“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?”