Mark the Sparrow

by Clark Howard

  “What?” Borden White said incredulously. “Suicide—?”

  “Shut up, Borden,” Morris Niebold ordered. “If you produce such a person,” he said to Cloud, “it would be the testimony of a felon. A simple matter to discredit.”

  “Try and discredit this then,” Cloud challenged. He had the lie fully prepared in his mind. “A confession in Whitman’s own handwriting admitting his guilt in the Luza crime and several others of which he was convicted.”

  Sudden silence fell over the office. The eyes of Niebold, White, and Carla Volt were riveted to Cloud. Niebold’s eyes were unblinking, as were Cloud’s; Niebold’s stare relentless, as was Cloud’s. Both men, one sitting, one standing, were unflinching.

  “You’re bluffing, Robert,” the invalid said. “If you had a story that big, you’d write it. Today.”

  “I want to write it, Morris,” Cloud admitted. “I want to write it so bad I can taste it. The only reason I’m not going to write it is because of Genevieve. She doesn’t know. And I don’t intend to let her know. Unless you force me to.”

  Niebold leaned his elbows on the padded arms of his wheelchair. “Exactly what is it you want, Robert?”

  “I want the Weldon Whitman case to die. Today. Just like the man did.”

  “That’s absurd,” Niebold blurted. “Why, that—that’s a waste. It won’t do anyone any good.”

  “It won’t do anyone any more harm either,” Cloud said determinedly. He bent forward and put his closed fists on Niebold’s desk. “I don’t want to hurt Genevieve, Morris. But I will. I’ll tell her the whole story before I’ll let you and Borden make a martyr out of Weldon Whitman.”

  “You’re a fool, Robert. The Whitman story could be a goldmine for you.”

  “Just let it die, Morris.”

  “You could write your own book about it.”

  “Let it die,” Cloud said doggedly.

  “You must have enough material for a dozen magazine articles—”

  “Let it die, Morris.”

  “I’ve already said you can work with us on Borden’s campaign, at a generous salary—”

  “Let it die, I said!”

  “All right!” Niebold stormed, slamming a beefy fist down on the desktop. “It’s dead! Goddamn it, it’s dead!”

  “But Morris,” Borden White objected, “that’s the main issue of my campaign!”

  “Don’t you think I know that!” Niebold all but screamed at his junior partner. “I planned the campaign, remember?” He pointed a stiff finger at Cloud. “Don’t you realize that if he’s telling us the truth, he could destroy us?”

  “But how do we know he is telling the truth?” Borden White whined.

  “Because he has no other reason for being here,” Morris Niebold said simply, his voice suddenly quiet again. “He has nothing to gain.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “Neither do I,” Niebold admitted with a soft grunt. “I never have been able to understand people who do things when they have nothing to gain by doing them.” He signed heavily and looked back up at Cloud. “You got what you came for, Robert. The Whitman matter is dead. Now get out.”

  Cloud walked to the door.

  “This isn’t going to stop us, you know,” Niebold threatened.

  Cloud ignored him and opened the door.

  “There are other issues, other ways. Borden will be governor! I’ll find another way!”

  Two hours later, just at dusk, Robert Cloud arrived on a commuter flight at Los Angeles International Airport. Walking through the terminal on his way to get another taxi to take him back to Carol, he was suddenly stopped by the sight of the late afternoon Ledger. Its glaring black headline read:

  WHITMAN EXECUTED!

  Cloud walked over to the rack of papers and stood looking at the words. Below the headline was a four-column photo of Weldon Whitman, positioned in such a way that only his eyes and the top part of his head showed above the middle fold of the page.

  As Cloud stared intently at Whitman’s eyes, he reached into his pocket and touched the cross and chain he had carried with him for so long. From somewhere in the depths of his mind he recalled Josefa Luza’s words about her daughter. 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…. she has never stopped reaching up for her cross, even though it was lost the night she was attacked—

  Impulsively Cloud strode across the terminal to a bank of phone booths. He put two one-dollar bills into a changer, scooped up the coins, and found an unoccupied booth. Dropping a dime in the slot, he dialed long distance.

  “Operator, I want to place a person-to-person call to Dr. Helen Jacobs at the California State Hospital in Camarillo.”

  As he listened to the call being put through, Cloud glanced at his watch. It was nearly six o’clock. He wondered if it might not be too late to catch Helen Jacobs in her office. To his relief he found that it was not. His call was connected surprisingly fast, he deposited the necessary coins, and Cloud heard the doctor’s voice.

  “Hello. This is Dr. Jacobs.”

  “Dr. Jacobs, this is Robert Cloud. We met several months ago when I accompanied the Luza family there to visit their daughter.”

  “Yes, I remember you, Mr. Cloud.”

  “Doctor, I’d like to ask you something,” Cloud said. “Without going into how it came to be in my possession, can you tell me if it would help in your treatment of Glory Ann if she had back the cross and chain taken from her the night she was attacked?”

  “It could, certainly,” Dr. Jacobs said eagerly. “You mean the actual same one? It very definitely could help. Do you have it?”

  “Yes. In my pocket right now.”

  “Of course, there’s always the chance that she won’t identify with it,” Dr. Jacobs said, almost as if she were talking to herself; “There’s the possibility that because she feels soiled by what happened that she’s rejecting all crosses. But I don’t think so. We have one doctor here who is of the opinion that Glory’s clutching at her throat in the presence of a man is a simulation of tearing the cross off and throwing it away. But I don’t agree. I think she’s searching for the one she lost. Where are you now, Mr. Cloud?”

  “L.A. International Airport.”

  “Could you come out to the hospital?”

  “Of course,” Cloud said. “I should be able to get there in about two hours.”

  “I’ll leave a pass for you at the gate,” Helen Jacobs said. “Come directly to my office.”

  They hung up and Cloud left the booth. He stared down the terminal toward a car-rental counter.

  At eight o’clock he reached the gate of the Camarillo State Hospital. The pass was waiting for him. The guard showed him where to park and directed him to the offices of the resident doctors. When he entered the building, he saw Helen Jacobs coming down the hall to meet him. She was the same big-boned, full-bodied woman of fifty that he remembered, with her carelessly clipped blonde hair, her blue eyes still strikingly direct.

  “How would you like to let me use you to get another gut reaction?” Helen Jacobs asked after they had exchanged greetings.

  “No,” Cloud said firmly. “I came down here to bring you a cross, that’s all. You find someone else for a guinea pig.”

  “I don’t want someone else,” she said, taking his arm and leading him down an intersecting corridor toward G Ward. “I want you. You are exactly the right type: heat, clean-cut, respectable-looking.”

  Shit, Cloud thought. He silently cursed himself for having shaved off his shaggy mustache and gotten his hair cut. “Why don’t you just take the cross,” he said, digging in his pocket for it.

  “No, absolutely not,” she said. “I insist that you keep it. I don’t even want to see it. I have a very strong feeling about what I have decided to do, and I don’t want the sight of that cross to influence my judgment one way or another.”

  She continued to lead
him, clutching his arm now, walking half a step ahead of him, her low-heeled oxfords squeaking noisily on the highly waxed tile. How the hell do you argue with a woman like this? he wondered. And then he decided that you did not; you simply followed her directions, as he was doing now.

  When they reached G Ward, Cloud recognized where he was. He walked with Helen Jacobs over to Room G-8 and watched while she used her master key to unlock the room’s observation control box. A moment later she lighted the one-way window and turned on the room audio. Cloud saw Glory Ann Luza sitting up in bed in her nightgown, reading. A bedside radio was playing soft music next to her. Dr. Jacobs took Cloud’s arm again.

  “Robert, if we can recapture this girls’s mind and restore her to a normal existence, it will be a great and wonderful thing for us both.”

  Cloud looked down at the woman’s face: it was euraptured with the thought and words she had just spoken. At that moment, her eyes shone as he had never seen any other human’s eyes shine.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “Open the door, walk in, and return the cross to her,” said Helen Jacobs. She let go of his arm. Cloud stepped to the door of the room and entered.

  Before the door had even closed behind Cloud, Glory Ann began screaming. Her face contorted in terror at the first sight of him and she dropped her book and flung back the covers, leaping from the bed. Cloud stepped toward her.

  “Glory—”

  The girl screamed louder. She rushed to get a chair between her and Cloud. Her eyes were wide, unblinking with fright; her slim body was tension-locked beneath the white nylon gown. One strap of the gown had slipped from her shoulder, partly exposing a young brown breast. She clawed frantically at her throat with both hands.

  Cloud moved closer. “Glory Ann, listen to me—” he insisted. He took the cross and chain from his coat pocket and held it out for her to see. “Look!” he shouted. “Look at this!”

  The girl had just drawn in her breath for another scream, but when she saw the cross and chain hanging from Cloud’s extended hand, the scream broke in her throat and was reduced to an anguished moan. She stared in mute, suspicious disbelief at Cloud and at the cross. But behind the disbelief, the terror in her expression began to dissolve.

  Cloud took another cautious step forward. “This is yours, Glory Ann,” he said quietly. “It’s the cross you lost.”

  She whimpered fretfully, pitifully. Both hands came down from her neck and she gripped the back of the chair behind which she stood. Her breath was labored and wheezing.

  “Please take this, Glory Ann,” Cloud said, raising his voice to a more conversational level. “It’s yours and I want you to have it back.

  She shuddered once, all over, as if a chill had stitched her body. Her eyes, fixed on the cross, blinked rapidly as Cloud brought it closer to her. The bewilderment on her face deepened. Her eyes were searching. Cloud moved up to the chair that stood between them.

  “Here,” he said, holding the cross and chain an inch from her hand. The girl forced down a dry swallow and her furrowed brow relaxed. She took the cross from his hand, examined it briefly, and pressed it lovingly to one cheek. Then, as if she had to do it at once or lose her chance, and despite her trembling, she quickly opened the clasp, put the chain around her neck, and fastened it. When it was on, she stood with one hand calmly touching the cross, and looked curiously at Cloud. He reached over and pulled her fallen nightgown strap onto her shoulder. She did not flinch from his touch.

  “Go back to bed now,” he told her gently.

  Glory Ann nodded and padded barefoot around the chair to the bed. She picked up her book and climbed into bed. Cloud started for the door.

  “What is your name?” Glory Ann asked before he could leave.

  “Robert,” he said.

  “Robert.” She tilted her head pensively, as if evaluating the name. Then she smiled a slight, very shy smile and drew the bed covers a little higher over her girlish bosom. “Thank you, Robert,” she said.

  Cloud smiled back at her and left the room. Outside, Helen Jacobs met him with a brief, solemn hug.

  “Thank you from me too, Robert.”

  She darkened the observation window, turned off the audio, and locked the control box to G-8. Then she and Cloud walked back down the corridor together. They went outside the hospital wing and sat on a bench in the cool night air. They sat in silence for a few moments, smoking.

  “What do you think?” Cloud asked at last.

  “I can’t say for certain,” Helen Jacobs told him clinically. “The best that we can hope for is that we have penetrated the nucleus of her psychosis and can now gradually bring her out of it. The worst, on the other hand, is that returning the cross was simply your entree into her world. She may still live her life in an Adam syndrome, with you as the sole exception to that pattern. Only time will tell us. Will you continue to help me with her: visit and talk with her, and get her accustomed to you for a while, until we can test her with her father or her brother?”

  “Of course.” Cloud thought of Carol. “I’d like to bring my girl out when I come back,” he said. “I think she would like to help Glory Ann too, for reasons of her own.”

  “Then bring her with you, by all means.”

  It was nearly one A.M. when Cloud parked in front of Carol Carter’s apartment building and quietly made his way to the second floor rear. The drapes were closed so he had not been able to tell whether there were lights on in the apartment or not. He rang the bell, once, very briefly. To his surprise the door was opened almost immediately: on the safty chain first, then closed and reopened all the way. Cloud went inside and leaned back against the door to close it.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d be up,” he said. Carol nodded an abbreviated nod.

  “I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you’d come. I just wasn’t sure when.” She was wearing a short kabuki robe, belted tightly around her incredibly narrow waist. It was black, contrasting strikingly with the straight-edged yellow hair that fell past her shoulders. “You’ve shaved your mustache,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “And gotten a real haircut.”

  “Yes.” He paused, then said, “And made some decisions. For the future. For myself. And for you, if you want.”

  “You know I want,” she said. “What kind of decisions did you make?”

  “I’m going into criminology,” he told her. “I want to study it, write about it, see if I can contribute something to this capital punishment thing. I’m not sure there’s really an answer to whether the death penalty serves any useful purpose or not, but I’d like to try and find out.” He told her then about Glory Ann Luza and Helen Jacobs, and what had happened at Camarillo. “Before I got there, I was convinced that Whit had been justly executed. Now I don’t know. If Dr. Jacobs can bring Glory Ann’s mind back, then we have to look at Whit’s punishment all over again. Because at least Glory Ann is still alive, and if a person is alive there’s always a possibility, however remote, that help can come. So what we have to ask ourselves is that if Dr: Jacobs and her psychiatry can help Glory Ann, might not someone, somewhere, have been able to help Weldon Whitman?” Cloud smiled wearily. “Do I sound very mixed up?”

  She took his hand. “You sound very tired. Come to bed.”

  He let her lead him into the familiar bedroom. She stood him in the middle of the room and removed his coat and tie and shirt.

  “Will you go with me when I go back to Camarillo to try and help Glory Ann?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said, undoing his trousers and shorts. “I’d like very much to. Sit down.”

  Cloud sat and she removed his shoes and socks and pulled off his trousers and shorts.

  “Lift your arms.”

  She peeled off his undershirt and he was sitting there naked.

  “I want you,” he said quietly, simply.

  “Rob, you look so tired—” she said. Then she looked down and saw that he really did want her.
>
  “Climb up,” he told her.

  She unbelted the kabuki robe and let it slip away from her flaxen hair and white body. Cloud leaned back on his elbows. Carol bent and lubricated him, then got astraddle him on her knees. Slowly, deliciously, she covered him and began moving herself back and forth in an easy, liquid motion that worked the full staff of him. She started talking, kept moving, and brought the matter that his body created to the limits of its confinement. They climaxed together, swiftly and splendidly.

  Finished, he lay back on the bed and Carol lay next to him.

  “That was so good,” Carol said quietly.

  “It was,” Cloud said. But she had no way of knowing how good, he thought. Only he could know that.

  Because only he knew that it had been the first time he had thought only of himself and of her, and there had been no thought at all of Weldon Whitman.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1975 by Clark Howard

  Cover design by Ian Koviak

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-6070-7

  This edition published in 2020 by Mysteriouspress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

  180 Maiden Lane

  New York, NY 10038

  www.openroadmedia.com

  About the Author

  Clark Howard was born in Tennessee and raised in a series of foster homes in Chicago, and he served with the US Marines in Korea,Howardis the author of many novels and true crime books, as well as more than two hundred short stories, primarilyin the crime and mystery genres. His work has won the prestigious Edgar Award, five Ellery Queen Awards, and the Derringer Award, and he hasbeen nominated for Anthony, Shamus, and Spur Awards, among other honors. Additionally, Howard’sstories have been adapted for both film and television.