“Well, like I said, fellows would stop at the desk and make a comment to her — she was a very pretty girl, you know, dark hair and really beautiful brown eyes, and a good figure, too — so the fellows would stop to talk to her or, you know, make comments, flirt with her. And in the beginning she used to encourage that a lot, but then it sort of tapered off, she wouldn’t pay too much attention.”
“When was that? When it began tapering off?”
“Oh, I don’t know. April sometime? Yeah, before Easter, I guess it was.”
“That she stopped paying attention to the fellows.”
“Yeah. Well, I mean she didn’t give them the cold shoulder or anything, but you could see she wasn’t really interested.”
“And you think that’s because she found herself a boyfriend.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think. But that’s only my opinion. Like I said, she never mentioned having a boyfriend or anything. I just put two and two together, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well...” Heidi shrugged. “I’m a little embarrassed talking about this.”
“Think of me as a priest,” Carella said, and smiled.
“I’m Jewish,” Heidi said, and smiled back. “Besides, I’d be embarrassed even if you were a priest.”
“Well, give it a try,” Carella said.
“Well, this must’ve been in August sometime, I don’t know exactly when, the beginning of August sometime. Muriel came over to my desk and started hemming and hawing around, and finally asked me if I knew a good gynecologist. Well, I don’t know what that means to you, but to me... well, it meant a lot.”
“What did it mean to you?”
“Well, she’s a seventeen-year-old kid, right, she lives with her aunt, right, so if she’s having some sort of problem a gynecologist should look at, why doesn’t she ask her aunt about it? Instead of coming to a stranger? So I figured it had to be one of two things. I figured either she was pregnant already or else she didn’t want to get pregnant. You know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Carella said.
“I could spell it out for you,” Heidi said, “but it embarrasses me.”
“Did she say why she needed a good gynecologist?”
“She said she had some kind of itch, or... God, listen to me, will you? You’re only a cop, I shouldn’t be talking to you about such things.”
“Muriel was killed,” Carella said simply.
Heidi looked into his eyes, nodded, and then flatly and matter-of-factly said, “She was complaining about a vaginal itch, I think it was. Or a discharge, I’m not sure I remember. I gave her the name of my gynecologist and I also mentioned that he’d fitted me for my first diaphragm. In case that was why she wanted to see him. I didn’t suggest she was seeing him for that reason, but at the back of my mind I figured I’d put her at ease, if that’s what she wanted. Or if she wanted to be put on the pill. She was only seventeen, you know, a kid going to a strange gynecologist. But I’ll tell you, it was my idea she was pregnant. You know why? I shouldn’t have to tell you this, you’re a detective, you probably figured it out already. But when she asked me that morning, she didn’t just say did I know a gynecologist. She said did I know a good gynecologist, you see the difference?”
“Yes,” Carella said, and nodded.
“Because a girl who just wants a diaphragm or some pills, she’ll go to any shlepper, am I right? She’ll pick one out of the phone book, what does she care? But Muriel wanted a good gynecologist, which meant this was something important, never mind a vaginal itch. I figured she was pregnant.” Heidi looked up sharply. “Was she pregnant?”
“The autopsy report didn’t say anything about it,” Carella said. “Normally, they don’t look for something like that unless they’re specifically asked to.”
“It might’ve been worth looking for,” Heidi said, and then immediately added, “Look, who am I to tell you how to do your job? I’m probably wrong, anyway. They were very strict with her, you know, so the chances of her being pregnant were probably—”
“Who was strict with her?”
“Her aunt and uncle. Wouldn’t let the poor girl breathe.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“No, it’s just something else I figured out.”
“On what evidence, Heidi?”
“On the evidence that every afternoon he was waiting outside the bank to take her home from work.”
“Who? Her uncle?”
“No, her cousin. Andrew Lowery. The one who killed her.”
“I took better care of her than I did my own daughter,” Frank Lowery said. “No one can fault me for the way I took care of Muriel.”
It was 3:30 in the afternoon, the men were sitting in Lowery’s auto body shop on Boomer and Third. Outside the small cluttered office, Carella could see workmen restoring fenders and panels. The sharp stench of lacquer and enamel hung on the air, and intermittently the sound of a hammer banging on metal punctuated the conversation.
“Wasn’t an easy thing taking a new member into the family,” Lowery said. “This was two years ago, I didn’t own the shop then, I was struggling to make ends meet as it was. But this was my wife’s niece, I didn’t figure I could turn her out in the cold, there were no other relatives could take her in. Man has responsibilities, don’t he?” Lowery said. “Man loves his wife, he’s got to love her kin, too. I’ll tell you though, may God forgive me, if I’d known it would come to this, I’d have turned her over to a home, I’d have never taken her in. You try to do the Christian thing, and then...” Lowery shook his head.
“Mr. Lowery, what I’m trying to find out is whether there was any indication that something like this might be brewing. Had Muriel and Andrew argued, had they—?”
“Got along beautifully,” Lowery said. “Look, they were brother and sister, that’s it. You can write that down. They were brother and sister, that’s the way I raised them, and that’s what they were. Anybody in the family wanted anything, I considered them all like my own kids. Muriel wanted something, same as if Patricia did. Or Andy. They were all my children, that’s the way I felt about it from the day I took Muriel in my house. She called me Uncle Frank, that’s true, but she could’ve just as easily called me Dad, because that’s what I was to her. And a good father, too, I think. Got her anything she wanted, but I laid down the law, too, that’s part of a father’s job, ain’t it? Laying down the law? Did it for Patricia, still do it for her, and did it for Muriel, too.”
“Laid down the law in what way?” Carella asked.
“Well, dating for one thing. I still won’t let Patricia date boys, she’s too young for that. Now I know you’ve got kids nowadays, they’re going steady at thirteen, twelve some of them, but I won’t permit that, no, sir. I wouldn’t let Muriel date till she reached her seventeenth birthday, and even then I insisted on meeting every boy she went out with. Had to come to the house to pick her up, had to look me right in the eye, shake hands with me. None of this blowing the horn downstairs, anything like that. And she had a strict curfew, too, had to be home by midnight, not a minute after. Night of the party we made sure they’d be coming home by eleven — that’s because they were alone, just the two girls. I’d have gone to pick them up, but I was sick that night, a touch of the flu, and it was raining so bad.” Lowery paused, looked at his hands. In the shop outside, a cloud of green paint struck the fender of a car like a plague of grasshoppers. “I keep thinking... what if I had gone to meet them? What if I’d seen my own son... my... my own son hurting those two girls? Mr. Carella, this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my life, ever. If I live to be a thousand, there’s nothing can happen to me will ever be worse than this. I’ve lost Muriel, who I loved like a daughter, and I’ll be losing my boy, too — he’ll be going to jail for life, I’m sure. And God knows what this whole thing will do to Patricia, what effect it’ll have on the girl’s mind. She’s only fifteen, to have a terrible thing like that happen, seeing what she saw, and then Andy turning on her like a wild animal. Mr. Carella, I don’t think any of us will ever be the same again, after this. Ever. I sometimes believe Muriel is the lucky one, at least she’s out of it. We’ll have to live with this for the rest of our lives, and there are times I wonder if I can make it.”