“Mr. Lowery, I understand your son used to go down to the bank to meet Muriel after work. Is that true?”
“Yes. That’s true. He did.”
“Did you ask him to do that?”
“No, no. I was protective, yes, but I wasn’t a nut on the subject. I mean, a girl coming home from work at five in the afternoon, there’s nothing to fear there, is there? I know there’ve been people killed or raped in broad daylight, but you can’t live your lives that way, you can’t keep hiding in a closet, can you? No, I felt Muriel was perfectly safe coming home from work alone. I guess Andy went down there to get her because they had so much to talk about, you see. He’d been accepted in college, and they were all the time discussing the courses he would take. Never a meal went by in this house without the two of them talking about Andy’s college education. He respected that girl a lot, and her opinions, which is why I can’t... I—”
“Would you say it was his idea to pick her up after work?” Carella said.
“Well, I don’t know. I guess the two of them. I guess it was arranged by the two of them. Andy wasn’t doing anything during the summer, so I guess he didn’t mind driving downtown to get her, and I guess Muriel was grateful she didn’t have to take the train home during the rush hour. I really couldn’t say, Mr. Carella. But it wasn’t my idea, that’s for sure, I had no fear for her safety at five in the afternoon. What did bother me was when she’d call and say she’d be late, either working late at the bank, or else shopping if it was a Thursday night, that’s what got me upset.”
“Did she do that often?”
“Well, often enough. I told her about it, I gave her hell about it. I treated that girl like my own daughter, Mr. Carella. I miss her sorely. I truly miss her. I loved that girl. She was a very dear person to me.”
“Mr. Lowery, on those occasions when your son picked up Muriel at the bank — did Patricia ever go with him?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Had she ever gone to the bank on her own?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then she wouldn’t have known any of Muriel’s fellow workers?”
“No.”
“Never would have seen any of them.”
“That’s right.”
They were silent for several moments. Outside in the shop, the hammer started again, and Lowery waited till it was silent, and then said, “What causes something like this, can you tell me? Where a kid you think the world of, bright and good-looking and gentle as can be, just suddenly goes crazy and does something like this? What causes it, Mr. Carella?”
“I don’t know,” Carella said.
“I’ve been trying to figure it out. Ever since Patricia told us what really happened that night, I’ve been trying to figure what got into Andy. Muriel kept a diary, you know, I went into her room and looked for it, thinking maybe there was something in it that would explain what happened. She kept that thing faithfully, used to write in it every night before going to bed. But I couldn’t find it. Don’t know what could’ve happened to it. I looked all through that room for it, it just isn’t there.”
“Mr. Lowery,” Carella said, “would you mind if I looked for it?”
“Not at all. It’s red leather, I gave it to her for Christmas, in fact. One of those little locks on the front, with a tiny key, do you know the kind I mean?”
“Yes,” Carella said. “Thank you, Mr. Lowery, you’ve been very helpful.”
This time he had something specific to look for, and the something was a diary Muriel Stark had kept. Neither he nor Mr. Lowery had found the diary when they’d separately searched her room, and in his affidavit requesting a search warrant, Carella stated that there was now reasonable cause to believe that the accused, Andrew Lowery, might have stolen the diary on the assumption that it contained incriminating evidence. Wherefore, Carella petitioned, I respectfully request that the court issue a warrant and order of seizure in the form annexed authorizing a search of Andrew Lowery’s room in Apartment 3A at premises 1604 St. John’s Road and directing that if such diary bound in red leather and written in Muriel Stark’s hand, or if any part of this diary or evidence in the crime of murder be found, that it be seized and brought before the court, together with such other and further relief that the court may deem proper.
The warrant was granted.
Carella got back to the Lowery apartment at twenty minutes past 6:00 that evening. Frank Lowery was already home from work, and he and his wife were having their dinner in the kitchen. They explained that Patricia had been sent to her grandmother’s for a week or so. They had not thought it wise to send her back to school just yet, not while the newspapers were playing the story up so big. They asked Carella if he would care to join them for dinner, and he graciously declined their invitation and then searched their son’s room from top to bottom.
He found no trace of the diary.
At 6:45 A.M. the next morning, a Department of Sanitation truck pulled up in front of the building on St. John’s Road. One man was driving the truck and two men were walking behind it. The walkers were also lifting garbage cans and tossing the contents onto the conveyor that dumped the refuse into the truck. These men liked to bang garbage cans around; this was evident in the way they smashed the cans against the metal rim around the conveyor, and also in the way they slammed the cans down on the sidewalk again. The average garbage can on any city street got battered and bruised within the space of a week because these men loved their work so much. (Some people insisted these men also loved the smell of garbage, but that was pure conjecture.) What they loved was banging garbage cans around and griping about being sanitation employees. Sanitation employees were always going on strike or contemplating going on strike. That was because they figured their jobs were as dangerous as policemen’s or firemen’s. Firemen were always complaining that their jobs were more dangerous than policemen’s, but sanitation employees figured their jobs were more dangerous than either of the other two, and therefore they wanted at least the same amount of money for this very dangerous work they did.
“It’s dangerous,” Henry said, “because first of all the fuckin’ people don’t respect us.” Henry was driving the garbage truck. The two men who’d been walking behind the truck were now on the front seat beside him. The truck was full now, the men were heading toward the Cos Corner Bridge, near which they would dump the garbage before continuing with the second leg of their route. A sanitation truck could hold only so much garbage, and once it was full to capacity, the garbage had to be dumped someplace. This was an elementary rule of garbage collection. It was, in fact, the first tenet of the sanitation game: When it’s full, empty it. “They don’t respect us,” Henry said, “because they think of us as garbage men. We are not garbage men. We are sanitation employees.”