Lark (6 page)

“Any idea what they are?”

A pause on the other end of the line. “Believe it or not, we think it's bat blood.”

“Bats? Like that fly at night?”

“The same. Negative also on the girl's fingerprints. She's not on file here or with the FBI in Washington.”

“Thanks.” Lark hung up. It was going to be the hard way.

Lark parked the pickup in front of a fire hydrant by Manny's Sporting Goods. He sat drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as Najankian lumbered from the truck and entered the shop. Horse had passed up a beer with the laconic comment that he didn't drink. This gave Lark further doubts over his choice of partner: a nondrinking, unambitious, traffic cop who carried an unloaded piece. It didn't matter, he was stuck with Horse. He'd requested him over Frank Pemperton's objections, and he'd be damned if he'd admit to a mistake.

Horse must be pouring his own bullets, he thought impatiently as he flicked on the radio.

“All right, all you studs and babes, we're down to this week's Gross Out contest. I want tapes. That's right, cassette tapes of you guys and gals out there doing it. Now, you know what I mean by
it
, and no dirty words. Just sounds for Johnny Gross …”

Lark snapped off the radio so vehemently that the button broke in his hand.

Najankian walked slowly out of the store carrying a small paper bag. He sat next to Lark and slowly loaded his pistol, taking care to leave an empty cylinder under the hammer.

Lark pulled the truck away from the curb and drove toward Mark Street. “I have a search-and-seizure warrant for the house.”

“What's it cover?”

Lark gave a short sigh of relief. Traffic cop or not, at least Horse had listened when the rules concerning search warrants had been discussed. “It's as broad as I could make it and covers personal belongings such as wallet, purse, or back-pack of the deceased. This really gives us carte blanche to toss the whole damn house, but for God's sake, don't take anything that isn't covered in the warrant. If we find anything else, we'll have to go for a new warrant before we grab it.”

“I know.”

“There's one thing in particular we want to look for: a room that looks soundproofed.”

Najankian looked puzzled. “How's that?”

“The girl was tortured without being gagged. There would have been one hell of a lot of noise.”

“Son of a bitch,” Horse mumbled, nearly to himself. The large traffic patrolman was morosely silent during the remainder of the drive to the house on Mark Street. He finally spoke when Lark braked to a halt at the curb. “Question, Lieutenant. What about those threads we found on the bush? If they came from the victim's clothing, that means she was probably carried from the highway and dumped where we found her.”

“Maybe. Or someone could have wanted it to look that way. Let's see what our friends in white have to say before we make up our minds.”

Lark had expected at least a minimum amount of squalor in the house, since it was inhabited by a group of weird young people. At his knock, the door was opened by a flaxen-haired young woman whose slightly frayed prom dress was pulled high above her knees and tucked around her waist. Lark's eyes were drawn to her legs. He noticed bare feet and knees that were red with slight abrasions. In the hallway behind her was a scrub bucket and brush. It was obvious that she had been doing the floor on her hands and knees.

She averted her eyes and her voice was distant and faraway, as if she were a recalcitrant child. “Yes?”

“I'm Lieutenant Lark of the police and I have a search warrant for this house.”

The girl immediately turned and fled down the hallway. Near the bucket she skidded on the wet floor, caught herself, and continued running through a swinging door at the rear of the house.

“Want me to cover the rear?” Horse asked.

“I don't think she's running. I think she went to get someone.”

Winthrop Rutledge, splendid looking in a suit the color of vanilla ice cream, scurried through the door and hurried to them. “You can't come in here!”

Lark took two steps further into the house. “We're in, Winthrop. I have a warrant signed by a judge.” He offered the search-and-seizure warrant while simultaneously nodding toward Najankian to begin the search.

Winthrop looked at the legal paper with a blank expression. “Does this mean I have to let you in?”

“It does.”

“We're very private here.”

“We won't disturb anything unless it pertains to the murder.”

“She was never in here.”

“I'll want to talk to the girls.”

“I speak for them.”

Lark stepped closer to the man in the white suit. “Listen, there are two ways we can do this: the easy way or the hard way. The hard way is downtown, and that means paperwork, reading your rights, and all that other jazz that makes me unhappy. The easy way is your cooperation. Well?”

Winthrop hesitated only a moment. “I'll get everyone together in the kitchen.” He started back down the hall and called over his shoulder. “That is, everyone except for Reba. Reba is a new probationer and is concentrating in the green room.”

“She what?”

Winthrop sighed. “You'll find her when you go through the house.”

“Uh huh,” Lark said as he nodded again to Horse. “Let's go.”

The room to the right of the front entrance, which had once been the parlor, was spotless and held only a few pieces of furniture: a worn couch covered with a homemade afghan, and several straight chairs. A lobster pot had been varnished and was now used as a coffee table. It held several books and Lark examined the titles: Crowley's
Magick in Theory and Practice
, Wheatley's
The Devil and All His Works
, and Wood's
Black Magic
.

Najankian efficiently looked under cushions and in back of furniture. The sparse room was quickly searched. “Whatcha looking at?”

“I think we have ourselves a cult,” Lark said. “Let's go across the hall.”

What would have been the dining room was entered by pushing back heavy double doors. “Oh, boy,” Najankian said when the open doors revealed the room.

“What did I tell you? A goddamn cult.”

The floor and walls of the room had been painted black and heavy black drapes covered the windows. A lectern, covered with a dark blanket, was in one corner of the room and held a polished brass candelabrum. A single white circle in the center of the floor with a diameter of seven feet was the only color relief in the dark room.

“Oh, boy,” Horse said again.

“Boggles the imagination,” Lark replied. “Well, easy enough to toss. Check under the blanket covering the pulpit.”

Najankian placed the candelabrum carefully on the floor and pulled the blanket from the pulpit. “Nothing.”

“Okay, let's check the rest of the downstairs. Then I'll take the cellar and you can check the attic crawl space.”

The single bedroom, and the only other room besides the rear kitchen, was also furnished simply. Two large double beds were pushed together along one wall, and were covered with a mass of sleeping bags. Two worn dressers contained women and men's clothing and undergarments, but held nothing that could be specifically connected to the dead girl. A few jackets and boots were in the single closet.

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.”