cloud was about to ring a second time when she opened the door.

  “Hello. Come in. I’m just finishing dinner. Would you like some coffee?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  She seemed more relaxed now. Cloud followed her to a tiny kitchen separated from the living room by a counter and stools. She was wearing snug-fitting pants and as she walked in front of him, Cloud could not help admiring her ass.

  He sat down while she poured his coffee. “You seem to feel a lot better about this tonight,” he commented.

  Carol Carter shrugged. ‘I’ve had a few hours to get over the surprise.” She sat down across the counter from him and tilted her head slightly. “I think I knew all along that I wasn’t completely free of Weldon. I don’t suppose I’ll ever be, not until he’s dead. Maybe not even then.” She toyed with what was left of her meal. “How did you find me anyway? How did you know I used to work at Donald’s?”

  “Your mother,” said Cloud.

  Carol Carter stiffened very slightly. “When did you see my mother?”

  “Yesterday. In Alhambra.”

  The young woman nodded. “So she still lives in the same old dump. Did she have a man in the house?”

  “I didn’t see anyone but her.”

  Carol shrugged. “Maybe you caught her between men. Do you know she’s been married six times since my father left? Six times. And the funny thing of it is, I think she’s only been divorced by two of them.” She smiled sardonically. “You wouldn’t believe the assortment of stepfathers I’ve had. Everything from boozers to lechers to one guy I’m positive was gay.”

  Cloud looked around at what he could see of the little apartment. It was sparsely but smartly furnished, immaculately kept. “You seem to have done all right for yourself.”

  “I’ve earned it too,” she said almost fiercely. “Every bit of it. All by myself.”

  “I heard that you went to night school,” he said.

  “I still do,” she told him. “Only now I go to the university. I’m an accounting major. I’ll get my degree in just seven and a half short years. I may even become a CPA.”

  “That’s a long way from Alhambra,” Cloud said.

  “The farther the better,” she said with grim seriousness. She got up and cleared off the counter with an expert style no doubt left over from her waitress days. “Look, you’ve wasted ten minutes of your time already, just talking about me.”

  “It hasn’t been wasted,” Cloud said. “Knowing what kind of person you are will help me to understand better how you feel about Weldon. How do you feel about him, anyway?”

  She poured him some more coffee and sat back down. Her wide, solemn mouth became sad. “I’m not sure. I feel sorry for him, a little. I used to feel sorry for him a lot. I used to feel so sorry for him that I hurt and I cried. Mostly it was because he was such a failure at life. It’s odd, you know, but Weldon had so much going for him: he had ambition, intelligence, initiative, drive. But he just could not succeed at anything honest. That’s what I felt sorry for him the most about: he couldn’t make an honest living. No matter how hard he tried. It simply wasn’t in him.”

  “Did you know when you married him that he was a criminal?”

  “I knew he’d been in reform school,” she said. “And I knew he had some pretty rough friends. But I thought that he was just like me, that he needed somebody to care, and that if he had that somebody, he’d straighten out. All he seemed to need was a chance.”

  There it was again, Cloud thought. The Whitman mystique. The same one that had touched Genevieve, touched him. He just seemed to need a chance.

  “I was very young, very naïve, when Weldon and I met,” Carol said. “Like a lot of very young, very immature women, I thought it was possible to make a man out of a guy by marrying him and giving him a home and responsibilities and all that supposedly good stuff.”

  “So you got married.”

  She nodded. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Have any children?”

  “No!” she said almost in horror. “Thank God for that, too!”

  “What finally caused you to break up?”

  “Something came between us,’” she said wryly. “A five-to-eight-year sentence in Folsom for armed robbery.” She sighed wistfully. “Like I said, Weldon just didn’t know how to be honest. He was a confirmed criminal.” Her expression turned bitter. “If the state of California had taken a good long look at him, they would have known it too. They had him in prison three times, and they turned him loose every time. Now they’re going to have to kill him.”

  Cloud leaned forward on the counter in order to be closer to her. “Let me ask you a couple of specifics,” he said. “You’ve read about his case in the papers, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you familiar with the crimes he’s been convicted of? The kidnapping and sex-perversion crimes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me honestly, do you think he could have committed those crimes?”

  She hesitated for just a split instant, then said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “I just don’t think he would have gone that route, that’s all.”

  “Your mother seems to think he would have,” Cloud said. “She mentioned some similar incidents that happened in Alhambra that Whit was never arrested for. Do you know anything about those?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “May I get personal with you?” Cloud said..

  “That depends.
You can try.”

  “I’m interested in the sex life you and Whit had together.”

  “What about it?”

  “What kind of relationship was it? Mutually satisfactory? One way? Conventional? Any extremes?”

  Carol Carter looked slightly uncomfortable. “It wasn’t spectacular,” she admitted, “but it was pretty good. Weldon satisfied me about half the time.” She looked at him very directly again. “I satisfied him all the time.”

  “Was he demanding about sex?”

  “Not really. Eager at times. But always gentle. Never rough.”

  “I see.” Cloud chewed one fingernail briefly. “You know the nature of the sex-perversion crimes he was convicted of. I was just wondering if he showed any preference or inclination toward, ah—”

  “The answer is yes, Mr. Cloud. Weldon liked an occasional head job. What man doesn’t?”

  “Sure,” Cloud said. He was feeling a little embarrassed and was immediately irritated with himself for it. If she didn’t mind talking about it, there was certainly no reason for him to mind listening to it.

  “Actually,” Carol continued, “if Weldon had been an honest working man instead of a criminal, we would have had a pretty good marriage. This may sound odd to you, but aside from his stealing, Weldon was almost an ideal husband. He drank very little. He liked to fix things around the house. He was there most evenings when I got home from work; sometimes he even had dinner ready. There were no other women. I think he really liked marriage.”

  “Why did he let you divorce him then?”

  Carol shrugged. “He had no choice. He was a convicted felon, serving time. That’s grounds for divorce in California. When I found out that he was a three-time loser, I was pretty shook up. I went to Folsom to visit him and I asked him to tell me honestly if he thought he’d ever change and straighten out. He thought about it for quite a while before he answered. Then he finally said no, he honestly didn’t think so. He said he wished he could, because he really did care for me. But he said he’d just been a crook too long and he didn’t think he had the will power and character it would take to become anything else. Those were the exact words he used: will power and character. Would you like more coffee?”

  “No, I’ve had plenty, thanks. Whose idea was the divorce?”

  “Mine,” she said. “I told him on that one visit I made up there to that horrible place—have you ever been to Folsom?”

  Cloud shook his head. “No.”

  “It’s like the kind of prison they used to show in the movies,” she said. “Cold, ugly granite. And dirty; everything about the place looked dirty. And the guards—God, they looked as bad as the convicts. I told Weldon that first visit that I would never come to that place again. And I told him that I thought it would be best if I divorced him. I said I wanted to try and make something of my life. He agreed without any kind of argument. He said he thought I was right, that it would be best for both of us. Best for me because I could go ahead and try to make a better life for myself; and best for him because it would be easier for him to do his time if he didn’t have to feel guilty about ruining my life. He said he was sorry he had married me, not because he didn’t care for me, but because it hadn’t been fair to me. He said he hoped I wouldn’t hold it against him. I told him of course I wouldn’t. And then I left.”

  “Was that the last time you saw him?”

  “No. I saw him once more after that. When he was paroled from Folsom, he found out where I was living through some friends that I was still in touch with at that time. He came over one evening to see me. Just to say hello and chat a few minutes, nothing intimate. He seemed glad to see that I was getting along fairly well. We had a nice little visit. He even gave me a present, a little silver cross and chain; not expensive but very thoughtful, very nice of him.”

  “Did you see him any more after that?”

  “No. That was the last time. The next I heard of him was a short time later when I read in the papers about his capture and identification as the Spotlight Bandit.”

  “What did you think when you read that?” Cloud asked. “Did you believe it?”

  Carol Carter hesitated again, then seemed to take hold of herself and answer. “No. I didn’t believe it.”

  “That’s twice you’ve had to make yourself answer,” Cloud said quietly. “You do have doubts, don’t you?”

  “I—I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Sometimes I remember Weldon as he was when we first met, and I tell myself that he couldn’t have done those things, particularly to that teenage girl. Then—then I think of how he became worse and worse during the time I knew him; how each crime he committed was a worse crime than the one before it. I can’t help recalling how Weldon seemed to be turning into—I don’t know, a harder person. Understand, he still wasn’t the monster the newspapers have made him out to be; but he was getting worse. When I force myself to be completely honest about it, I have to admit that if he kept on as he was going at that time, maybe he could have become what they say he is now—a criminal sex pervert. He used to rob just for money. Maybe he got to the point where that wasn’t enough; maybe he had to get something more out of it. Maybe he turned into the kind that does it just out of meanness or for kicks. Or maybe he just plain turned cruel because of all that’s happened to him. I don’t know, I really don’t.” She fell silent for a long moment, staring vacantly at some distant memory; then she sighed a quiet sigh and looked at her kitchen clock. “It’s almost seven.”

  “Right,” Cloud said, getting up. He smiled. “Is your boyfriend always on time?”

  “Always,” Carol Carter said in mock exasperation. “He’s an accountant. Very prompt.”

  “And very proper?”

  “Yes. Very.” She too smiled a little then. At the door she gave him her hand, though still with a certain reserve. “I’m glad Weldon has you for a friend,” she said. “I hope you’ll be able to help him.”

  “I hope so too. Incidentally, there was one other thing I wanted to ask you. Did you ever know any partner that Weldon had? Someone he pulled jobs with after he got out of Folsom?”

  Carol shook her head. “No. As I told you, I only saw him that one time after Folsom: when he came over to visit and gave me the cross and chain.”

  “So you’ve never met or had any communication with anyone who served time with him in Folsom?”

  “No, never. As a matter of fact, I never see anybody we knew before he went to Folsom. I don’t even go back to see my own mother, and I never will. I’ve worked very hard to get away from the ugly side of life. If people found out about my having been married to Weldon, it would ruin everything. I’d have to start all over again—”

  “No one is going to find out,” Cloud assured her. “I don’t intend even to tell Weldon about seeing you.”

  She looked at him penetratingly, her broad mouth solemn and anxious. It was obvious that she was becoming nervous again.

  “Please don’t worry,” he said. She nodded the briefest of nods.

  “All right, I won’t. I’ll trust you. I don’t have any choice, anyway.”

  “You won’t be hurt,” Cloud promised. “You’ll see.”

  “All right. Goodbye, Mr. Cloud.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Cloud went back downstairs and walked past the other apartments to the front of the building. As he crossed to where he had parked, he noticed a tall, rather smuglooking man get out of a car at the curb and walk toward the building. The prompt accountant, he thought.

  He got into the rented sedan and lighted a cigarette. For a few minutes he sat there in the dark, smoking, thinking. He reached no new conclusions as a result of finding Weldon Whitman’s ex-wife—except possibly that she was not in any danger from Whitman’s former Folsom partner. He definitely would not tell Whitman he had found Carol Carter; it would only incense the condemned, man and would serve no useful purpose.

  Finishing his cigarette, Cloud decided to go back to the motel, pack his things, and take
one of the night commuters back up north. There was no sense spending an idle night in Los Angeles when he could just as easily get back to where the work was. Judgment in Anguish was waiting, for him. Weldon’s second book, as Genevieve persisted in calling it. Cloud grunted. He supposed it made no difference. The important thing was the life of Weldon Whitman.

  Cloud started the car and drove away in the darkness, leaving Carol Carter and her new, better life behind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Four months later, the California Supreme Court denied Weldon Whitman’s appeal. It ruled against him by a vote of four to one, with the dissenting justice writing his own minority opinion. The decision was handed down on a Wednesday, and almost within the hour, the principals in the Weldon Whitman Foundation were gathered again in the office of Morris Niebold.

  “A temporary setback,” the older attorney said from his gleaming wheelchair. “That’s how I want all of you to think of this. Not as a defeat, but only as a temporary setback.”

  Genevieve, fire in her eyes, was in no mood for platitudes. “What do we do next?” she asked without preliminary. Borden White almost winced at her tone.

  “Before we attempt to chart our future course,” Niebold said, “I suggest we take the time to examine the position taken by the court in denying us relief. Borden, would you mind summing up the decision?”

  White took a blue-covered copy of the court’s majority opinion and folded back the top sheet. “Essentially what the court ruled is that it cannot be construed reversible error for a trial judge to fail to appoint an attorney as advisor to a criminally charged defendant who insists upon exercising his right to conduct his own defense.” White sat back on the edge of Niebold’s reference table. “The basis for the opinion primarily was that if a trial judge did overrule the defendant’s desire to represent himself, if the court did appoint an attorney to, in effect, force-feed advice to the defendant, and the defendant were found guilty, at that point it would be reversible error because the defendant could make an appeal case of the fact that an attorney forced upon him against his desire by the court had persuaded him to follow a course of trial strategy contrary to his own plans, and the result had been a judgment against him. That, says the court majority, would establish a precedent under which every defendant could plead the right to self-defense, resist for the record the court’s offer of legal help, then tacitly accept the court-appointed attorney’s guidance, and, if subsequently found guilty, turn around and reject that same guidance as having been forced upon him—thus establishing his right to a retrial. Such a precedent, the court felt, would result in trial courts throughout the state having to try defendants twice instead of once. Therefore, the majority denied Whitman’s appeal on the ground that to do contrary would create an untenable position for the trial courts.”