Blood Relatives (8 page)

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Are you aware of what your sister has told the police?”

“Yes, sir, I’m aware of it.”

“What do you think of her statement?”

“Sir, I think she must have lost her mind, sir. Everything she said was a lie. I didn’t even
see
her and Muriel on the night—”

“Your sister claims you caught up with them on the corner of Harding and Sixteenth—”

“That’s a lie.”

“She claims she and Muriel were standing under an awning—”

“No, sir.”

“…and you came running up—”

“No, sir, that’s a lie.”

“Well, I’d like to finish my sentence, if I may.”

“You can finish it,” Lowery said, “but I’m telling you right now that I didn’t kill my cousin. I
loved
my cousin, and whatever Patricia told you—”

“Well, Mr. Lowery, if you’re going to answer my questions, as you’ve agreed to do, then I’d appreciate it if you’d allow me to phrase them before you—”

“I don’t think you can blame the boy for interrupting,” Harris said. “He’s innocent of any crime, and his sister has made an accusation that—”

“Counselor, really, this isn’t necessary at this stage, is it?” Locke asked. “Your client has agreed to answer our questions, so why not allow me to ask them? Either that, or advise him to remain silent, and we’ll all go home, and save ourselves a lot of time.”

“All of us but the boy,” Harris said. “
He’s
not about to go home, is he? He’s been charged with homicide, Mr. Locke, and that’s pretty serious, I think you’ll agree that’s pretty serious. So, if you don’t mind, whereas I
want
him to answer all your questions, I want his answers in the record, at the same time I wish you’d understand that he’s amazed by his sister’s accusation, and frankly outraged by it. I do not feel that’s too strong a word to describe his reaction. Outraged. So—”

“All I’m suggesting,” Locke said, “is that I be permitted to put my questions to him.”

“Go ahead and put your questions,” Harris said.

“Thank you. Mr. Lowery, your sister claims that she and your cousin were standing under an awning on Sixteenth and Harding when you came upon them on the night of September sixth. She further claims that the three of you walked to Fourteenth and Harding, where you took shelter from the rain in an abandoned tenement—”

“None of that is true,” Lowery said.

“I
still
haven’t phrased the question,” Locke said.

“Mr. Locke,” Harris said, “if you’re about to premise your question on something my client states at the top is false—”

“Mr. Harris, perhaps
you’d
prefer asking him the question.”

“Thank you, no, Mr. Locke. But my client maintains he was
not
with Patricia Lowery and Muriel Stark on the night of the murder. It’s pointless, therefore, to ask him questions about anything that allegedly happened in their presence. If you wish to confine your questioning to where my client was at such and such a time, that’s another story. But to state as fact something that—”

“Let me just
try
a question, may I?” Locke said. “If your client doesn’t care for the question, you can advise him not to answer it. How does that sound, Mr. Harris?”

“Let’s hear the question.”

Locke drew a deep breath, and then said, “Mr. Lowery, did you find your sister and your cousin under an awning at Harding and Sixteenth at approximately ten minutes to eleven P.M. on Saturday, September sixth?”

“I did not,” Lowery said.

“Where were you at that time? Do you remember where you were?”

“I was looking for them.”

“Where were you looking for them?”

“In the street.”

“You had previously been to Paul Gaddis’s apartment, is that right? You’d been looking for them there.”

“That’s right.”

“What time did you get there?”

“Paul’s place? It must’ve been about twenty-five to eleven.”

“How long did you stay there?”

“Just a few minutes. Just long enough to find out the girls had left. Then I went out looking for them. And it started raining very hard, so I went back up to Paul’s, thinking maybe they’d changed their mind. Because of the rain. Because it was raining so hard. But they weren’t there, so I went out looking for them again.”

“And did you find them on Harding and Sixteenth?”

“No, sir. I never
did
find them. When I got home, my mother told me they weren’t there yet, and I said she’d better call the police. Which she did.”

“Why’d you suggest that she call the police?”

“Because they’d left Paul’s at ten-thirty, and here it was past midnight, and they still weren’t home. I was afraid something might have happened to them.”

“Did you have any
reason
to believe something might have happened to them?”

“Only that they’d been out in the street for almost two hours, and they still weren’t home.”

“And you’d been searching for them all that time, is that correct?”

“Not
all
that time. A few minutes of it, I was up at Paul’s.”

“But we can say roughly, can’t we, that from eleven-forty or thereabout—”

“Yes.”

“…to a quarter past midnight, you were actively searching for your sister and your cousin. Except for those few minutes when you went back to Paul Gaddis’s apartment.”

“Yes, you could say that.”

“We could say that you’d been searching in the rain for about ninety minutes. An hour and a half, is that right? You’d been searching—”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Where did you search?”

“Everywhere.”

“By everywhere, would you say your search included the corner of Harding and Sixteenth?”

“Yes, sir, I went past Harding and Sixteenth.”

“Did you see the girls there?”

“No, sir.”

“What time would you say you went past Harding and Sixteenth?”

“It must’ve been close to eleven. Either a little before eleven or a little after.”

“Well, your sister claims that she and your cousin were standing under an awning at Harding and Sixteenth at about ten to eleven, or five to eleven, she wasn’t exactly certain. But you’ve just told me you passed that corner at a little before eleven, and you didn’t see anyone standing there.”

“No, sir. If my sister was on that corner with Muriel, I must’ve just missed them.”

“I see. And when you continued your search for them, did you happen to wander past Harding and Fourteenth?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Past the construction site there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The abandoned tenement there? Did you pass the abandoned tenement?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“But you didn’t see Muriel or your sister.”

“No, sir, I didn’t see either one of them.”

“What time would you say this was? When you walked past the abandoned tenement on Harding and Fourteenth?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. I know I got back to Paul’s at about a quarter past eleven, so it had to have been before that.”

“Before a quarter past eleven.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then you went up to Paul’s—”

“Yes, I went up to see if the girls had gone back there, but they hadn’t. So I went down looking for them again.”

“And did you go past the abandoned tenement again?”

“No, sir. I went in the opposite direction this time. I began searching in the opposite direction.”

“Mr. Lowery, when you were in Paul Gaddis’s apartment… you were in there twice on the night of the murder, were you not?”

“Yes, sir, twice.”

“Did you go into the kitchen on either of those occasions?”

“Yes, I was in the kitchen both times.”

“Both times.”

“Yes, I was talking to Paul in the kitchen.”

“Did you notice any knives on a rack above the counter top?”

“No, sir, I did not.”

“There’s a cutting board, from what I understand, that forms one section of the counter top, and above that there’s a knife rack. You didn’t see that rack?”

“No, sir, I did not see a knife rack.”

“Do you recognize this knife?” Locke asked, and shook the knife out of the manila envelope and onto the desk top.

“No, sir, I don’t recognize that knife,” Lowery said.

“Never saw it before?”

“Never.”

“Your sister says it’s the knife that killed Muriel Stark.”

“I couldn’t tell you about that, sir.”

“Because you’ve never seen this knife before, is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“But your sister
did
see it.”

“Then I suppose she knows what it looks like.”

“Do you suppose she also knows what the killer looks like?”

“If she says I’m the killer, then she’s crazy. That’s all there is to it,” Lowery said. “She’s just crazy.”

“You weren’t in that hallway with them, is that it?”

“That’s it, sir.”

“You didn’t force your cousin to perform an unnatural—”

“Sir, I loved my cousin and I did not kill her. I simply did not kill her. My sister has got to be crazy, that’s all there is to it.”

“Do you and your sister get along well?” Locke asked.

“Yes, sir, we do. I always thought we got along fine. But now I don’t know what to say, I honestly don’t know what’s got into her. Sir, if I may make a suggestion, I would like to suggest that you have a psychiatrist look at her, because, sir, she has got to be crazy to be making this kind of an accusation.”

“Mr. Lowery, I’m going to ask you some personal questions,” Locke said. “If you don’t want to answer them, just say so, all right? Is that all right with you, Counselor?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” Harris said. “I want the record to show that my client has cooperated in every respect. He had nothing to do with this crime, and—”

“Mr. Lowery, where do you live, can you tell me that?”

“I live at 1604 St. John’s Road.”

“With your parents?”

“Yes.”

“And your sister?”

“Yes.”

“And your cousin, when she was alive?”

“Yes.”

“How large an apartment is it?”

“There are five rooms counting the kitchen.”

“What are those rooms, can you tell me?”

“There’s the kitchen, and the living room, and three bedrooms.”

“How many bathrooms are there?”

“Two.”

“Mr. Lowery, can you describe the layout of those bedrooms to me?”

“Layout? What do you mean? The way they’re furnished?”

“No. The relationship of one bedroom to another. Where they
are
in the apartment.”

“What’s the point of this, Counselor?” Harris asked suddenly.

“If I may—”

“I just want to know what the point is.”

“He knows where the bedrooms are, doesn’t he?”

“I suppose so, but why—?”

“Will he answer the question or not?” Locke said. “It seems like a very simple question, but if you feel it’s in some way incriminating, then please let the record show that your client refuses to answer it.”

“He’ll answer the question,” Harris said. “Go ahead, please. Answer his question.”

“Well, the bedrooms are all in a hallway off the living room. My parents’ bedroom’s on the right, and mine is in the middle, and at the end of the hall the bedroom there is Patricia’s and…and Muriel’s, when she was alive.”

“Doors on all these bedrooms?”

“What?”

“Doors?”

“Yes, sure. Doors? Sure, there are doors.”

“With locks on them?”

“Yes. Well, the lock on my door is busted. But all the doors have locks on them, yes.”

“And where are the bathrooms?”

“There’s one where you come in. Between the kitchen and the living room. And there’s another in the hall outside the bedrooms.”

“So to get to the bathroom from any one of the bedrooms, it’s necessary to walk into that hallway.”

“Yes.”

“For either your sister or Muriel to have gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night, they would have had to walk into the hallway, is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Did that in fact ever happen?”

“What, sir? Did
what
happen?”

“That either of the two walked into that hallway in the middle of the night? To go to the bathroom?”

“Well, I suppose so. I mean, it’s perfectly natural for people to get up at night and—”

“Yes, but
did
your sister or Muriel in fact ever do so?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“You saw them in that hallway?”

“I suppose I saw them.”

“Your door was open?”

“Sometimes I sleep with the door open. In the summertime, usually. It’s cooler that way.”

“What were the girls wearing on those occasions when they were in that hallway in the middle of the night? Were they wearing nightgowns? Or were they in fact wearing
any—?”

“I think that’s enough, Counselor,” Harris said.

“I was merely…” Locke started.

“Yes, I
know
what you were merely,” Harris said. “And I am merely telling you that my client will not answer any further questions. Gentlemen, I believe we’re finished with the interrogation. Let’s get on with what you have to do.”

It was now five minutes to 9:00. In the days before Miranda-Escobedo, cops involved in a big homicide case would try to keep a defendant at the station house long enough to avoid night
court. Nine P.M. was usually a safe hour. If the interrogation and the booking and the mugging and the printing went past 9:00 P.M., the prisoner would have to stay at the station house over-night and would not be arraigned till the next morning. Since Miranda-Escobedo, the police were required to begin their questioning as soon after arrest as possible, and were not permitted to keep a man in custody for more than a reasonable amount of time before booking him. “Soon after arrest” and “reasonable amount of time” were not euphemisms. The police respected Miranda-Escobedo because they did not want airtight cases kicked out of court on technicalities of questioning or custody. So these days, even publicity-seeking cops could not delay an interrogation or a booking in order to hit the morning papers with news of having cracked a homicide.

The interrogation of Andrew Lowery was completed by five minutes to 9:00, but they still weren’t through with him. While the assistant district attorney smoked a cigarette and philosophized to Carella about the nicest-seeming kids turning out to be the most vicious killers, Kling took three sets of Lowery’s fingerprints, one for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, another for the state’s Bureau of Criminal Identification, and a third for the city’s Identification Section. As he took the prints, he chatted with Lowery, putting him at ease—the same way an internist will chat with a patient while simultaneously peering through a sigmoidoscope. He told Lowery that in this city a defendant in a murder case was never allowed bail, and he also explained that unless a material witness agreed to be fingerprinted, he wouldn’t be allowed bail in
any
kind of case. He wiped Lowery’s hands when the fingerprinting was done, and then asked if he would mind having his picture taken. Lowery asked if they wouldn’t be taking it anyway when he got to jail, and Kling said, Yes, they’d be taking his picture in the morning, but the squad liked to have a
record, too, though Lowery could say no if he wanted to. Lowery agreed to have his picture taken, and Kling took a Polaroid photo of him. Then he filled out two arrest cards, and turned the prisoner over to Carella, who had originally caught the squeal, and who was responsible for booking Lowery now.