Blood Relatives

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.

CARELLA: How did Muriel react to his suggestion?

PATRICIA: She said, Oh, come on, Andy. Something like that. To just tell him he shouldn’t be saying something like that, but at the same time not to hurt his feelings. Because they were very close, you know, everybody said they were just like brother and sister.

CARELLA: What happened then?

PATRICIA: He said... it’s really hard to believe this. I still can’t believe this was my brother saying these things, or... or doing what he—

CARELLA: All right, Patricia.

PATRICIA: I’m sorry.

CARELLA: That’s all right, take your time.

PATRICIA: I’m sorry, forgive me.

KLING: Here, use one of these.

PATRICIA: Thank you. It’s... it’s just, you see, I expected him to laugh or something, but instead he said, I’m not kidding, Mure, take off your dress. And when I turned to look at him, he was holding the knife in his hand.

CARELLA: You hadn’t seen the knife before then?

PATRICIA: No. He must’ve had it in his pants pocket or something. Or maybe in his belt. I don’t know. He just pulled it out and there it was in his hand.

CARELLA: The knife you identified for us earlier today?

PATRICIA: Yes.

CARELLA: Is this the knife, Patricia?

PATRICIA: Yes. That’s the knife Andy pulled out.

CARELLA: And he told Muriel he wasn’t kidding.

PATRICIA: Yes. About taking off her dress, he meant. He meant he wasn’t kidding about telling her to take off the dress.

CARELLA: What happened then?

PATRICIA: Well, Muriel, I guess she... I’m not sure about this, but I think she giggled. And he... he pushed the knife at her, and... and grabbed her by the wrist and she started to scream and he told her to shut up. Then, still holding her by the wrist, he forced her down on her knees and said... said things to her.

CARELLA: What things?

PATRICIA: He told her to... to... He was holding the knife on her. He said, Go on, take it, I know you want it. I was watching them, I didn’t know what to do or say, I just kept watching them. I was so shocked, you see. They were cousins. He was making his own cousin do this, his own cousin. It was still pouring. I could hear the rain outside and Muriel grunting, or moaning, on her knees there, with his... with the knife... with... with—

CARELLA: Okay, Patricia.

PATRICIA: I’m sorry.

CARELLA: Okay now.

PATRICIA: Then he... he started sticking the knife in her. He started stabbing her all over, I couldn’t... This was my brother doing this... my brother... I couldn’t... And then he turned to me, and he said, All right, honey, you’re next, something like that, and I said, Andy, you’re crazy, and he said, Get down on your knees, and I said, Andy, I’m your sister, and he said, So what, you’re going to... I can’t say it. I’m sorry, I can’t say it.

CARELLA: That’s all right.

PATRICIA: Do I have to say it?

CARELLA: Not if you don’t want to.

PATRICIA: He said... oh my God, I can’t believe it, I still can’t believe he said this to me... he said I was going to... I would have to... I would have to... to do what Muriel had done, and... I can’t say it, I’m sorry. I can’t use the words he used.

CARELLA: All right, Patricia.

PATRICIA: And then he began stabbing me. He slashed me on the hands and on the face, he just kept slashing with the knife, and I must have kicked him, I really don’t remember, but he was on the floor moaning, so I know I must’ve done something, and I ran away from him. I could only think he had lost his mind. I could only think my brother had gone crazy. I didn’t tell you any of this before because I... I still love him, you see, he’s my brother. But he’s got to pay for what he did, I know he’s got to pay. When I saw him at the funeral this morning, and he jumped on the coffin that way, I knew he had everybody fooled, saying he loved Muriel, beating his chest that way and yelling so everybody could hear, Muriel, wake up, say you’re not dead, whatever it is he was yelling there, I love you, Muriel, I love you. No, I had to tell you everything I knew, I had to make sure he got punished, the way Muriel was punished.

It was 8:07 P.M.

They had picked up Andrew Lowery at twenty minutes to seven, and now he sat in the squadroom with Detectives Carella and Kling, and Detective-Lieutenant Peter Byrnes, and an assistant district attorney named Roger Locke, and an attorney named Gerrold Harris, who was representing the nineteen-year-old boy. A police stenographer sat on Lowery’s left, waiting to record for posterity anything he or any of the others said tonight. Gerrold Harris had spoken to Lowery earlier, and then had told the police and the assistant DA that his client would waive his privilege to remain silent, and would voluntarily answer whatever questions they cared to ask him. It was the assistant DA who conducted the interrogation. He had talked to Carella and Kling and then had read the transcript of Patricia Lowery’s first account of the murder, and had listened to the tape she’d made just a little while ago. He sat on the edge of Carella’s desk now, and looked at Lowery, and said, “My name is Roger Locke, I’m from the district attorney’s office. Your attorney tells me you’ve waived your privilege to remain silent and wish to answer whatever questions we may put to you. Is that correct?”

“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.

Together with Lowery’s attorney, and the assistant district attorney, Carella and the prisoner went down to the muster room. By that time an assistant deputy inspector had been sent over from Headquarters — this was a homicide arrest — and was waiting at the muster desk. The desk sergeant asked Lowery his name and address, which he wrote into the book, and then he looked up at the clock and wrote down the time and the date, and asked Carella if this was his case. Carella said it was his case, and the desk sergeant wrote his name into the book, too, and then asked him what the case number was, and Carella said it was 12-1430B, and the sergeant wrote that into the book as well. Then, after all of this, he wrote the words “Arrested and charged with (1) Homicide and (2) First-Degree Assault in that the defendant did commit the crimes aforesaid.” And he listed as being present at the booking — in addition to Detective 2nd/Grade Stephen Louis Carella — Assistant District Attorney Roger M. Locke, and Assistant Deputy Inspector Michael Lonergan, and attorney for the defendant, Gerrold R. Harris. In the upper right-hand corner of the page, he wrote the arrest number, and then he asked Lowery to empty his pockets, and he made a list of all of Lowery’s personal property, and tagged the stuff, and put it into an envelope. In the book, he wrote “And to cell,” and then he summoned a patrolman to take Lowery down to the basement, where the precinct’s eight holding cells — four for men, four for women — were located. The cells were small, scrupulously clean, each fitted with a toilet bowl and sink, and furnished with a bed and blanket. Locke watched Lowery as he was led out of the muster room. He had not been in handcuffs during the interrogation, but he was in handcuffs now. Several moments later a light on a panel behind the muster desk flashed red, telling the sergeant that one of the holding-cell doors was open. In another moment the light winked out. Locke lit another cigarette. Exhaling the smoke, he said to Carella that this one looked like real meat.

Real meat or not, at 8:00 the next morning Andrew Lowery was taken by police van to the Headquarters building downtown on High Street, where he was photographed again — this time with a number on his chest — and where the lieutenant assigned checked the fingerprint record that had been forwarded from the Identification Section. The fingerprints were on a mimeographed yellow form, and had been copied by the IS from the originals Kling had sent down the night before. Andrew Lowery had never had one before, but he now possessed what the police called a “yellow sheet” or a “B-sheet,” and it would follow him for the rest of his life. It followed him to the Criminal Courts Building now, where his name was entered in yet another book before he was turned over to the Department of Corrections. At 9:45 A.M. both Stephen Louis Carella and Gerrold R. Harris were waiting in the Complaint Room of Felony Court when Andrew Lowery was brought in. A clerk drew up a short-form complaint listing the charges against Lowery, and some ten minutes later he was in court with two dozen other defendants, all of whom were waiting to be arraigned. The bridge — the court attendant sitting in front of the judge’s bench — read off a defendant’s name and the charge against him, and the judge disposed of the case and then the bridge read off another name and another charge. It took quite a while to get to Lowery, because the names were being read in alphabetical order. When Lowery’s name was finally called, he stepped up to the bench, and Harris and Carella joined him there immediately. The bridge read off the charges and asked Carella if they were correct as read. Carella said that they were. The judge then said to Lowery exactly what he had said to the ten or twelve defendants who’d been called before him.

“You may have a hearing in this court, or an adjournment for the purpose of obtaining a lawyer or witnesses, or you may waive that hearing and let the case go to a grand jury. Do you have a lawyer?”

“I am representing the defendant, your Honor,” Harris said.

“How does the defendant plead?” the judge asked.

“Not guilty,” Lowery said.

“The defendant pleads not guilty, your Honor,” Harris said, “and requests that the case be held over for a grand jury.”

“Very well,” the judge said. “The defendant will be held without bail in the House of Corrections until such time as the Homicide Bureau of the district attorney’s office shall prepare and submit its case to the grand jury.”

And that was it.