Lark

by Forrest, Richard;

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  Lark

  Richard Forrest

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  In memory of Frank Sisk

  1

  Frank Pemperton’s finger tightened on the .357 Magnum. “I’m taking you off the streets, Tommy.”

  Lark shrugged. “That’s up to you. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Consider it done.” Pemperton squeezed the trigger until the weapon bucked in his hand. Downrange a covey of birds swirled overhead and arched in perfect V formation as they flew to the east. “Damn! A perp could be down there ready to open up on me and I’d’a missed him. Never could fire a handgun accurately.”

  “You did once, Frank,” Lark snapped off two quick shots, both of which struck the center body ring of the torso-shaped target.

  Pemperton angrily ejected empty shell casings from the revolver and vehemently ground the fallen brass into the dirt with the heel of his shoe. “That’s what’s wrong with you, Tommy. You don’t know when to keep your mouth shut. I remember what you did for me, and I don’t need to be reminded. If you’d keep your mouth quiet, I might be your rabbi. You’d be a captain by now. You’ll never make captain, Tommy. Not as long as I’m chief, and not as long as anyone around now is chief.”

  Lark’s lips curled in a skewed smile. “If that’s a promise, Frank, I’m going to hold you to it.”

  Pemperton glanced over at Lark. Once, twenty-two years ago as rookie patrolmen, they had looked the same age. Frank knew that his own hair was graying and his body weight was shifting, but Lark had aged in different ways: his body was still firm, his hair not yet gray, but facial lines had hardened and an inner tenseness developed that made others uneasy. If he sat next to you on the bus, you’d want to change seats.

  “Why did you put that throw-down knife on the kid for me, Tommy?”

  “Who the hell remembers? What’s this crap about taking me off the streets? You know I’m not good for anything else.”

  “The Méndez family are filing charges against you. When you busted their kid, they claim you threw him down the stairs.”

  “He fell.”

  “Keep to that story and you’ll beat it—maybe.”

  “You made me a garbage collector, Frank. I busted that kid three times and each time the court recycled the garbage and I had to collect him again. This last time I got him with enough stuff to start his own pharmacy.”

  “So you threw him down the stairs?”

  “You said that, Frank, I didn’t.”

  “You’re going to kill someone, Tommy. That’s next on the agenda.”

  Lark shrugged. “When you live with garbage it rubs off.”

  “That’s why I’m bringing you in. You’ve got over twenty in, take an early retirement.”

  “And do what?”

  “How the hell should I know? Go fishing.”

  “I’m going all the way.”

  Their eyes met and it was Frank Pemperton who turned away. “Report to my office this afternoon for a new assignment.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I’ll think of something.” Pemperton turned stiffly and strode toward his car, which was parked at the edge of the firing range. He unconsciously straightened his shoulders as if the other man’s glare at his back were a physical assault.

  Lark swiveled and fired the remaining rounds in the revolver at the distant target in rapid-fire succession. The smash of sound reverberating across the hills did little to ease his anger.

  He walked slowly toward the parking lot with the revolver dangling from his right hand. A warm sun brushed his face. He wanted to lie in its glare, close his eyes, and soak up its warmth until the bad years faded away. He shook off the inclination as he reached the red Dodge pickup. The utility locker attached to the cab at the rear of the truckbed contained an ice chest filled with cans of Narragansett beer, a gun-cleaning kit, and a number of other things. He flipped the tab off a can of beer, drained half of it, and began to fieldstrip his weapon. He stood at the tailgate of the pickup and worked slowly and methodically as he cleaned the pistol.

  Lark didn’t care to examine his past life, for he knew that once he dredged up a certain image, others were sure to follow—and they were the painful ones that bit deep. It had happened eighteen years ago when he and Frank were still beat cops. The Corvette had been driving erratically and they had signaled for it to pull over to the curb. Instead, the sports car had accelerated and a high speed chase had ensued. While Lark drove, Frank had radioed the marker numbers to headquarters and learned that the car was stolen. The chase had ended in the river warehouse district when the driver lost control and smashed into a utility pole. Frank had leapt from the squad car and chased the suspect into an alley between two vacant buildings.

  Lark was ten yards behind Frank when the suspect, only a blur in the deep shadows, suddenly stopped and turned. Frank had fired once, and the single shot had pierced the forehead of the victim. With drawn weapons at the ready, they had silently approached the still form. Revealed under the wavering beam of Lark’s flashlight was the six-foot, two-hundred-pound body of what had obviously been a very young man.

  They hadn’t spoken and Lark had dropped the knife inches from the dead kid’s hand. He had wondered then as he had today, what quirk of fate made Frank Pemperton’s only shot fired in anger so deadly accurate.

  It took Lark two cans of beer and a dozen gun patches to put his weapon into satisfactory condition. He jammed the Colt Python into his shoulder holster and put on a light jacket that he grabbed from the seat of the truck.

  He slid behind the wheel and turned the ignition. The radio instantly blared.

  “This is all talk, WGBZ radio Middleburg, and your host is Johnny Gross, the show is Gross Out! You’re on the air, babe.”

  “Is that really you, Johnny?”

  “No, this is Oral Roberts, helium head. Who did you think it is?”

  “I’ve been trying to get through for days.”

  “You’re going to be through in three seconds unless you give me an answer. For today’s Gross Out, where is the weirdest place you ever did it? And don’t crock me, babe.”

  “You probably won’t believe this, Johnny, but my boyfriend and I did it in a Goodwill collection hamper and—”

  “You sound like a charity case …”

  Lark snapped off the radio and stared at the set a moment in astonishment before he spoke aloud. “Scum.” He pulled out onto the highway, still shaking his head.

  As he drove toward the city, the other images returned as he knew they would: a young Margaret on the beach at Cape Cod, Margaret’s passion as they made love in the early days, a radiant Margaret in the hospital maternity ward at Cathy’s birth … Margaret dead in the living room.

  “No!” It was an audible cry meant to drive away the devils that peopled his mind. Frank should have known, Lark could never retire. Retirement would only bring more time to think and endless repetition of images he couldn’t endure.

  Middleburg, Connecticut, had once been a river town. Its now-vanished wharves had bustled with activity as riverboats plied the Connecticut. The only boating activity the city now boasted were scull races by the University of Middleburg crews; even the yacht club had moved farther upstream to less polluted waters.

  In addition to the university, the city was also the location of the home office of the Nutmeg Insurance Company, a flock of small machine shops, and the large plant of an aerospace manufacturing company on the outskirts of town. From river town to mill town to technical city, the place had gone through its costly transitions, but now seemed stable with a population of 82,000.

 
It was his town. He felt a proprietary interest in its well-being, and any transgressions became a personal affront. This attitude had grown over the years until it nearly consumed him. He knew objectively that it was a malignant obsession, but it was all he had, for he was the garbage collector.

  With a start he realized that he had driven to the outskirts of the college campus, nearly to Cathy’s house. It had been five months since he had last seen his daughter, and that was an unsatisfactory and perfunctory Christmas visit. On impulse, he swerved the pickup into Garden Street toward the two-family house halfway down the block.

  Lark squeezed the truck into a parking place between a very old van whose side panels were a painted recreation of an Alpine mountain scene, and a VW bug that he recognized as Cathy’s. He flicked off the ignition and turned in the seat to glare at the wood-frame house set back from the sidewalk. The outside needed a coat of paint, and there were no curtains on the second floor where Cathy’s apartment was located.

  He sat for a few minutes gazing up at the second floor while simultaneously patting his pockets for a nonexistent package of cigarettes. It had been over three years, but the craving was still there.

  He loved his daughter. At one time she had been the only firm personal relationship he had. If she were only ten again and they could canoe and walk in parks as they had done so often in the past … Lark hated nostalgia and shook his head to erase the images.

  He left the pickup and glanced down the street past the rows of identical two-family homes toward the university campus three blocks away. Three blocks! As far as his daughter was concerned, it may as well be thirty miles. He strode toward the entrance to the second-floor apartment.

  He wasn’t surprised that the door bell for her apartment was immobile. It obviously hadn’t worked in years. He opened a punctured screen door and tried the inner entrance. It swung back to his touch to reveal a steep stairwell leading up to a dark interior.

  “Cathy! You there?”

  His voice seemed to echo up an endless hall. He shook his head and trudged up the stairs. The door to the apartment was cracked and he pushed it open. A hallway entered directly into a living room that ran the length of the apartment. A sparse accumulation of cast-off furniture was spotted around the bare floor. Empty beer cans and piles of magazines were scattered indiscriminately around the room. A heaped ashtray squatted on the floor next to a worn leather easy chair.

  Lark bent over and pinched some of the ash from the overflowing ashtray. He sniffed the mixture slowly and then brushed it off his hands.

  “If you haven’t already discovered it, it’s pot.”

  Lark whirled as his right hand automatically reached for his holster. His daughter stood in the bedroom doorway. She wore a man’s shirt open one button too far that fell to midthigh. Her long blond hair was tousled and stringy. “You need to wash your hair.”

  “Oh, Jesus! You haven’t seen me in five months and your first sentence is an order. Damn!” She found an empty package of cigarettes, crumpled the paper, tossed it across the room, and continued searching. “And before you snap at me, you sniff my ashtray.”

  “We don’t bust people for smoking anymore.”

  “I’m sure that’s ruined your decade.” She found a partially filled package and lit a cigarette before plopping down on the couch.

  “I didn’t come here to fight with you, honey.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “Last week I stopped in to see Dean Branigan at the university. He tells me that they’ll readmit you to the summer session on a conditional basis. If that goes well, you can matriculate in September.”

  “I don’t want to go back now or anytime soon.”

  Lark brushed some remaining flecks of ash from his fingers. “I’m going to stop sending money. I’m in no mood to support your present habits.”

  “I’ll get a job.”

  “Doing what?”

  “They need night help at the Seven-Eleven on Grove Street.”

  “That place has been held up three times in the past year.”

  “Then you had better put a stakeout on it or whatever you call it.”

  “I’m not in the street anymore,” Lark said.

  Her eyes flickered and she became slightly less belligerent. “Oh. What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know yet. They’ll tell me this afternoon.” He didn’t want her pity. He had never indulged in it himself, and was damned if he would accept it from her. He paced the room and paused to look out the rear window down at a well-kept vegetable garden that took up nearly all of the rear yard. “I want you to go back to school, Cathy. It’s important for you.”

  “I’m not ready. I couldn’t concentrate. During my last semester I’d read forty pages of an assignment, and an hour later I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what I’d read.”

  Lark turned, eager to grasp at a slim straw of hope. “Go back into it gradually. Take it easy this summer, do one, maybe two courses. Take French, you always loved French and it came easy for you; then maybe a music-appreciation course.”

  “Clapping for credit? I’ll think about it,” his daughter said.

  A young man dressed only in Jockey undershorts appeared in the bedroom doorway and looked out at Lark in astonishment. “Holy shit!” he said before he disappeared back into the bedroom, slamming the door.

  “Who the hell is that?” Lark asked.

  “That’s Craig.”

  “Is he a student at the college?”

  “He dropped out.”

  “Does he work?”

  “He’s keeping a journal. He wants to be a poet.”

  “A poet! Jesus H. Christ, a poet! I’m supporting him too. You know, I ought to shake this place down. I might just find enough goddamn grass to bust his ass with a possession-with-intent-to-sell.”

  Cathy, her face sharp in anger, catapulted to her feet. “You do that, Daddy! Bust his ass real good. That’s how you get your kicks, isn’t it?”

  Lark took an angry step toward his daughter and stopped stock-still as he fought for control. “You know me better than that,” he said in a husky voice.

  “Do I? Do I know you as well as Mama? Is that why she did it?”

  Lark turned away from her and walked to the door. “You had better take that job at the Seven-Eleven.” He took the steps two at a time and walked out into a bright sunlight that made him blink. He slammed into the pickup and screeched from the parking place. He gasped in a near groan as the truck reached the corner. He loved her and yet it always went so badly these days. And then, as he knew they would, the pictures returned: Cathy taking her first step, Cathy at a dance recital in her first long dress, and Cathy nearly nude with a young man living with her …

  For the second time that day Lark confronted Frank Pemperton. During a time that now seemed a thousand years ago, he had played football with Frank at Middleburg High. Then, Pemperton had been a lightning end with a miraculous ability to pluck impossible throws from the air. He was now the aging athlete, his jowls were pronounced, and his belly protruded over his belt. His eyes were heavy as he shuffled through the personnel folder while occasionally glancing at Lark.

  “I had thought about putting you in charge of the high-school drug-orientation program, but I reconsidered because of your language.”

  “If you try to put me in the records room, I’m going to shove that folder down your throat.”

  “You’ll go where I send you or get out!”

  “How about school-crossing guards? That would get me out of the way.”

  “You’d have everyone on stakeout for child molesters. I want you off the street, Lark. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. We created you, and now we’ve got a responsibility to see that you don’t hurt anyone.”

  “Jesus, where did the newfound ethics come from?”

  “Some of us grew, Tommy.”

  “And some of us are pompous asses.”

  “You know, buddy, I can have you up on char
ges for a remark like that.”

  “That would solve our little problem, wouldn’t it?”

  Pemperton’s voice softened and his hands slid forward on the desk almost as if he were reaching for Lark. “I know it’s been tough. But we’re trying to help. We all know what you’ve been through since Margaret died and with what’s happened with the girl—”

  Lark sprang from the chair in a swift movement, rushed to the side of the desk, and grasped Frank’s neck with his right hand. “Don’t ever say that again! Don’t even think that!”

  With both feet braced against the desk, Frank Pemperton pushed his swivel chair backward and forced Lark to relinquish his grip. “You crazy son of a bitch! You want assault charges? Is that what you’re after? You bastard. You’ve gone over the hill!”

  Lark’s fists clenched and unclenched as he turned away. “Okay, so I overreacted.”

  “That’s one hell of an understatement.” The phone rang and Frank snatched it from its cradle. “Yeah … I don’t want to be … When?… Who’s on it?… What’s the first report?… Tell the crazy bastards not to touch a thing until a senior officer gets down there.” He slammed down the phone.

  “What’s that?”

  “A body has been found down on Mark Street. Young, girl, probably a street OD.”

  “Who took the call?”

  “Car thirty-two, Najankian’s driving.”

  “Horse Najankian? He’ll muck up the scene in ten minutes.”

  “The watch commander will put a senior man down there in minutes.”

  “Give it to me, Frank.” Lark’s voice had sunk to a deep register and he realized with impatience that he almost sounded imploring. “What the hell. You don’t have anything else on tap for me right now.”

  Pemperton looked dubious. “I want you off the street, Lark.”

  “A kid DOA isn’t really the street.”

  “I don’t know what in the hell you think it is.”

  “I need a transition case, something to work off the pressure.”

  “No roughing witnesses.”

  “You know me better.”