Lark Read Online Free Page A

doors of the ambulance.
    Lark watched the ambulance turn the corner before climbing into the pickup and switching on the radio. “This is Lark. We have a Jane Doe homicide,” he told the communications clerk at headquarters. “I need a computer check on possible runaways or missings of the following description. Dammit! Are you taking this down, Forbes?”
    â€œYes, sir, I’m ready, but this isn’t very good radio procedure, Lieutenant.”
    Lark ignored the comment. “A white female between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two, approximately five foot two, weight around a hundred and ten pounds. Hair and eyes brown, no visible scars.” He described the clothing in detail. “Got that?”
    â€œChrist, Lieutenant, with a description as general as that, we’re going to have a bunch of possibles.”
    â€œGet me a printout on all of them and have it on my desk by tomorrow morning,” Lark snapped. He’d try, but felt that it would be difficult to make any identification on the description they had unless the girl was local. She was far too ordinary, but something might turn up at the autopsy that would help; and then there were the L.L. Bean shoes. They looked fairly new and might be included in one of the printouts. “Patch me through to the chief.”
    Frank Pemperton was on the air in seconds. “What do you have, Lark?”
    â€œA young female homicide without ID.”
    â€œFor God’s sake, Tommy! Half this town have police scanners. You mean you have a sixty-ten.”
    Lark ignored the comment. “Looks like a small-caliber bullet wound to the rear of the head fired at close range.”
    â€œThat sounds like a mob MO,” Frank said, ignoring his own command.
    â€œShe’s young for a hit like that.”
    â€œAll right, you know what to do. And for Christ’s sake, in the future, try to sound professional on the radio.”
    Lark clicked the radio off in irritation. There was a discreet tapping on the truck window and he turned to look at Horse Najankian. “What is it?”
    â€œWe found a couple of things, Lieutenant. You should come take a look yourself.”
    He followed the lumbering police officer back to the small clearing where the body had been found and the inverted cross still stood on the pedestal. “What do you have?”
    â€œThere’s something on the far side of the column that looks like blood.”
    Lark circled the column and saw the stains on the far side near the base. They could be bloodstains, and he looked over at the clumsy officer with a new regard. “You spotted them?” Lark had missed them in his own inspection of the column.
    â€œWe found something else in the woods.” He led the way down a barely visible overgrown path that led from the yard through the second-growth timber to the highway beyond. Midway to the road another cop stood by a bramble bush. “Look at this.” Horse pointed. “About waist level.”
    Lark bent over the bush and followed the pointing fingers. Then he saw them; a few strands of thread at waist level were snagged on a branch. “Looks like it could have come from her jeans. The state lab can tell us if they’re from the same dye lot.” He straightened and turned to the two officers. “Get me exact measurements from the edge of the highway to this bush on one side, and from where the body was found on the other.” He pulled a Swiss army knife from his pocket and snipped the branch holding the threads and dropped them into an evidence bag. “I’ll take the threads so that we keep the chain of evidence simple.”
    â€œSeems to me that if a man were carrying a body at waist level from the highway to where we found her, her pants could get snagged about here,” Horse said.
    â€œI think you have a point,” Lark replied. “The lab will tell us if you’re right. I’m still not ruling out