“On the rack there,” Carella said. “The paring knives.”
“Yeah,” Gaddis said, and nodded.
“Were they here on the night of the party?”
“Oh yeah, been here forever, those knives.”
“Are any of them missing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Should there be four paring knives instead of three?”
“Well, there are four,” Gaddis said, and looked at the rack.
“No, there are only three up there,” Carella said.
“There’re supposed to be four,” Gaddis said.
“Would one of them be in the dishwasher?”
“We never put those knives in the dishwasher,” Gaddis said. “They’ve got wooden handles, we wash them by hand. Those are expensive knives. They’re made in Germany, you know.”
“Would this be the fourth knife?” Carella asked, and opened the manila envelope again, and pulled the knife out by the evidence tag, and put it down on the cutting board. Gaddis looked at the knife.
“Is that... is that the murder weapon?” he asked.
“Yes,” Carella said.
“It looks like one of our knives,” Gaddis said, “but I can’t tell for sure. I mean, I suppose there are lots of knives that are similar to these. I mean, these aren’t unique knives or anything, you can buy them in any good store in the city. But if I had to say, just looking at the knife there, I would have to say yes, it looks as if it could be the fourth knife, it looks as if it could be the fourth paring knife in the set there.” He looked up suddenly. “That means he was here, doesn’t it?” he said. “The one who killed her. If he took that knife from the rack, he was here.”
“Yes,” Carella said. “He was here.”
5
At 6:00 that Wednesday night, just as they were preparing to leave the squadroom, the phone on Carella’s desk rang. He picked up the receiver and said, “87th Squad, Carella.”
“Steve, this is Dave Murchison on the desk.”
“Yes, Dave.”
“Patricia Lowery here to see you.”
“Send her right up.”
Carella put the receiver back onto the cradle and turned to Kling, who was rolling down his shirt sleeves. “Bert,” he said, “Patricia Lowery’s on her way up.”
“What does she want?” Kling asked.
“I don’t know.”
Patricia was wearing blue jeans, a gray Shetland sweater, brown low-heeled walking shoes, and a striped muffler that she had wrapped around her neck so that the ends trailed down her back. The temperature outside had dropped a bit since morning, and her cheeks were glowing and pink. She greeted both detectives by name and then took a seat at Carella’s desk. The first thing she said was, “I want to make a statement.”
“What about?” Carella asked.
“The murder,” Patricia said. “I want to tell you who killed my cousin Muriel.”
The detectives glanced at each other in surprise. Neither of them said anything. They waited. Her bandaged hands were in her lap. She sat unmoving in the straight-backed chair, and when finally she began speaking, her voice was almost a whisper, a pained and halting monotone.
“My brother killed her,” she said.
Again the detectives looked at each other.
“Yes,” Patricia said, and nodded. “My brother.”
“Patricia, do—?”
“My brother killed her.”
“That’s a very serious accusation,” Kling said. “Are you sure—?”
“Patricia, do you know what you’re saying?” Carella asked.
“I know what I’m saying. My brother killed her.”
“On the night of the murder, you told us—”
“I was lying. My brother killed her.”
“Patricia, I want to tape this,” Carella said. “Is that all right with you?”
“Yes. Tape it. I want you to have a record.”
Carella went to one of the metal filing cabinets, opened a drawer in it, and pulled out a tape recorder, which he brought immediately to the desk. On the face of the recorder, someone had pasted a label that read PROPERTY OF 87TH SQUAD — DO NOT REMOVE FROM THIS OFFICE!!!! He placed the microphone on the desk in front of Patricia, and then said, “All right, Patricia, you can begin talking now.”
PATRICIA: Is it on?
CARELLA: Yes, it’s on. Would you repeat what you said just a moment ago?
PATRICIA: I said my brother killed her.
CARELLA: Your brother killed Muriel Stark?
PATRICIA: Yes. My brother killed Muriel Stark.
CARELLA: Okay, just a second, Patricia, I want to make sure we’re getting this. He rewound the tape, played back the segment they had just recorded, and then said, “Okay, we’re fine. I’m going to turn this on again, and I want you to tell us exactly what happened. Are you ready, Patricia?”
CARELLA: We’re talking now about the night of September sixth. Tell us what happened on that night, Patricia.
PATRICIA: We were at the party. You know about the party, I already told you about the party.
CARELLA: Tell us again, Patricia. Who was at the party?
PATRICIA: Muriel and I.
CARELLA: Was your brother there as well?
PATRICIA: No. He wasn’t there. He was working. I thought he was working. But it turned out he got through early and came looking for us.
CARELLA: All right, you and your cousin were at this party. Is this the birthday party that took place in Paul Gaddis’s apartment?
PATRICIA: Yes, it was Paul’s eighteenth birthday party.
CARELLA: What time did you get there, Patricia?
PATRICIA: At about eight.
CARELLA: And what time did you leave?
PATRICIA: At ten-thirty. We were supposed to be home by eleven.
CARELLA: Were you and your cousin alone?
PATRICIA: Yes. We left the party alone.
CARELLA: Go ahead, Patricia.
PATRICIA: It began raining again. It had let up a little, but it started pouring cats and dogs again, so we ran up Harding Avenue to Sixteenth Street, where all the stores are. We were standing under an awning there when he came up to us.
CARELLA: Who?
PATRICIA: My brother, Andrew Lowery, my brother.
CARELLA: Came up to you where you were standing under the awning?
PATRICIA: Yes.
CARELLA: Patricia, this isn’t what you told us on the night of the murder. When we talked to you then—
PATRICIA: I know. I was lying. I was trying to protect my brother. But I realize now that he did a terrible thing, and... and no matter how much I love him, I’ve got to... to tell the truth.
CARELLA: All right, Patricia, you were standing under the awning—
PATRICIA: Yes, and Andy came up to us, he just came running through the rain, we were so surprised to see him. He said Hi, girls, I’ve been looking all over for you, or something like that, I can’t remember what he said exactly, but it was something like that. And he told us he’d got through work early and went over to Paul’s house to pick us up, but we’d already left. So he’d gone downstairs to look for us, and when it began pouring again he went back to Paul’s, but we still weren’t there, so he came looking for us again, and now he’d found us. I’m just giving you the gist of what he said, those aren’t the exact words.
CARELLA: What time was this, Patricia?
PATRICIA: When he found us? Oh, I can’t be sure, I guess it must’ve been about ten to eleven. Maybe five to eleven.
CARELLA: All right, what happened then?
PATRICIA: The rain let up, and we began walking down Harding again, toward Fourteenth, where the construction site is.
CARELLA: The three of you?
PATRICIA: Yes. Muriel, my brother, and me. By the time we got to Fourteenth, it started raining very hard again, so we ran into the hallway of this abandoned tenement. To get out of the rain. We were only three or four blocks from home. And we weren’t worried about getting home late, because now Andy was with us, we knew my mother wouldn’t raise a fuss. Because he could protect us, you see. So we were in the hallway there, looking out at the rain, and I remember I said we should just make a run for it, and Muriel said, No, she didn’t want to ruin her dress, and Andy said, Why don’t you take the dress off, Mure? We both thought he was kidding, you know, I mean... well, I don’t know what Muriel was thinking, but I certainly thought he was kidding. I mean, Muriel was our cousin, you know? So you don’t go around saying things like that to your own cousin — you know, about taking off her dress. You just don’t say something, well, sexy, like that to your own cousin.