Lark (11 page)

“Son of a bitch, you're still hard,” the trooper said. “I've been here nearly a year. It keeps me away from the likes of you, and I got tired of prying teenagers out of wrecked cars.”

“Warren must be desperate.”

“Not as bad off as Middleburg is with you still on the force,” the trooper countered with a grin.

“They're working on it,” Lark said, knowing how true that was. “I need some help, if you're not too hung over, you broken-down bastard.”

“If you're up here, that means I got drug problems.”

“I'm not on the street anymore, Black Jack. One of your kids bought it in Middleburg the other day.”

“Oh, Christ.” The other officer's grin faded. “The body of the girl you found was from Warren?”

“She's been identified as Vicky Stanton. The mother's making the final ID right now.”

Black Jack nodded. “I'm not surprised. She was wild as hell, school dropout, work dropout and roundheels.”

“That's some character reference.”

“She was a disaster waiting for an accident.”

“I just talked to a kid named Lawton who works at a gas station. He was going around with the Stanton girl.”

“The wipeouts attract each other like flies.”

“What do you have on Lawton?”

“If you're serious about him, I'll get you a full written report, but off the top of my head, how about shoplifting, auto theft, breaking the peace, and God only knows how many vehicle charges?”

“Ever done time?”

“So far, the only thing serious we had on him was as a juvenile. The next time he steps out of line he goes adult and does time … maybe.”

“You'll never get his juvenile record unsealed,” Lark said.

“Hell, Lark, I'm as mean as you are when it comes to my town. I'll damn well make sure that the sentencing judge hears the right rumors about our little boy blue.”

“Tell me about breaking the peace?”

“Make that plural. The kid's got a temper. Pump a couple beers into him and he goes after people … usually with a bottle or anything else handy. Luckily for his victims, he's not too big or well-coordinated.”

“Then he's capable of murder?”

Black Jack tilted back his chair and considered the question before answering. “Murder? The girl? Maybe in a fit of rage, if he let himself get out of hand.”

“She was tortured first,” Lark said.

“Tortured? Christ! How do you mean?”

Lark recounted certain portions of the tape and described the autopsy.

“Hell, you're not even sure if it's the same girl. The tape could be a phony.”

“I don't believe in coincidences, but I do know that most victims know their killers.”

“God, Lawton is mean, but I'm not sure he's that mean. I can figure him for snuffing the Stanton girl in a drunken rage or even for the hell of it, but not doing it like you tell it.”

Lark glanced down at his watch. “I'll have a better idea after I interview him again. He's got a relief coming to the station at noon and then I'll get another crack at him.”

“Where are you picking him up?”

“He's going to wait for me at the station.”

Black Jack's mouth gaped open. “You've got to be kidding? Do you really think that creep's going to wait for you? How long have you been off the street?”

“A couple of days.”

“Then you've gone soft in the head. If you expect him to be there at noon, you're crazy. He'll leave at eleven-thirty.”

“Then I'll find him,” Lark said noncommittally.

“And tear up half my town doing it.” The trooper heaved himself to his feet and snatched his broad-brimmed hat from a nearby coat rack. “Come on. I know where he'll go.”

“Got it down pat, huh?”

“Hell, it's my town.”

They took a state police car and drove past the Warren city limits and out Route 79 to where it narrowed to a winding, double-lane country road. The houses were spaced farther and farther apart until few appeared and they were in rural farmland surrounded by second-growth timber. The dark-complexioned trooper swerved the cruiser into a right-angle turn and jounced up a rutted dirt road, making another turn onto an even more rustic road until it came to an abrupt stop at a barnlike building nestled under the shadows of large trees. The Kawasaki motorcycle was parked near one corner of the building.

Black jack stepped from the car and signaled to Lark. As the trooper walked toward a tack-room door, he brushed his hand lightly against his holstered pistol. Lark unzipped his jacket.

“You might call it a clubhouse,” Black Jack said. “They play all kinds of fun and games out here.”

Lark saw that the barn was isolated and the area surrounding it was filled with stands of trees and heavy underbrush. The sound-depressant qualities of the foliage would be excellent. Anything could go on in this remote building without anyone hearing.

They stepped just inside the door and paused a moment to let their eyes adjust to the building's interior dimness. Incongruously, an Oriental carpet covered a large expanse of the floor while a pool table stood in the exact center of the expensive carpet. A wooden bar with upholstered stools occupied another corner, a rumpled bed another.

“Where in the hell did they get this stuff?” Lark asked.

“You get one guess. Unfortunately, I can't match the items with any local burglaries. The stuff probably came from jobs they pulled in other towns.” He yelled out, “Lawton! I know you're here.”

Both officers stood in the center of the barn as a shaft of light from a dirty window on the far wall fell at their feet. “Craziest bike clubhouse I've ever seen,” Lark said.

“We grow 'em unique in Warren,” the trooper said. He yelled out again. “Lawton, dammit!”

“I ought to go outside and finish trashing his bike,” Lark said loud enough for anyone on the premises to overhear.

He saw the motion in the shadowy loft from the corner of his eye, but it took a moment for the action to register itself on his conscious mind. He half-turned to see that Jack was walking toward the bar just as the form from above hurtled down in a long sweeping arc.

A scream filled the barn and reverberated from the walls. Jack, startled, hunched down in a shooting crouch. Lark knew it was nearly too late, the state policeman's body was directly under the swinging man's trajectory. Lawton screamed again as his raised saber glistened in a shaft of window light.

Lark hurled his body forward and twisted in midflight into a cross-body block that caught Jack in the small of the back and sprawled both of them across the floor into the side of the bar.

“What the fu—”

Lawton, swinging from a thick rope attached to a beam near the roof of the barn, thudded against the far wall and began his return arc. He clutched the rope with one hand while his feet rested in a loop. His other hand waved the sword.

“The bastard's crazy,” Lark yelled as the biker swept past them with another screech. His saber narrowly missed their heads as he waved it back and forth.

On the next return swing, Lawton's feet crashed through the window at the far end of the barn. The saber dropped to the floor with a dull thud. His body twisted in the rope as he fought for a handhold to control his sway.

Jack pulled himself erect and grasped his service revolver in his right hand as he extended it toward the figure at the far end of the barn.

Lark ran forward, grabbed the twisting feet of their attacker, and swung him forcibly against the side of the barn. Lawton's body crashed against the wall and Lark swung him forward again and again until the young man's hold broke and he fell.

Immediately, Lark's knees pressed against the man's back as he pulled his arms back and handcuffed the wrists. Lawton writhed on the floor. “I'll kill you bastards. I'll cut your fucking heads off.”

“Mike's been in the angel dust again,” Black Jack said without emotion as he reholstered his weapon. “Makes him crazy as a loon.”

Lawton's body convulsed as he repeatedly drew his legs to his chest and kicked out. His head rocked back and forth while he spewed out a series of incomprehensible words.

Lark grabbed the prisoner's chin to hold the lolling head still. “Where'd you kill her, punk? In here? You kept her here and then dumped her in Middleburg, right?”

“Off with their heads,” was the reply.

“You won't get any sense out of him now,” Jack said. “And besides, you have to read him his rights.”

“This prick's got no rights.” Lark tightened his grip. “What did you tie her with?”

“Heads will roll,” was the nonsensical reply.

Lark let his hands fall away from the handcuffed man. “We won't get a thing from him until he's detoxed.” He walked slowly around the pool table as he examined the building at greater length. Lawton still writhed on the floor, straining against the handcuffs. “How'd he get so bad so fast?”

“I think he double-laces his smokes and does them two at a time. Who knows? Low tolerance probably,” Jack said.

“Can we seal this place up and get the lab people out here? I'd be interested to know if there's any fibers that match what we got from the body.”

“Vicky Stanton probably got laid out here two dozen times. You're going to find a ton of matching fibers, but I don't know what it will prove.”

“How long can you hold Tarzan?” Lark asked.

Black Jack walked over to the convulsing figure and looked down. “Assault, resisting arrest, attempted murder of a police officer … Hell, he's ours for as long as we want.”

“Good. I'd just like to know where to find him until the lab checks things out.”

“Right. I'll radio for a constable to come out here and take lover boy for his free room and board.”

Lark drove back to Middleburg at a moderate rate of speed. He cradled a can of beer in his right hand while his left casually gripped the pickup's wheel. It was time to think.

The bulk of the investigation was now out of his jurisdiction. The state lab would check out the barn. Black Jack would prepare and have executed the proper search-and-seizure warrant for any of Vicky's possessions the clubhouse might yield, and Lawton would remain in custody for an indefinite period of time. Bail would be set high, and it would be weeks before his trial on the attempted-murder charges.

It all added up to a neat spiral of conjecture, and yet the sum seemed less than the parts. Vital pieces were missing. The cycle clubhouse was a logical, isolated spot for the torture murder of Vicky, and yet somehow the dispassionate treatment of the victim by the man on the tape didn't seem to match the erratic, nearly psychotic behavior of Mike Lawton.

Nor did the man's voice on the tape match the postadolescent whine of Mike Lawton.

Or was more than one killer involved? Was there a cabal—perhaps an older man who used Lawton to entice victims to the isolated barn?

Lark knew from experience that exhaustive investigative work would answer many of the questions, but in this case, as in so many, there would be missing pieces that would never be fitted in.

He stopped at a phone booth at the outskirts of Middleburg and called Horse at home. A very young voice answered, and after several relays Horse was finally on the phone.

“How did the identification go?” Lark asked.

“Firm. It's the Stanton girl.”

“We have a suspect. I'll fill you in tomorrow.” Lark hung up and realized that he was bone-tired. It had been a long and uncomfortable day, and now it was time to go home and sleep.

There was a single light on in the trailer behind the machine shop. He cut his headlights and engine and let the truck drift in the drive and gradually slow to a stop before the trailer. He slipped from the pickup and made an oblique approach to the rear window.

His daughter was asleep on the divan.

He entered quietly and walked across the living-room area and stood looking down at her sleeping form. She was curled up with her denim-clad legs pulled toward her chest, her hands under her chin. She could have been ten years old.

A deep, hungry part of him reached toward her with an invisible gesture. He did love her, and she was all that he had. He stood watching for a few moments before he softly called her name. “Cathy.”

She moaned in her sleep.

He called again. “Cathy.”

Her eyes flicked open and she looked up at him with the gaze of a small child. “Daddy?”

“Yes, honey.” He sat gingerly on the edge of the divan near her feet. She had returned.

She sat up quickly and swung her feet to the floor. She was now wide awake. “Daddy, you have to help me.”

He wanted to touch her, but he didn't. “What can I do?”

“Craig's in big trouble.”

It took him a moment to reorient himself and mentally sift through a cluttered mind catalog of names before he realized that Craig was the one who had stood in the bedroom doorway. “Craig?”

“They busted him with an intent to sell. He's in jail, Daddy. He won't be able to stand it in there.”

Lark moved quickly into the kitchen area and snaked a beer from the refrigerator. He snapped the top before turning to face her. “We wouldn't want his sensitive soul disturbed.”

Her eyes clouded and the child within fled. “Will you help?”

“I'm surprised they bothered with a kid selling a couple of ounces of pot.”

“It was a bunch of coke. He found a dealer and planned to do it just once so I wouldn't have to work at the store.”

“How magnanimous of him. I'm sure the judge will take that into consideration.”

“No irony, please, Daddy. Are you going to help?”

He turned away. “No.”

“I haven't asked you for anything in a long time, but I am now. You know who to contact. You could get him the right lawyer, maybe even talk to the prosecutor. They'd take your word … they'd do what you asked of them.”