Lark (19 page)

“I need physical evidence. I have to have something in hand to give the state's attorney. There's over thirty of them, Horn, young women tortured and killed, and he's the bastard.”

Horn looked toward the isolated interrogation room at the far end of the hall with a faraway look in his eyes. “I have a daughter eighteen.”

Lark gave him a gentle shove toward the room. “Do it for her. Just a few minutes, to soften him up for me.”

Lark sat on a high stool in the room behind the interrogation chamber and looked through a one-way mirror into the confined space. Maurice Grossman had his head on his arms and was splayed across the bare tabletop. Their voices, as picked up through the air duct high on the wall, would have a hollow quality, but the words would be clear enough. He steadied the pad on his knee and prepared to take notes.

Horn's entrance startled Lark, even though he was aware it was coming. The effect upon Maurice Grossman was positively electric. The disc jockey's arms were instinctively drawn to his face as his body recoiled across the room away from the large man looming in the entrance.

They had played this game countless times in the past. It was particularly effective with middle-class whites who, Lark suspected, had an instinctive fear of large black men, whether they wore a police uniform or not.

Horn was menacing. He had taken off his tie and gun and unbuttoned his shirt to his navel. His massive neck seemed to flow into his pectoral muscles like a tree trunk growing from rocky soil. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal nineteen-inch biceps that bulged as if they had recently been flexed.

Horn took two steps into the room and pointed. “You the sucker been wasting those girls?”

“No, I promise you. It wasn't me.”

“One of those girls was my woman. You know that?”

“Please don't hurt me.”

Lark was always amazed at how much potential violence Horn could impart to a prisoner without ever uttering one word of an actual physical threat.

“I am not pleased,” Horn bellowed.

“Please …” The voice was a whimper.

“Have you made your statement yet?” Horn made it sound like a request for a last will and testament.

“Don't hit me.”

“We don't lean on people; it leaves marks and the lawyers love that. We have other plans for you.”

The way he said “plans” evoked images of something midway between castration by coat hanger and a gang rape.

“I'll do whatever you guys want. Get Lieutenant Lark back in here.”

“First give me your belt and shoelaces.”

Maurice immediately bent to unlace his shoes and then whipped off his belt and handed them over. “Why are you taking them?”

“We don't want you hanging yourself on us, now, do we?”

Lark slipped off the stool and left the room behind the mirror. It was time to talk to Maurice now that Horn had him in a cooperative mood. “Lay off my prisoner, Horn,” Lark said icily as he burst into the interrogation room. He was gratified to see the look of relief in Maurice's eyes. That was the way it should be at the changing of the guard.

“I was only trying to get to know him better,” Horn said.

“Out,” Lark commanded.

Horn sulked out. “Call me if you need me. Little wimp messing with girls. I'd like to get my hands on him—alone,” they heard him mumble as he went down the hall.

“Cigarette?” Lark asked as he straddled a chair facing his prisoner.

“I don't smoke.”

“Come to think of it, neither do I anymore.” He gave a tight smile. “Ready to talk it out?”

“I'll confess to anything you want, Lieutenant. I cheat on my wife, I cheat on my expense account, I cheat on my tax form. I felt up my best friend's sister once, and when I was a kid, I used to look through a hole in the wall and watch my aunt undress. I've done other things too, give me some time to think of them. I can't confess to something I didn't do.”

“I wouldn't want you to, Maurice. Do I have to go over it all again: the camper, the tapes, the prerecorded broadcast, the voice of the man?”

“You told me all that.”

“And we do know that you like kinky sex and sometimes get mad at the little ladies.”

“She made fun of me, the goddamn slut.” The veneer had changed and Johnny Gross had returned. The stare at Lark was now more belligerent. “I want a lawyer.”

Lark gave an involuntary start at the man's use of the word “slut.” He remembered too vividly the slashed abdomen of the first victim. “Perhaps Johnny Gross does these things and Maurice doesn't know anything about them.”

“You dumb, stupid cop. What half-assed psychology course did you take? I may be weird, but I'm not nuts. I want a lawyer. I demand to make a phone call.”

Lark left the room and made sure the door latched shut behind him.

Horn was waiting for him at the end of the hall. “What's up?” the watch commander asked.

“He's crying for a lawyer.”

“Are you going to book him?”

“Dammit! I don't have enough yet. I don't have anything physical that ties him into any of the killings.”

“We can't keep him locked in there much longer without doing something.”

“I know that,” Lark said in irritation as he strode toward the elevator. “I want him to stew a little longer before I take a final crack at him.”

His holstered Python and his badge were centered neatly on his desk. A memo note that announced that it came from the desk of Frank Pemperton was under the holster: “You're not a quitter. Finish this one and then we talk, Frank.”

Lark strapped the gun on and shoved the badge into his back pocket. He sat at the desk and assumed his thinking position of feet on the radiator and hands clasped behind his head.

There were many threads that led to Maurice Grossman, and one of them would lead to physical evidence strong enough to hold up in a court of law. Somewhere there were answers.

He snatched up the phone on its first ring. “Lark here.”

“You had better get downstairs pronto,” Horn said. “It has really hit the fan.”

Lark walked down the hall to the far interrogation room where Maurice Grossman was held. The door was open and a cluster of men stood poised in the entry way. Frank Pemperton and Horn dominated the group. Lark pushed his way past the men in the door.

Maurice Grossman, his mouth open, was still in the chair. His head was thrown back as he stared lifelessly at the ceiling.

“What in the hell happened?” Lark asked.

“You and Horn scared the poor bastard to death, that's what happened,” Pemperton said.

14

Lark was on the phone with the state medical examiner. His hands were clammy. He wanted a drink. Not a beer. A drink of hard liquor, something raw and burning that would dissolve the rock resting in the pit of his stomach.

He had never scared anyone to death before—at least he didn't think he had. The truth of the matter was, for the past several years his collars had been young men so zonked on various substances that the impending end of the world would have elicited a mild shrug.

She came on the line. “I told you that I'd call as soon as I could.” Her voice was edgy and tinged with impatience.

“It's sort of important to me, Doc.”

“I can imagine.”

“Most of my prisoners don't die on me like that.”

“I wouldn't expect so.”

It was his turn to be impatient. “Dammit! Can you give me anything?”

“I can give you short shrift if you keep hounding me. Let me see if we have a preliminary report. Hold it a second.”

Jesus! He was hyperventilating. That would have to stop. Where the hell was she?

She was back on the line with an audible rustling of papers. “I've got it. Your man died of a massive anteroseptal myocardial infarction.”

“What's that?”

“He had a massive heart attack.”

“At his age?”

“He suffered from familial lipoproteinemia. It affects at an early age and was probably genetic in origin. There was no way to predict it, and he was probably unaware of the condition.”

“Then we didn't scare him to death?”

“Well, not hardly. If he was under extreme stress, it would have elevated his blood pressure, increased his heart rate, and caused glandular changes that might have hastened the attack. You didn't kill him; it would have hit in a few weeks anyway.”

“Thanks.” Lark hung up.

“I've got your and Horn's report on the incident,” Frank Pemperton said from the doorway.

“The ME just gave me a prelim. Grossman had a congenital heart condition. All we took was a few weeks or months of his life,” Lark said bitterly.

“You and Horn are a pair that would scare the life out of most citizens.”

“You know, I don't really need that, Chief.”

“I don't really need suspects kicking off in my police station, particularly suspects who also happen to be radio personalities.”

“In other words, Lambert is slinking around.”

“Exactly,” Frank Pemperton said tiredly. “You wouldn't recognize Grossman from the obituaries. Instead of a dirty disc jockey, he has somehow turned into an esteemed broadcast journalist. They're after ass, Lark.”

“Grossman may have killed more than thirty women.”

“Do you have any evidence of that? Can we even suggest such a possibility?”

“No,” Lark replied. “All that I have are a few circumstantial oddities and a strong hunch. There's nothing physical that we can use. Without his confession we would never have gotten an indictment.”

“Then what was he doing here?”

“I had a hunch!” Lark felt himself losing control. “Any good cop has to go on his hunches.”

Frank's voice was not raised, but its tone was unmistakable. “Don't try to intimidate me any further. I've taken enough from you recently, and my patience is at an end. Now, let me read it to you. There's going to be a stink about that guy dying in our office, make no mistake about that. And you had better damn well give me something to go on. We have to implicate him in these killings or find ourselves another killer. Do you read me?”

“I hear you.”

“You had better do more than hear. Let me lay it out as clearly and concisely as I can: someone's going to take a fall for what happened, and it isn't going to be me. You, my boy, with your terrific background as the tough cop, are going to go, if anyone does. Do you understand?”

“How much time do I have?”

“I'll give you as long as I can hold them off.”

Horse Najankian directed traffic with true flair. It was all in body English. From his position in the center of the intersection at Main and First he dominated the eight lanes of vehicles converging on the grid. A white gloved hand with extended fingers pointed with militarylike precision at the right lane of Main Street. The hand snapped back in a swing. The signal was obvious, and traffic jumped to obey. Like a general commanding hordes of charging calvary he continued his directions.

Lark heeded his partner's signal and started through the intersection only to stop next to Horse. “We've unfinished business,” he said to the traffic cop.

“Leave me alone and move on,” Horse said smartly.

“Get in.”

The cars on First moved through the intersection until commanded to halt by another imperious gesture. “I like traffic.”

“You're without a pension if you don't get in the truck now.” Lark leaned across the seat and opened the door on the passenger's side.

Horse got in. “You give me no choice. Let them sort themselves out.”

“Gridlock on First and Main,” Lark said into the radio.

Horse looked at Lark obliquely as they drove through the streets of Middleburg. “Where are we going?”

“Station WGBZ.”

“Horn told me what happened when he called me at home and put me back on traffic. Have you cleared this with him?”

“I will when we get back.”

“You don't need me for this, Lieutenant.”

“I need you when I say I do.”

“You know, Lark, you aren't so tough.”

“I'm mean enough to chew you up and spit you out.”

“That pension threat was a low blow.”

“I had to get your attention.”

Horse sighed. “Okay, what's going on? Do we still have the guru and the Lawton kid as suspects?”

“Negative. The Lawton kid was in jail during the last murder, and the Magus-guru and his girl left town before it happened. That leaves Grossman, and we have to tie him in so we can close the file.”

“Or find someone else?”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I never believed Grossman did the killings. As they say, I think it's party or parties unknown.”

Lark pursed his lips. “We don't have anything on any parties unknown. Load your gun and shut up.”

The athletic station manager of WGBZ was putting golf balls into a cup when they were ushered into his office. The
Middleburg Times
crime reporter, Randy Lambert, still wearing the same rumpled suit, lounged in a comfortable chair holding a drink of bourbon and Coke.

The station manager missed his putt when he saw the two police officers standing in the doorway. “I heard what you did to Johnny. I want you to know that we're doing an exposé on it. This isn't going to drop. You and the police department are going to pay for hounding Johnny that way.”

“I'll probably get a Pulitzer for my exposé in the paper,” Lambert said as he finished his drink and clinked ice.

“I'd like to see Maurice Grossman's personnel file and any other date you have on him. I also want the station logs for the entire time he was here.”

“Bug off,” the station manager said as he bent his head to putt. “You get nothing without a court order.”