Lark

by Forrest, Richard;

  While Horse searched for the attic crawl-space entrance, Lark went into the kitchen. The three young women, all dressed in white, sat stoically at a long wooden table with their Magus at one end. They looked at him expectantly. “I want to check the cellar,” Lark said.

  Winthrop shot quickly to his feet. “I’ll go with you.”

  Lark arched an eyebrow at him and then nodded assent. “Come on.”

  Winthrop switched on a single naked light bulb hanging over the cellar stairs. Lark went down the steep stairwell with caution. “All right, Rutledge, what in hell’s going on here?”

  “We are a coven and I am the Magus.”

  “Uh huh. And the girls?”

  “They are novitiates.”

  “I thought a coven was supposed to be twelve or thirteen?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairs. Like the remainder of the house, the cellar was spotless, sparse, and nearly empty. An ancient boiler occupied one corner, three bicycles leaned against a far wall, and the right-hand corner was partitioned to form a small square room. “What’s in there?”

  “That is our green room. Reba now occupies it.”

  “Open it up,” Lark commanded. He speculated as to whether the small room’s location in the cellar corner would make any sound from it inaudible outside the house. He decided that it was possible.

  Winthrop, who called himself the Magus, opened the door to the square room. A low wattage bulb hung from a wire in the center of the room. The walls were lined with shelving that now only contained a single mason jar holding something that once might have been peaches.

  A naked girl was stretched out on a mat directly under the single light bulb. Her arms were over her head, her heels were pressed together, and a bayonet was laid across her bare stomach with its point reaching to her thighs.

  “What the hell!” Lark sprang forward and knelt next to the girl while simultaneously throwing open his jacket and pulling the Python from its shoulder holster.

  “Leave her alone!” Winthrop shouted at Lark. “She’s all right. She’s only doing her thirty-six hours of penitence necessary to enter the order.”

  Lark’s finger touched the carotid artery and he felt the healthy pulse of life. Her eyes flicked open and stared up at him. “Are you okay?”

  A short nod.

  Horse Najankian stood in the doorway shaking his head. “I don’t know, but there’s got to be a law against what she’s doing.”

  Lark stood up and reholstered his pistol. “If you think of it, tell me,” he said as he strode from the room.

  Najankian looked down at the nude girl and spoke to her as if she were one of his own children. “You okay?”

  A nod.

  “You want to make a complaint?”

  A negative nod.

  “Are you free to leave if you want?”

  Another nod.

  The patrolman shook his head before turning toward the stairs. “Well, enjoy.”

  Lark sat at the kitchen table and cradled a cup of tea, which he wished were a can of beer. He noticed abstractly that the table was actually a wooden door supported by two sawhorses. He was alone on one side, the three young women opposite, and the Magus at the far end.

  “Exactly what are we into here?” Lark asked softly.

  “Magic,” Winthrop replied.

  “Uh huh.” Lark momentarily wondered what they took to keep them in this state, although they hadn’t turned up anything in their search of the house. “White or black magic?”

  “White, of course.”

  “And your ceremonies are held in the black room at the front of the house?”

  “Or outside in the grove when the moon is right. At that spot where I found the body.”

  “That’s an odd coincidence, isn’t it? The body just happened to be in your sacred grove. By the way, inverted crosses are black magic.”

  The Magus had the grace to look embarrassed. “Well, we delve into all areas in order to mature our spiritual life.”

  “And these ceremonies are all performed in the buff?”

  “If you mean naked, the answer is yes. The removal of all garments means that we are all equal and free to receive the faintest of spiritual traces.”

  “Sounds like orgies to me,” Horse Najankian said from the top of the cellar steps. He began to search the room.

  “Do you know this woman?” Lark pulled out a Polaroid snapshot of the murder victim that the medical examiner’s office had provided. He shoved it across the table toward the three women. As they slowly examined the photograph, he thought of the autopsy and the fact that the victim wore no undergarments. It would seem that she had hastily dressed, or been dressed.

  “We don’t know her,” Winthrop said.

  “They can speak for themselves.”

  The three women shook their heads nearly in unison.

  “I told you,” Winthrop said.

  “Did you hear anything unusual during the past several days, or see anyone in the area who was unknown to you?”

  Again a combined denial. The women looked at Lark with unwavering gazes. They had that intense vapidity that those committed to the absurd often possess. He pushed away from the table impatiently.

  “Get their names, Najankian. I’ll be in the truck.”

  There was a small pile of mail on the center of Lark’s desk in the small cubicle at police headquarters. He leafed through the letters, which included not only official but personal items. It was inconvenient to have mail delivered to the trailer and he did not have the time nor the inclination to check a post-office box daily, so it all came to his office. He flipped the obvious junk mail into a nearby wastebasket. The few bills he stuffed into his rear pocket and would pay them that night. Lark always paid his bills when they arrived. There were no personal letters; few people wrote to Lark.

  Najankian sat heavily in the side chair and made a broad gesture of looking at his watch. “What now, Lieutenant?”

  “I thought we’d run a night stakeout on the house on Mark Street, perhaps use a light enhancer and maybe we can observe one of their so-called ceremonies. It’s about all we have to go on.”

  Najankian looked at his watch again. “My shift goes off in five minutes.”

  Lark’s fist lashed out and pounded the desk. “Damn it all, man! We’re working a homicide, not a fender bender. We do overtime.”

  “You got authorization to pay overtime?”

  “Well, no, but in a case like this we do it voluntarily.”

  “I don’t volunteer, Lieutenant. I go home with the shift turnover and eat with my family. If that gives you a problem, maybe I should call the union.”

  “You haven’t even been through the file on the case.”

  “Near as I know, there isn’t much in the file.”

  “There’s officers’ notes on the interviews in the area where she was found.”

  “Didn’t turn up anything. I was there, remember?”

  “You’re damn near insubordinate, Horse. What about the autopsy pictures? The girl was burned by an unknown device. Look at the pictures, damn you!” He shoved a folder full of glossy shots the ME’s photographer had taken into Najankian’s hand. “Look at them.”

  Horse blanched. His voice dropped. “I don’t want to see them. I got a kid her age.”

  “So do I. I was out there when the ME cut on her.”

  “Then you don’t need me to look at them.”

  “I still own your soul for five minutes, so look.”

  “Four minutes.” Najankian reluctantly opened the folder and looked at the young woman stretched out on the autopsy table. He winced. “There’s letters burned into her.”

  “They spell slut. We ran the configurations through the medical examiner’s national organization and they can’t tell us what did it.”

  Najankian placed the pictures back in the folder and carefully returned it to Lark’s desk. “I’m going home.”

 
“You know, I can have you up on charges?”

  “Maybe so, Lieutenant, that’s your choice.” He shuffled toward the door and paused. “By the way, I know what made those burns.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sure. I gave one to Jerry, that’s my ten-year-old, last Christmas. Those wedge-shaped burn marks are from a wood-burning kit.” He left the cubicle and hurried toward the locker room.

  Lark stared at the empty hall in astonishment. A wood-burning device. Of course. He’d had one as a kid, and suspected that at one time or another almost every kid had one. He clutched for the folder of pictures and sorted through them. The wedge-shaped marks appeared to be the right size. He’d buy a kit tomorrow and take exact measurements.

  Lark shook his head and laughed aloud. Horse might not work overtime, but he seemed to make up in quality what he lacked in quantity.

  “Are you Lieutenant Lark?” a hesitant voice asked.

  “Yeah.” Lark looked up at the heavyset man standing uncomfortably in the doorway. He judged him to be about thirty, softly overweight, with a wrinkled suit and heavy glasses. His appearance was nervous, almost furtive. “What can I do for you?”

  “They told me downstairs where to find you. I understand from the newspaper that you are in charge of the investigation concerning that dead young woman.”

  “Uh huh.” Lark wondered if this was going to be a false confession.

  “I—I have something that I think may be involved in the case.”

  “Come in and sit down. What’s your name?”

  “Maurice Grossman.” The heavyset man sat uneasily in the side chair. His fingers trembled. Lark noticed that he carried a small cassette recorder nearly buried in the palm of a sweating hand.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Grossman?”

  “I—I came to Middleburg from Maine a few weeks ago to start a new job. This came in the mail to me today.” He reached into his coat pocket and lay a small tape cassette on the center of the desk.

  “Does this have anything to do with my investigation?”

  “I think so. I should tell you that I’m a radio personality.”

  Lark found this hard to believe, but he nodded assent.

  “I do a show here and go by the name of Johnny Gross. Maybe you’ve heard it, Gross Out?”

  “You’re Johnny Gross?” Lark asked in amazement. He found it difficult to align the personality of this soft-spoken, nervous man with the overpowering, raunchy radio personality.

  “I’m different when I’m on the air,” Grossman said in a soft voice. “I’ve started running a contest and asked people to send me tapes of—”

  “I heard you on the radio.”

  Grossman nodded toward the tape. “That’s one of them that came today. I think you should listen to it.” He placed the battery-operated recorder-player on the desk, levered the cassette into it, and held out a small earphone toward Lark. “You should listen.”

  “Why the earplug?”

  “I—I don’t want to hear it again.”

  Lark nodded, placed the earphone in his ear, and pressed the PLAY button.

  The voice was male, guttural, and so nearly indistinct that Lark had to strain to catch the words.

  “I’ve got a song for you, Johnny. A pretty, pretty song that I’m sure you will like. And there will be others just as nice. Listen, Johnny. Listen good and see if it’s Gross Out.”

  An anguished scream jolted Lark’s body as if he had been shocked.

  His fist slammed against the recorder twice before it mashed down the OFF lever, but it wasn’t soon enough to stop the second scream, which was cut off at its height.

  “You see what I mean?” Grossman said softly.

  Lark’s hands trembled and perspiration beaded his forehead as he stared down at the small machine. His finger reached slowly forward and depressed the PLAY button.

  He heard the end of the scream. Although prepared, his body tensed and he clenched the edge of the desk. Words now:

  “Oh, please. I did everything you said … No!” Again a scream.

  “You wish you were never born. Say it. Say it!”

  “I wish …” The words were temporarily lost in racking sobs. “I wish I were never born.”

  It was a young woman’s voice and Lark knew who it had once belonged to.

  He unplugged the earphone, walked to the single window in the narrow cubicle, and looked down at the parking lot. It was shift change and men were leaving their patrol cars to be replaced by a new shift.

  He turned to face Grossman; their eyes met momentarily and then flicked away.

  Lark knew he had to listen to the remainder of the tape, and he wondered if he could.

  5

  Lark had neglected to switch on the desk lamp, and the small office lay in deep shadows, illuminated only by a yellowish swatch of light falling through the partly open door. The small earphone was inserted in his right ear. He leaned across the desk and supported his head with both hands. His palms were clammy.

  The sound fidelity of the small machine centered on his desk filled him with wonder coupled with revulsion. The voices swirled around him. The man’s guttural commands were obscenely specific and were counterpointed by the girl’s occasional whimpers and cries. It was a descent into hell that evoked a montage of incidents he had witnessed over two decades of police service.

  If this were a film sequence, he would have averted his head and watched the images through peripheral vision, but sounds were more horrifying, since they created mental images more vivid than reality.

  The tape ended with a single shot.

  He removed the earphone and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  “Is it over?” the deferential voice asked from the chair in the darkened corner.

  He had completely forgotten Grossman’s presence. “Yes.”

  “Do you think it’s her? The one you’re investigating?”

  “There’s a strong possibility.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Lark stared into the shadows. His vision was filled with strong afterimages. “I’m going to find and kill the son of a bitch,” he said softly.

  Chair legs squeaked on the bare floor as Grossman stood. “You’re welcome to keep it. The tape, I mean.”

  Lark laughed. “Thanks.”

  “If you don’t need me, my wife is holding dinner.”

  Lark snapped on the desk lamp, and light spilled across the feet of the heavy man standing a few feet away. “I’d like to borrow the player for a few days, and tomorrow I want to come by the station and see the other stuff you got in the mail.”

  “Oh, sure. Anytime.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t hear it all. Does it get worse?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Uh, then see you tomorrow.” Grossman turned and hurried through the door and down the hall.

  The familiar pulse of the building surrounded Lark. A distant typewriter plocked, and an occasional loud laugh issued from the squad room. A mop squished as maintenance worked on the hallways. It was a familiar, usually comfortable pattern that now seemed uncaring in the light of what he had just heard.

  He shook his head to dispel the demons and then searched through a bottom desk drawer for an evidence bag. He carefully bagged the wrapping paper used to mail the cassette and placed the evidence carefully on the desk.

  There were other things to do, many other things, and he tried to order his priorities. Distasteful as it was, he would have to listen to the tape again and make notes. Tomorrow it would have to be transcribed into a verbatim account. Who would get that unpleasant task? He’d let Frank decide.

  He rewound the tape and replaced the earphone in his ear. His index finger hovered over the PLAY button. He couldn’t do it. Not again tonight.

  He locked the tape and recorder in his desk and went home.

  He saw her car parked by his trailer as he pulled into the parking lot by the side of the Milligan Machine Company. He parked parallel to her car an
d hastily circled the factory on his security round. He wished she hadn’t come. He really wasn’t in the mood for any company.

  Dark clouds scudded across the sky as if fleeing from a partial moon and a cool wind, dank from its sweep down the river, raised goose bumps on his arms.

  Faby Winn poked her head out the door as he approached. “I don’t hear any ‘hi-ho hi-ho’ as we return to the little house in the dark wood.”

  “Fuck you.” He slammed into the trailer and went for the refrigerator. He saw a new bottle of wine open on the table.

  “My, we’re our usual sweet self tonight.”

  “If your cuteness factor rises another inch, out you go.”

  Her voice dropped in irritation. “Feet or head first, Lark?”

  She had bought a six-pack of German beer and nestled it against his hamburger. He liked it, but considered it too expensive. He took a bottle from the carton, flipped the cap off, and let it roll across the floor. “Thanks for the beer.”

  “You promised me dinner, or have you forgotten?”

  “It slipped my mind.”

  “We can get takeout Chinese.”

  He shrugged, sat down, and plopped his feet on the coffee table. He drained half the beer. “Whatever.”

  “Cathy called me today. She’s upset that you never sent this week’s check.”

  “I told her I wouldn’t.”

  Faby nodded and sipped wine. “She suspected as much. She’s taken a job at the Seven-Eleven on Grove Street.”

  “About time she got off her ass.”

  “Give the girl a chance, Lark.”

  “Chance? She had a year to, quote, find herself, unquote. So, she’s lost in the wilderness. Let her join the rest of the human race.”

  “If there’s anyone who needs to join humanity, it’s you.”

  Lark finished the remainder of his beer. “Don’t you have anyplace else to go?”

  Faby Winn jerked to her feet as a look of astonishment swept her face. “You lowdown son of a bitch,” she said in a whisper. “You arrogant pig.”