Lark

by Forrest, Richard;

“His what room?” Lark sloshed coffee over the rim of his cup. He walked to the window and looked out with his hands laced behind his back. He knew he had startled Rada Harper and would let Horse continue the questioning.

  “That’s interesting,” Horse said. “Actually, what is a stereo room?”

  “Well, I don’t really know, but that’s what Herb called it. You know how noisy highways are and so are the pull-offs where he sometimes sleeps. He took out most of the rear part and lined the walls with some sort of boards. Then he put in that acoustical tile to deaden sound. That way he can listen to his music and not hear any outside background noise.” She seemed pleased with the explanation.

  It also kept inside noise from getting out, Lark thought as he turned and nodded to Horse.

  “Mrs. Harper,” Horse said, “can I use your phone?”

  “It’s on the wall in the kitchen.”

  “You have the plate numbers?” Lark asked.

  “I’ll never forget them,” Horse said as he started for the phone to put out the APB.

  Rada Harper’s hands were like captured birds as they fluttered in her lap and occasionally darted to her face to brush a cheek and fall back into her waist. “I think there’s something you had better tell me, Lieutenant. This visit isn’t about any accident investigation, is it?”

  “No, Mrs. Harper, it isn’t. Officer Najankian is putting out an APB for your husband right now.”

  “A what?”

  “An all-points bulletin to have every police agency be on the alert for Herb and pick him up when they find him.”

  The hands became more agitated. “But why? There’s no more gentle man in the world than Herb.”

  “Before I go into that, did he give you any hint as to where he might be going today?”

  “Herb never tells me exactly where he’ll be. He says he doesn’t really know where the fishing will be good until he gets there. He tells me generally, like that he’s going into the Berkshires or something like that.”

  “Is that what he said today?”

  “He said he was going up to Litchfield County. That’s in Connecticut.”

  “I know where it is,” Lark snapped as he rushed to the kitchen phone where Horse was still talking to the dispatcher. That county was in the northwest quadrant of the state and contained the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. It was a heavily wooded area filled with lakes, high hills, and a series of ponds and campgrounds. He snatched the phone from Horse’s hand.

  “This is Lark. On that APB, notify the Litchfield State Police Barracks that the suspect is possibly heading toward their area in a camper. Tell them that he is dangerous and a high-priority murder suspect.”

  “Gotcha. You can be reached at this number?”

  “Affirmative,” Lark said as he hung up.

  The kitchen, like the remainder of the house, was clean to the point of obsessiveness. The floor had been recently waxed, and Lark could see his reflection in the burnished surface. Samplers, containing such phrases as “We Love Our Home” were on the wall, and bright copper-bottomed pots were hung from evenly spaced hooks. It was a room that a life had been dedicated to maintain.

  Rada Harper stood in the doorway. Her small curled fists covered her mouth as she looked at him with frightened eyes. “What has Herb done?”

  “He’s a murder suspect, Mrs. Harper,” Lark said in a monotone.

  “Oh, my God.” She crumpled to the floor and lay in a neat heap at Lark’s feet.

  “You had better phone for a policewoman,” Lark told Horse.

  They stretched Rada Harper on the couch, where she unconsciously curled up in a fetal position. While Horse made more phone calls, Lark toured the house.

  The front door opened directly into an L-shaped living room with its compact dining area. The kitchen was off the apex of the L while a narrow hall that led toward the side contained the bedroom doors.

  The first room was obviously Rada Harper’s sewing room. A small desk was set against one wall, a sewing machine with a myriad of attachments faced the window. Over the desk was a bulletin board with note reminders of household items to purchase and dental appointments to be kept.

  The second was a man’s bedroom. Heavy maple furniture predominated, with a set of military brushes exactly centered on the shining dresser. Lark made a cursory check of the bureau drawers and discovered neat balls of socks and the division of underwear and other clothing strictly segregated. The final room was feminine, with a canopied bed that would have been more fitting for a pubescent girl rather than a mature woman.

  “Why are you going through my things?” she asked from behind him.

  “As I said, Mrs. Harper, Herb is a suspect.”

  “That’s impossible and ridiculous. Ask anyone who knows him and they will tell you the same thing.”

  “I know Herb from the plant. I worked with him for several days, and frankly, I’m as surprised as you are.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on. Herb is a perfect husband, a good provider, a thoughtful man.”

  “You sleep apart?”

  Her brittle facade shattered as wisps of fear that changed to anger crossed her face. “We don’t do those things. We don’t find it necessary.”

  “I see,” Lark said noncommittally. “Could I see the cellar?”

  “There’s nothing down there but the washer, canned goods, and Herb’s fishing things.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “This way.” She led him down the hall and into the kitchen, where she stopped. “Herb has always worked. He never misses a day, even when he had the flu, he insisted on going to work. He’s generous with my household allowance, and he’s an assistant coach with the little girl’s softball team.”

  Lark inwardly groaned. They’d have to check that one out. “Sometimes people aren’t what they appear to be.”

  “I couldn’t live with a man for thirteen years and not know what sort of person he is.”

  “Some men hide their feelings in places you would never suspect.”

  “I don’t believe this is happening. I really don’t.”

  “The cellar?”

  “Do I have to allow this?”

  “No, you don’t. I can get a search warrant signed by a judge.”

  She turned without replying and threw a light switch as she opened the cellar door. She stepped aside and let Lark proceed. He went slowly down the narrow wooden stairs. The cellar was as neat as the rest of the ranch. Tools were hung on the wall, it was well swept, and the washer and dryer looked to be in pristine condition. Shelves lined one wall and contained canned goods in addition to mason jars showing the harvest from a bountiful vegetable garden.

  “Herb shovels the old lady’s walk next door when it snows,” she said from midway down the stairs.

  “He sounds like a good neighbor,” Lark said as he crossed the cellar to a wooden partition that ran the length of the rear. He stopped before a door locked with a padlock and heavy hasp. “What’s in here?”

  “Herb ties his own fishing flies during the winter season. He says it’s a mess in there, and if he lets me in, I’ll only want to clean it up and mess up his stuff.”

  “It’s important that I see the inside.”

  “I told you what’s in there.”

  “I’d like to open it.”

  “Go ahead! I’m sure Herb will see a lawyer over all of this.”

  “I’m sure he will,” Lark said as he searched through the neatly racked tools until he found a short crowbar. He inserted the wedged end behind the hasp and pulled down on the bar with his full weight. With a creak of nails the hasp swung free and fell to the side. He opened the door and stepped into the small room.

  Lark involuntarily gasped. The bastard had taken photographs.

  He whirled to bar her way, but it was too late. She was already in the room, her back pressed against the wooden partition. She mouthed words, but for moments no sound came forth until finally a low, plaintive “No, no, no
.”

  The room was as neat and orderly as the remainder of the house. It did contain a short workbench with a tie-flying clasp mounted on its edge with feathers and other accoutrements for its use in small, plastic containers. The room also contained what Harper would have called his mementos.

  The rear wall held mounted photographs of eight-by-ten glossies of young women in various stages of naked anguish. Their faces, forever frozen in the silent rictus of a scream, would haunt Lark for the rest of his life.

  The other long wall contained row after row of panties thumbtacked in neat files.

  A cassette player with adjacent earphones sat on a small stand next to an aging easy chair in the center of the room.

  It was here that he would relive his exploits. Here, with his photographs and tapes of death, Harper spent the winter months with vivid memories of his killings.

  He had to do it, and they were the most difficult steps he had ever taken, but he crossed the room and began to scan the faces of the dead young women in the photographs.

  On the bottom row near the wall he found two faces of victims that he recognized. One was of the corpse found behind the house on Mark Street, the other found in the nearby state forest.

  He counted the pictures. There were thirty-seven, several more than they had suspected.

  “He bought these things somewhere. There are shops that sell dirty things. There are stores that cater to men who—”

  “He didn’t buy them,” Lark said. “He created them.”

  Now the sounds from her were low, moaning whimpers. She was a cornered animal consumed with hurt, a child terror-ridden with the realization that the monsters of the mind are all too real. She had looked into the horror of a pit filled with the raw sewage of the sickest of minds.

  The corroborating evidence, the physical necessities for a strong case, were here in abundance. That was the thought that flicked through his mind.

  He turned away from the horror gallery and reached for Mrs. Harper’s hand. She withdrew from him and fled to a corner of the room as if he were the creator of her nightmare.

  “How often did he come down here?”

  “Every night during the winter. Every single night for at least an hour. We would joke about his secret time. I know what he did down here. I know what he did as he sat in this chair and looked at those—those things.”

  “Let’s go upstairs.”

  In robotlike movements she followed him through the cellar and up into the kitchen.

  “I want you to take a look at the room in the cellar,” Lark told Horse. “Then get the lab unit over here. Make a list of all the items in the room and call it into Frank Pemperton. I want him to personally prepare the search-and-seizure warrant.”

  “Right,” Horse said, and eagerly trotted down the cellar steps.

  It was less than four minutes later that Lark heard his partner stumble upstairs and rush into the bathroom, where he retched uncontrollably into the bowl. “Check on the APB,” Lark yelled toward the bathroom when Horse’s heavings began to subside.

  “Herb teaches Sunday school and they tell me he’s one of their most popular teachers,” Rada Harper said.

  Lord deliver me from Sunday-school teachers, Lark thought. He wondered if her comment required a reply and decided that it did not.

  “I don’t know why he has those things in the basement,” she continued. “Very early in our marriage we decided that we didn’t need to do those things. He must have had a nervous breakdown. Yes, that’s it. Herb had a nervous breakdown and didn’t know what he was doing when he purchased those dirty items.”

  “That could be true,” Lark said. “The breakdown must have occurred some time ago.”

  “A man can’t be held responsible for his actions when he’s mentally ill. I know that from the television. You can’t blame Herb for buying those things, when he’s sick.”

  Lark had to turn away in order to stop himself from yelling in her face that her husband didn’t buy the items in the cellar. He had, in fact, taken and developed the photographs himself, just as he had so readily posed them. “Do you know anything about Herb’s early background?”

  “Of course I do. When we were dating, we had very long talks and he told me everything. That’s one of the reasons why we never became too involved in—doing those things.”

  “I’d like to hear.”

  “Would it help him?”

  “It might.”

  She took a deep breath and spoke in a rush of tumbling words. “His mother was a wanton woman. Oh, there’s no doubt about that. She was what you call promiscuous. She had a great many men in her life after her husband left, and she did things with them, if you know what I mean?”

  “I can imagine,” Lark replied. He didn’t really want to hear this sad recitation, but knew he must. It seemed as if all of his recent life was filled with things he didn’t want to do or hear.

  “She often had men live in, and she made Herb call them uncles. It wasn’t really a house, they lived in motel rooms with tiny kitchens on one of those highways near Hartford. There was no place for Herb to sleep except on a sleeping bag at the foot of the bed. And every night he could hear them do it. He heard them. Night after night he heard his mother moaning and he was afraid she was being hurt.” She began to bustle around the room straightening furniture that hadn’t been moved. “It was when they drank liquor that most of the horrible things happened. She would make Herb take off his little pajamas and stand naked in front of them with his little—his little—his small—”

  “Penis,” Lark said.

  “With his penis exposed. And they would laugh at him, and his mother would flip it and make funny remarks to the newest uncle. If he cried, she would hit him.”

  “Uh huh,” Lark said.

  “So, you can see why Herb grew up the way he did and why he hated sex so much. That’s why we hardly did it. We haven’t done it in years, and it doesn’t bother either of us.” She moved a straight chair from one side of the picture window to the other. “And you can see why anything Herb did isn’t really his fault.”

  “What happened to his mother?”

  “She burned up. It’s fitting, in a way. She must have fallen asleep with a cigarette in some motel and burned up. A man was in the bed with her and they never did find out who he was.”

  “How long ago did it happen?”

  “A few years, three maybe. Herb didn’t shed a tear. He wouldn’t even go to the funeral. Not that there was much of a service.”

  The motel fire was probably a case of arson, Lark thought. He’d let it drop. There was too much to do as it was. “And about the time his mother died is when Herb built the room in the cellar and bought the camper?”

  “Yes, I guess it was about then. Maybe his mother’s death made him have the breakdown.”

  “Maybe so,” Lark said.

  “He didn’t kill those girls, Lieutenant. He couldn’t. He’s too gentle and he hates those sex things.”

  “I guess he does,” Lark said.

  19

  Frank Pemperton, flanked by a female police officer, burst into the house. His smile creased his face as he pumped Lark’s hand. “Son of a gun, you’ve done it! I got word on the APB and the state boys will grab him any minute.”

  Lark glanced at his watch. Too much time had elapsed, and with each passing moment the chances were that Herb Harper would be off the main highways and traveling little-used secondary roads—roads that were sparsely patrolled. “I hope so.”

  Horse gave the policewoman instructions. “Take Mrs. Harper into the bedroom and see if you can get any more information from her regarding the camper’s description and exactly where her husband might be going. Also, try to pinpoint the exact time he pulled out of here.”

  “I’ll try.” She gently steered Rada Harper down the hall.

  “Do you have the paper?” Lark asked Pemperton.

  “I’ve got it. Let me see the evidence.”

  Horse led t
he way toward the cellar, followed by the chief, a photographer, and three men from the state forensic unit.

  Lark paced the living room and finally sat on the edge of the couch and looked at the time again, and then at a road map of the state. “Too much time,” he said aloud.

  “We’ll get the bastard,” a state-police corporal standing stiffly in his starched uniform said. “You can’t hide a camper easily, and the state lines are completely blocked. If we don’t grab him today, tomorrow there will be a full barracks search of every road and park in the county. We’ll have him by noon, and that’s a promise.”

  “By noon there will be another dead girl,” Lark said as he examined the map again. If Harper went into Litchfield County, which was in the northwestern part of the state, he would have gone up I-91, over to I-84, and somewhere near Waterbury switched onto other roads. The area was pockmarked with parks, private campgrounds, and vacant forest land. Dozens of streams, ponds, and lakes riddled the county. “There isn’t time,” he said.

  The policewoman stuck her head around the corner of the hall. “There’s one thing that might help, Lieutenant. The camper has a flat-bottom skiff tied to the roof. The boat’s bottom is a fire-engine red.”

  “Thanks. That will help.” He spoke to the trooper. “Give that to your guys.”

  “Right.”

  Horse came back into the living room. “The chief is down in the cellar just standing there, not moving, just staring at those damn walls. I think he’s in shock.”

  “Harper could have another victim by now.”

  “I know, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”

  Lark began to pace. His mind replayed the tapes he had been forced to listen to, while a montage of the grisly items in the basement of this ordinary home flew by with terrifying speed. He wanted to do something. He was a man used to action. The waiting was difficult.

  The state trooper sensed his impatience. “No way he can get away, Lieutenant. It’s only a question of when.”

  “We don’t have time.” He snapped at Horse. “Come on.”

  “Where to?” Horse asked as he climbed into the pickup.

  “The Middleburg airport. We’ll have the plane’s radio patched into the state-police band.”