Mark the Sparrow

by Clark Howard

“Not good,” Helen Jacobs said decisively. “For the moment her condition seems to have stabilized, but there is no guarantee that she will not become worse as she grows older. It is possible that she may regress to the point where even a picture or a drawing of a man will affect her as violently as a real person.” She reached up and pinched her nose directly between the eyes, as if to relieve a headache. “It is my professional evaluation, Mr. Cloud, that barring some unforeseen, highly unusual eventuality, Glory Ann will probably have to live her life totally segregated from any form of man—because in her mind, every man she sees is the man who attacked her that terrible night in the Hollywood Hills.”

  Cloud stared soberly at the woman behind the desk, wondering what she would think if she knew that she had just materially altered his views on capital punishment. Cloud could no longer honestly advocate that the death penalty be applied only in cases where a life had been taken. There were, he had to admit now, psychological conditions horrible enough in tenor to be ranked with death. If the Spotlight Bandit had killed Glory Ann that fateful night, he would actually have saved her poor child’s mind a vast amount of suffering and terror. Who knew what awful agony she had endured over the years, what ugly images, monstrous fears? Who knew what inward torture had driven her to a limbo where two of the three people who loved her most were forbidden? The state of California had measured the crime against her body—but who, Cloud wondered, could ever accurately measure the crime against her mind? At what point could it be said that a mind had been capitally abused—that it had, in effect, been killed? Did a person have to have the last tendrils of sanity utterly destroyed in order for the mind to be considered murdered? Or was it sufficient simply to do enough to terminate normality? If a person’s eyesight were purposely impaired to the point where only light was distinguishable from dark, and nothing more, then that person had been rendered blind. So was it not equitable to also conclude that even though shreds of intelligence were left in the wake of a deliberate criminal attack, if the mind as a whole had lost its normality, its purpose, then it had been murdered?

  Robert Cloud thought so. With Helen Jacobs’s closing words, he rejected completely his former position on the death penalty; he now accepted the fact that there were crimes short of the taking of a human life that deserved to be punished by exactly that—the taking of a human life.

  He was very thankful that he did not believe Weldon Whitman to be the Spotlight Bandit.

  Chapter Twenty

  It was late in the afternoon when Ramón Luza drove them back to Reseda. The sun was falling rapidly behind the rolling hills that lay like huge muscles in the land between the freeway and the ocean. The drive back was strangely quiet—a subdued stillness, like the calm after the storm.

  “When she was a little girl,” Josefa recalled, “Sunday was always her favorite day. She loved more than anything to put on her prettiest dress and mantilla and go to mass. When we were poor, you know, before we came here from Mexico, we didn’t have pretty dresses for her to wear, but I always managed to find cloth to make a bright ribbon for her hair or a little hankie to pin to her dress. I always managed that, didn’t I,’Miliano?”

  “Yes, Josefa, always,” her husband quietly confirmed.

  “I’ll never forget the day I bought her her first American dress after we came here. We were living out in East L.A., you know, and’Miliano had found a good job and Ramón got himself a paper route and I was taking in ironing, so we were getting along pretty well. We went to mass at a little church called Santo Tomás and Gloriana always just wore her regular school clothes on Sunday because that’s all we had for her. But’Miliano and I talked it over, about buying her a dress, you know, and we decided it would be our first luxury in this country. Even Ramón put in part of his paper-route money. Ramón, you remember that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Mamma,” her son answered softly.

  “I took her on Saturday down to the May Company,” Josefa continued, her eyes glowing with memory. “I told her we were going to just look, so that later when we could afford it, we would know what to buy. I let her try on three dresses: a blue, a green, and a yellow. She looked best in the yellow one—because of her coloring, you know. After the saleslady put the dresses back on the rack, I took Gloriana to the lunch counter and bought her a Coca-Cola. Then I made her wait there because I said I left something in the dress department. I went back and bought the little yellow dress and I hid it in with some other packages I had. The next morning when she had bathed for mass and came out to get dressed, the yellow dress was on the chair where she had put her other clothes. We all watched her when she found it. She held it up to her and she cried, and she was so happy. And then I cried. And then’Miliano cried. You did cry, didn’t you,’Miliano?”

  “Yes, Josefa, I cried.”

  “She was so proud to go to mass that day. Like a little angel. A little angel.” Josefa Luza looked out the window at the passing landscape. Long, angular shadows stretched inward with the last rays of a disappearing sun. Some of the shadows looked like church steeples. “You know,” she said solemnly, “it is really very strange how much Gloriana was drawn to the church. I honestly believe she would have become a nun someday. I mean, to her it was more than just something she played at; it was—it was like something she felt. Even as a very little girl she had shown a genuine closeness to the church. More than one of the sisters told me this. She loved the mass and she loved the holy altar. And particularly she loved the confessional. One time she said to me, ‘Mamma, the confessional is so cool and dark; I feel so close to the Holy Mother when I am in there.’ Always when she had a problem, she would go to the church to solve it. Even when she was just deep in thought about something, she reached out to the church in some way. She had a habit of always putting her hand up and touching a cross she wore around her neck. That is why now she clutches at her throat when she is excited. You saw how she did that; she has never stopped reaching up for her cross, even though it was lost the night she was attacked—”

  Robert Cloud turned cold at the sound of Josefa Luza’s words. For he suddenly remembered other words, words spoken to him by Carol Carter, the woman who had once been married to Weldon Whitman:

  “I saw him once more after that. When he was paroled from Folsom, he came over one evening to see me. Just to say hello and chat a few minutes, nothing intimate. 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 …”

  Cloud had turned now and was staring at Josefa Luza. “What kind of cross was it, Mrs. Luza?” he asked the woman in a controlled voice. Josefa Luza frowned.

  “What kind?”

  “Yes. Can you describe it for me?” Cloud saw Ramón’s eyes flick suspiciously to the rearview mirror.

  “’Miliano can describe it better,” Josefa said. “It once belonged to his mother, God rest her soul.’Miliano, tell Mr. Cloud what Gloriana’s cross looked like.”

  The elder Luza sighed quietly. “It was silver, originally made in Oaxaca around the turn of the century. It was smooth on the top and bottom, and had a Florentine scroll engraved completely around its outside edge.”

  “It was very beautiful, very delicate,” Josefa said. “Gloriana loved it dearly. Since she has been at the hospital, we have given her several others to replace it. We even gave her one that looked like the one she had lost. But she will have none of them. She throws them away and begins feeling at her throat as if searching for the real one. It is a very strange thing.”

  Cloud said nothing. But when he glanced up, he caught Ramón’s eyes on him in the rearview mirror again.

  When they arrived back at the little house in Reseda, Cloud said goodbye to Emiliano and Josefa Luza on the sidewalk. Ramón waited until his parents were in the house, then turned to Cloud.

  “Why did you want the cross described to you?” he asked directly.

  “No particular reason—”

  “You are lyi
ng,” Ramón accused. His face was a mask of contempt. “You promised the truth, and already the lying begins.”

  Cloud looked down at the sidewalk. His mind was in a turmoil; he felt very indecisive.

  “I do not think you are interested in the truth,” the young Chicano said tightly. “I do not think you care about what has happened to my sister, or whether that bastard Whitman goes unpunished for it. I think I made a mistake taking you to see Glory Ann.”

  “You didn’t, Ramón,” Cloud said urgently; it was essential to him that he be believed.

  “Then why won’t you tell me what you know about Glory Ann’s cross?” Ramon challenged. “You know something about that cross; I can feel it.”

  “I may know something,” Cloud admitted, “but I’m not sure. And until I am sure, it would do no good to talk about it.”

  “Do no good for who, Mr. Cloud?” the young man asked coldly. “For my sister? Or for Weldon Whitman?” Ramón tilted his head slightly and his eyes narrowed. “Which side are you on, Mr. Cloud? The side of truth or the side of Whitman?”

  Cloud parted his lips to speak—but no words came. He had no answer for Ramón Luza, and he could not face the angry young man’s accusing eyes any longer. Swallowing dryly, he turned away from him and walked back to his rented car.

  It was fully nighttime as Cloud drove the Ventura Freeway back toward Los Angeles. His face was troubled; he drove hunched forward, gripping the wheel almost tensely. He followed the wide, fast freeway east to the interchange, then turned south on the San Diego Freeway. As that road wound and curved its way through the deep canyon that separated the San Fernando Valley from the West Los Angeles area, Cloud several times looked out to his left at the darkness as if straining to see into it. He knew that the darkness covered the high hills above Hollywood, the hills that overlooked the city’s billion twinkling lights; the hills that had once been prowled by the Spotlight Bandit. He thought about the dreadful terror that had been implanted in Glory Ann Luza’s mind during the hours of her captivity in those hills.

  Cloud left the freeway at Wilshire and drove west into Santa Monica. He cruised along Montana Street until he found the address where Carol Carter liyed. He parked and hurried across the street to the L-shaped building, to the last apartment on the second floor. As he rang her bell, he remembered that the last time he had visited her, she had been anxious about her boyfriend coming over at seven-thirty. It was almost that time now. He started to ring again, but before he could do so, the door was opened. In the four inches allowed by the safety chain, he saw Carol Carter’s broad, solemn mouth.

  “Miss Carter, I’m Robert Cloud,” he said quickly, as if afraid she might close the door again. “I was here some time ago—”

  “I remember you,” she said. They stared at each other in silent for a moment, then she said, “Wait a second—” She closed the door, removed the chain, and opened it again.

  “I’m sorry to show up unannounced like this,” Cloud apologized. “I know your boyfriend comes over at seven-thirty, but if I could just have a couple of minutes—”

  “Don’t worry about the time,” she said simply. “There is no boyfriend at the moment. Come in.”

  He followed her into the little living room, looking at her back and realizing that he had forgotten how boldly wide her shoulders were, how delicately thin her waist. She was wearing faded jeans and a body shirt with the sleeves pushed up. Her feet were bare. The soft slide of straight blond hair that fell on either side of her head was darker tonight and looked damp. He saw that she had a towel on the arm of the chair where she sat. She picked it up and started patting the ends of her hair.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I’ve just washed my hair and I don’t want to catch cold.” She waited until he had sat on the couch opposite her, then said, “What was it you wanted?”

  Cloud took a deep breath. “I came here to ask you to show me the cross and chain you said Whit gave you the last time you saw him.”

  “Why do you want to see it?”

  “I visited Glory Ann Luza this afternoon. She’s in the state asylum up at Camarillo.” He described the girl’s condition and the doctor’s prognosis.

  Carol winced and shook her head briefly. “How awful. But what does that have to do with the cross Whit gave me?”

  “One thing that Glory Ann does during her hysterics is clutch at her throat for a cross that she used to wear. A cross that was lost when the Spotlight Bandit made her strip naked in his car up in the hills.”

  “Oh. I see.” Carol Carter stopped drying her hair and put down the towel. She and Cloud stared meditatively at each other.

  “The last time I was here,” Cloud said, “you admitted that maybe Whit could have committed the sex crimes. You said that when you knew him he seemed to be getting worse and worse; you said that if he kept on as he was going at that time, maybe he could have eventually turned into a criminal sex pervert. But you didn’t believe he had. Do you remember telling me that?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I remember.”

  “The cross and chain should tell us whether he turned out like that or not,” Cloud said.

  Carol Carter studied him. He was tired, tense, his knuckles white as he clasped his hands together. He was obviously fighting a battle inside himself.

  “I could always say I don’t have them any longer,” she told him.

  Cloud shook his head. “That wouldn’t do either of us any good.” He locked eyes with her. “Get it for me,” he said.

  She hesitated, finally nodded briefly. “All right.”

  Cloud did not move while she was gone. He did not unclasp his hands, did not sit back and relax, did not even look around the room.

  Carol returned and stood in front of him. Her right hand was closed tightly. Cloud stared at it, wondering what answer it contained.

  “Is it a silver cross?” he asked quietly. “With its top and bottom surfaces smooth? And a Florentine scroll around its sides?”

  Carol said nothing. She simply opened her hand and held the cross and chain out to him. Cloud unclasped his hands and took it. It was exactly as Emiliano Luza had described it.

  Cloud did not know how long he sat bent forward staring at the cross. His next conscious realization was that Carol was taking the cross from him and putting it on the coffee table; and she was gently forcing a glass into his hand and telling him to drink.

  “It’s gin with a little soda. It’ll help you to unwind. Sit back now, relax—”

  He allowed himself to be coaxed back until he was resting properly on the couch. “It all begins to make sense now,” he said listlessly. “Whit encouraged me to try and prove that Doris Calder was lying—but he was never interested in me trying to do the same with Glory Ann.” Cloud raised the glass to his lips and drank half of its contents. His face was etched with bitterness, his mouth drawn down cruelly. “It Was the same whenever I mentioned you. He always had some reason to get me off the subject. But what he was really doing was trying to keep me away from that,” he bobbed his chin at the cross and chain lying on the coffee table. “The only piece of hard evidence that could conclusively connect him to the Luza girl. Jesus, what a fool I’ve been!”

  “No more so than a lot of other people,” Carol said. “Myself included.” Her fingers played nervously with the towel. “A moment ago you said I didn’t believe it. You were right. I didn’t want to. I kept wanting to give him that last benefit of the doubt in my mind; that last little bit of a chance. That’s all he ever seemed to need, you know; just a chance.”

  “Sure,” Cloud said wryly. “Just a chance. The Whitman mystique.” He grunted softly and drank some more of the gin. Then, frowning, he stood up and began to pace. “What doesn’t make any sense is the Calder thing,” he said, perplexed. “I’m convinced that Doris Calder was mistaken when she said Whit made her blow him. I know she was lying. So if Whit did do the Luza crime, but he didn’t do the Calder crime, then there would have to have been two Spotlight Bandits
.” He turned almost fiercely to Carol. “That expartner of his! You know, I’ve always suspected that the ex-partner Whit won’t tell me anything about had a lot more to do with this case than—” He suddenly set the glass down and put both hands to his temple. “Christ, I feel like my head’s going to explode—”

  “Listen, you have got to relax,” Carol Carter said firmly. She took his arm and dragged him from the room. “I want you to lie down and rest while I fix you something to eat.” She led him to her tiny bedroom and sat him down on the side of the bed. As she bent to peel off his coat, her damp hair brushed his face. It smelled fresh and clean, and the touch of it was pleasantly cool.

  “Look, this is my problem, not yours,” he said. “Let me go back to my hotel—”

  “Shut up and lie down.” She pushed him sideways onto the bed and lifted his feet up. Quickly she removed his shoes. Then she sat down beside him and loosened his tie. The room was only partly lighted by a ceiling lamp in the short hallway outside the door. As Cloud looked up at her, the right side of her face was in shadow. He could only see half of her too-big, too-full mouth, but that was enough to tell him that it was even more solemn than usual.

  “What happened to the boyfriend?” he asked. Carol pulled the. unknotted tie from around his neck and held it, both hands resting on his chest. She looked intently at him without answering. Cloud reached up and touched her cheek with his knuckles. “Tell me, Carol,” he said quietly, calling her by name for the first time.

  “It just didn’t work out,” she said. Her fingers toyed with the necktie on his chest. “When we started talking marriage—I mean, really making plans—I felt that I had to tell him who I had been married to the first time. As soon as I did, he became a different person. He said he couldn’t understand how I could have been married to a criminal pervert like Whit.” She looked away, and in the dull light, Cloud saw a tear streak halfway down her cheek. “I tried to explain that the marriage was a long time ago,” she said, “and that Whit had been a different person then; but when I said that, it just made matters worse. He accused me of sticking up for Whit and insinuated that maybe I still cared, for him. He reminded me that he had a sister about the same age as the girl in the Spotlight Bandit case, and asked how I would feel if the victim had been his sister.” She paused to shake her head, as if she could not believe her own words. “It was completely irrational, the whole thing. He kept making it seem very current and personal, instead of so far in the past. It was crazy.”