Blood Relatives (16 page)

And that was when I started crying, and he took me in his arms right there in the restaurant and told me not to worry, he would never let anyone or anything harm me.

I’m really frightened in this house now that Jack has succeeded in making me aware of the danger here. Andy is still walking around with a long face, and I know that both my Aunt Lillian and Uncle Frank are wondering what’s going on between us. I’m just afraid Andy will tell them the whole thing and then I honestly don’t know
what
will happen.

Patricia is watching me as I write this. She is in her bed across the room. Next door, I can hear Andy pacing the floor.

Wednesday, September 3

At breakfast this morning Andy told Patricia and me that we’re all going to a party together this Saturday night. He said it’s a birthday party for his friend Paul Gaddis, and he said there’d be a lot of nice people there and we’d all have a good time. I told him I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it, and Patricia asked me did I have a date for this Saturday, and I said, No, but there was a movie I’d planned on seeing, and they both said I could go see the movie any time at all, but this was a birthday party, and Andy had gone to a lot of trouble to get us invited to it. So I was trapped into saying I’d go.

When I told Jack about this at work, he said I was a fool. He said I should break off with Andy as soon as possible, let him know it’s finished between us, and not go with him to parties or
any
place. I promised I’d tell Andy tonight.

Well, we just got back from a long walk, and I
tried
to tell him, but he just wouldn’t listen. He just wouldn’t understand. To begin with, Patricia wanted to come along with us when we said we were going for a walk, but Andy said he wanted to discuss some of the courses he was thinking about registering for—registration is Monday—and since I was the one who’d looked through the catalog with him, he thought it’d be better if we talked it over alone. He didn’t want to talk at
all,
of course. What he wanted to do was what he always wanted to do. He started walking me over toward his car, and he asked me if I’d like to take a ride out to the beach, and I said, No, I had to go to work the next morning, it’d take us at least an hour to get out to Sands Spit, and he said he had the beach over at Henley Island in mind, be a nice night to just sit there on the beach and look out at the ocean. I told him I didn’t feel like going out to the beach, and he said, Well, let’s get in the car anyway, okay, Mure? I said, No, I didn’t want to get in the car because I knew what he had in mind, and I wasn’t in the mood for anything like that tonight. In fact, there were some things we had to talk about, some very serious things.

He changed the subject right then and there, told me how much he was looking forward to starting school next week, and how right I was about waiting before we got married, dispensation might take a while anyway, if ever we applied for it, though we didn’t have to, we could just get married at City Hall, the way he’d suggested earlier. I tried to break in at that point, tried to tell him I didn’t want to get married at
all,
but he changed that around, too, made it sound as if I was agreeing it would be a good thing to wait a little while. I tried three or four times to get him to understand that I wanted to break off with him, that I honestly didn’t love him anymore, but he just wouldn’t listen, and I never could get past the first couple of words before he jumped in with something to change the subject. It was impossible.

We got home about fifteen minutes ago, and he’s in the living room watching television right this minute. Patricia’s in there, too. I’ve
got
to tell him. Jack will be furious with me when he learns I didn’t tell him. But if Andy won’t listen, what am I supposed to do?

Thursday, September 4

Tonight I told him.

I got very frightened at one point.

But I told him. And it’s over with. I think it’s over with. After supper Aunt Lillian asked Uncle Frank if he’d take her out shopping. This is Thursday night, and all the department stores are open till 9:00. So he said okay, and they went out and left Patricia and me to do the dishes. Patricia had to go to the library, to get a book she needed for a class assignment, so she left at about 7:30, and Andy and I were all alone in the house. He had gone to his room right after supper, and he was in there with the door closed. I was really afraid to knock on his door, so I went into the living room for a while and watched television, but I knew I had to do it sooner or later, I was just building my courage. At about a quarter to 8:00 I went across the hall and knocked on his door, and he told me to come in. He was lying on his bed with his hands behind his head. He was wearing only his undershorts. I said I wanted to talk to him and he said, Sure, what about? I told him I wanted to talk about us, and then I closed the door and went to sit in a wingback chair he had across from the bed in his room. I was still wearing the dress I’d worn to work that day, I hadn’t changed when I got home. The dress and a ribbon in my hair and pantyhose and the blue shoes with the French heels. The television was on in the living room, I could hear a telephone ringing on it, and then the squeal of an automobile’s tires, doors opening and closing, voices.

Well, what is it? Andy said, and I told him we had to end this thing that was going on between us. I told him it had begun to bother me last month, when I thought I was pregnant, and when I realized how wrong it would be to bring a child into the world whose parents were blood relatives. I told him I was still very fond of him, but that what we’d been doing was wrong, and I couldn’t go on doing it, not feeling the way I did now. I told him that there were plenty of men and women in the world without cousins having to start up with each other.

He said,
You
started it, Muriel.

I said, Well, I don’t really know
who
started it, Andy, I just know I fell in love with you back there in April, and what happened was just something neither one of us could control, I guess. All I’m saying now is that I really want to end it, and I hope you’ll just permit it to die, Andy.

It must’ve been a quarter past 8:00 by then, I’ve shortened it a lot, but it must’ve taken me at
least
a half-hour to get it all out. During that time the television was going outside, it almost sounded as if there were people in the house besides us, people with their own problems and their own lives, thrashing them out on television the way we were thrashing them out there in Andy’s room. After I told him, he just lay there on his bed for the longest time without saying anything at all, so finally I got up to go, and he said, Sit down, Muriel. And then it all came out. He told me how much he loved me, told me he’d tried so hard to stay away from me in the beginning, realizing we were cousins and knowing it was wrong. But then, when he saw I was interested, he figured he could dare to make a move, I’d been living there in the house for more than two years by then, he’d never so much as touched my hand in all that time, but now he felt he could dare, because he saw I was interested at last. And even then, even after it was plain to both of us what was eventually going to happen, even then he’d
tried to stop it, knowing all along he was lost. And so now he was really lost, now I was abandoning him—was that it?

No, I said, I’m merely trying to tell you that we’ve got to stop, Andy.

Stop what? he said. Stop
loving
you? How can I do that? Do you want me to kill myself, Muriel? Do you want me to die? I’ll die without you, you know.

You won’t die, I said.

Take off your dress, he said.

He said it so suddenly, he still wasn’t looking at me, he still had his hands behind his head, he was still staring up at the ceiling.

Take off your dress, he said.

I asked him why he wanted me to take off my dress, and he said I
knew
why, just take the damn thing off. You’ve been driving me crazy for the past God knows how long, he said, just take off your fucking dress, he said, you owe me at least one more time.

I told him I didn’t owe him anything, and that was when he got off the bed, swung his legs off the side of the bed, and came toward me and said, Take off the dress, Muriel, I’m not kidding. I was frightened by then, I was really frightened. There was a crazy look on his face, I was afraid he was going to hit me. He grabbed my wrist and forced me down on my knees, but I wouldn’t take off the dress, I wouldn’t help him. I told him he had better not hurt me, and he said he wasn’t going to hurt me, but I was going to do what he wanted me to do, and then he said, Go on, take it, I know you want it, and I did what he told me to do because I really was afraid he would hurt me. Afterward, he went to the bed and lay face down on it and began crying. I really felt very sorry for him, I almost reached out to touch his hair with my hand. There was only the sound of his crying and the television set going outside, a doorbell ringing, and then I realized it wasn’t the television set at all, it was the
real
doorbell, it was the
apartment
doorbell. So I
went out of Andy’s room, closing the door behind me, and I went to the front door and opened it.

It was Patricia. She had forgotten her key, she said.

I told her to come in.

She asked me if everything was all right. She was looking at me peculiarly.

I told her everything was all right.

I hope to God it is.

Friday, September 5

Someone has read this diary.

The strap was cut when I took it out of the drawer tonight, so I know someone has read it. I’m sure it was Andy. I remember a while ago when he asked me was I writing about us in the diary, and I told him I was. I think he wanted to see what I’ve been writing. It frightens me to think that he read all the stuff I wrote about Jack. I don’t know what’s going on inside his head. I think he’s still very angry, and feels he hasn’t yet got back at me. Even after last night, even after what he made me do last night. I’m not sure he thinks he’s even with me. At least not yet. It’s so strange. I loved him so much, and now I only feel afraid of him, and a little sorry for him. And he loved me, too, or at least he claims he did, and now he feels nothing but hate—I can see it burning in his eyes.

At supper tonight he said he wouldn’t be coming to the party tomorrow. He said the restaurant had called and asked him to work tomorrow night, and he’d told them he would. I’m sure he doesn’t
have
to go to work tomorrow night if he doesn’t want to. He just can’t stand being anywhere near me, that’s all. He can’t stand the sight of me now that I’ve ended it. So Patricia and I will have go to the party alone, an idea Aunt Lillian doesn’t like, two girls coming home late at night from a party. Patricia calmed her somewhat by telling her we’d be home by 11:00 sharp, but Aunt
Lillian
still
doesn’t like the idea.
I
don’t want to go to the stupid thing at all. All I want to do now is move ahead with my own life, get out of this place as soon as possible, find an apartment of my own, see what happens between Jack and me.

At lunch today I told him all about last night, my finally telling Andy we were through, and how he’d practically raped me. Jack said he’d be very happy when I got out of that house once and for all. And then he said something that got me very fluttery all over again. He said, And once
you’re
out, Mure, we’ll see about
my
getting out. I knew he was talking about his wife. I knew he was talking about leaving her.

So tomorrow night I’ll go to a dull party I don’t
want
to go to, and then I’ll only have Sunday to get through till I can see Jack again on Monday.

But at least the worst is over with.

I’ve ended it with Andy, and I can breathe again.

Patricia Lowery’s grandmother recognized Carella from his earlier visit, but this time he was accompanied by a tall blond man he introduced as his partner, Detective Kling. She said she would have to check with her granddaughter before she let them in the apartment, and then closed and locked the door, leaving them to cool their heels in the hallway for a while. Kling had not yet read the diary. Carella had briefed him on it, however, and had also voiced the regret that he could not charge Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy, with any crime but Attempted Seduction of the Innocent—which could not be found in the state’s Penal Law, and which in fact was only a violation of Carella’s own moral code, a Class E misdemeanor at best. Old Grandma Lowery was a spry old lady, but it took her ten minutes to get back to the front door with word that her granddaughter would most certainly talk to the detectives. They followed her through the apartment into the back bedroom, where Patricia sat in an armchair with a book
open on her lap. There was no place else to sit, except the bed, so both detectives remained standing while they talked to her.

“Patricia,” Carella said, “I’ve just finished reading Muriel’s diary, and I’d like to ask you a few questions about it.”

“Sure,” Patricia said, and nodded.

“To begin with, have
you
read that diary?”

“No,” Patricia said.

“You’re sure about that?”

“How could I have read it? She kept it locked.”

“Well, you could have cut the strap, for example,” Carella said.

“Why would I do that?”

“You might have done that if you were curious about what was in the diary.”

“I didn’t care about what was in the diary,” Patricia said.

“But you once asked Muriel what she found to write about, didn’t you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, that was on…let me see,” Carella said, and consulted his notes, and said, “That was on Wednesday, August twenty-seventh. You asked Muriel what she could possibly find to write about each night. Do you remember that?”

“I really don’t. But if that’s what Muriel wrote in her diary—”

“Yes, that’s what she wrote.”

“Then I suppose it’s true.”

“Well, I think we’ve got to assume that
everything
in the diary is true, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I never knew Muriel to lie about anything.”

“And she certainly wouldn’t have lied to the diary, because there’d have been no reason for it. So we’ve got to assume, for example, that when she says her boss’s name is Jack Armstrong, why that’s her boss’s name. Am I right?”

“Yes,” Patricia said, and nodded.

“You’ve never met him, though.”

“No, never.”

“And when she says in the diary that Jack Armstrong has brown hair and blue eyes, why, then we’ve got to believe it.”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t know whether that’s true or not, Patricia, because you’ve never met the man. But if Muriel said it was so, why, then I guess we have to believe it. Anyway, I
have
met the man, and he
does
have brown hair and blue eyes, so we know she was telling the truth at least in that instance.”

“Mm-huh,” Patricia said.

“And I guess we’ve got to assume she was telling the truth about everything else as well,” Carella said.

This time Patricia only nodded. She was watching Carella intently, not seeming to understand what he was getting at, studying his face for clues. Kling looked a little baffled, too.

“Patricia, when I spoke to you yesterday,” Carella said, “you told me that the last time you saw Muriel’s diary was on September fifth, the night before she was murdered.”

“That’s right,” Patricia said.

“You said you saw her writing in it.”

“Yes. She was sitting at the desk writing in it.”

“And where were you?”

“In bed.”

“And when she finished writing in it, what did she do?”

“She locked it and put it back in her drawer.”

“She carried the key on a chain around her neck, isn’t that what you told me?”

“Yes.”

“Could you see her clearly when she was locking the diary? I mean, was there plenty of light in the room, and was she standing close enough for you to see what she was doing?”

“She was sitting, actually. At the desk.”

“But you could see her clearly.”

“Yes.”

“Patricia, I’m going to tell you about some things that are bothering me,” Carella said. “I’m going to be completely honest with you, and I hope you’ll be completely honest in return. Okay?”

“I’ve been honest with you all along,” Patricia said.

“Well, that’s not quite true, is it? You lied to us that first time we talked to you, didn’t you? You said the murderer was a man with dark hair and blue eyes—”

“Well, yes, but I told you the truth later.”

“In fact, that’s one of the things that’s bothering me, Patricia. That business about describing the murderer the way you first did. Because, you see, in Muriel’s diary, it’s pretty plain to see that Jack Armstrong is interested in her, and here’s someone forcing Muriel to commit a sex act, and you describe—”

“He
did
force her to do it.”

“Yes. And he looked like Jack Armstrong, according to your first description. Except that you’d never
met
Jack Armstrong, of course, and you couldn’t have known what he looked like. Unless you’d read Muriel’s diary.”

“No, I didn’t read Muriel’s diary.”

“I know. You just told me that a few minutes ago, and you also said you’d be honest with me. But I think we’ve agreed that Muriel told the truth in her diary, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Then I must tell you that on September fourth, Muriel wrote about someone asking her to take off her dress and forcing her to commit a sex act against her will. She wrote that on September fourth. It was everything you described as having taken place on September sixth—two days later.
Except
the murder, of course.
But everything else was there in the diary, just as you later described it. Now how do you account for that, Patricia?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Patricia said.

“Patricia, you
did
read Muriel’s diary, didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Patricia, the strap on the diary was cut, someone read that diary.”

“Then it was Andy. If anyone read it, it had to be Andy.”

“Patricia, it was you.”

“I’m telling you I did
not—”

“Because the September fifth entry started with the words
‘Someone has read this diary. The strap was cut when I took it out of the drawer tonight.’
This is in my notes, Patricia, it’s a direct quote from your cousin’s diary.”

“So what? I still don’t understand—”

“Not five minutes ago you told me you saw your cousin
lock
the diary after she finished writing in it that night, the night of September fifth, the night before she was killed. Now, Patricia, if the strap had already been cut, why on earth would your cousin have locked—?”

The scream came unexpectedly.

She did not rise from the chair. She simply threw back her head, and the scream erupted from her mouth, and her eyes above the scream were wide with horror. The scream seemed eternal. It chilled both detectives to the marrow.

When it ended, they put handcuffs on her wrists.

She was only fifteen years old, and so they questioned her in the office of Peter Hudd, the lawyer appointed to defend her, rather than in the police station. Fifteen-year-olds weren’t supposed to be interrogated in police stations. Most police officers interrogated them there anyway—usually in the locker room or the swing room or someplace that didn’t
seem
like part of a
police station, though actually it was. The upper age limit for a juvenile offender in this state was sixteen years old, and the code stated that a delinquent was a child who violated any law or any municipal ordinance or who committed any act that, if committed by an adult, would be a serious crime,
except
(and this was where Patricia Lowery’s luck ran out) any child
fifteen
years of age who committed any act that, if committed by an adult, would be a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment. Patricia Lowery had allegedly committed a crime punishable by life imprisonment.

She had told them two versions of the same murderous tale, and now she told them the third and final version, and this one they accepted as the truth, even though there had been some truth in the previous two versions as well. It was this final truth, however, that could set her brother free and send Patricia to jail for life. They listened attentively. The stenographer took down every word. Carella conducted the interrogation. Patricia’s voice was barely audible. She sat shivering throughout, hugging herself with both arms.

CARELLA
: Do you want to tell us what happened?

PATRICIA
: I’ve already
told
you what happened.

CARELLA
: But you weren’t telling the truth.

PATRICIA
: That was only the first time. I told you the truth later. Don’t you remember? I came to the station house and I told you the truth.

CARELLA
: You came to the station house the first time, too.

PATRICIA
: Yes, but—

CARELLA
: And you lied.

PATRICIA
: Yes, but
not
the second time. I told you the truth that time. My brother killed her.

CARELLA
: Patricia, you said you would talk to us. Your lawyer here has no objection to your telling us
the truth, so why don’t you tell us what really happened?

PATRICIA
: I just hate to have to go over this again and again and again. You took it all down the first time, and then I said it on tape the second time, now you want it again. I mean, how many times do I have to tell you the same damn
thing?

CARELLA
: Just this last time, and that’ll be it.

PATRICIA
: It’s freezing in here. Can’t someone turn up the heat a little?

CARELLA
: Mr. Hudd?

HUDD
: I’ll get it.

CARELLA
: Patricia, why don’t you just start from the beginning?

PATRICIA
: The party, do you mean?

CARELLA
: Wherever the beginning was.

PATRICIA
: Well, that
was
the beginning.

CARELLA
: Okay, what happened?

PATRICIA
: I took the knife.

CARELLA
: Why?

PATRICIA
: Because Muriel and I had to walk home alone, why do you think? So I spied the knife on the kitchen rack and I just slipped it into my bag.

CARELLA
: Then what?

PATRICIA
: Then we started walking home.

CARELLA
: What time was that?

PATRICIA
: I
told
you all this already, I don’t know why I have to tell you again.

CARELLA
: This is the first time you told us about the knife.

PATRICIA
: You just don’t listen.

CARELLA
: You took the knife from the rack. Where was the rack?

PATRICIA
: In the kitchen. Paul Gaddis’s kitchen. That’s where the knife was. In the kitchen. I heard them when I came in.

CARELLA
: Heard who?

PATRICIA
: I went in the kitchen, you see, to get myself a glass of milk, and that’s when I heard them.

CARELLA
: I don’t understand.

PATRICIA
: Because you don’t listen.

CARELLA
: I’m listening, but I don’t understand who you mean. You say you heard them—
Who
did you hear?

PATRICIA
: Muriel and Andy.

CARELLA
: In Paul Gaddis’s kitchen?

PATRICIA
: No, no. In the bedroom.

CARELLA
: Patricia—

PATRICIA
: They were in Andy’s bedroom; what’s so difficult to understand about that?

CARELLA
: What were they doing in the bedroom, Patricia?

PATRICIA
: How should I know? Ask my darling brother what they were doing. Ask Muriel.

CARELLA
: Muriel is dead, Patricia.

PATRICIA
: Don’t I know it? He killed her.

CARELLA
: Who did?

PATRICIA
: My brother. Stuck it into her. I told her, don’t think I didn’t tell her. When it started raining so hard, and we ran to the building, and the ceiling looked pregnant, the ceiling overhead where we were standing, it was ugly and bloated, it looked pregnant. I said to her, I had the knife in my handbag, you see, so I wasn’t afraid anybody would attack us or anything, I was quite calm in the hallway there, I said to her she must
have been terribly frightened that time, and she asked me what time did I mean and I said, Why, when you thought you were pregnant, Muriel. There was light shining from the streetlamp, I could see her very clearly, the rain was falling so hard, so hard, she looked at me, and I could see the surprise on her face, and she said, You read my diary, didn’t you, you’re the one who read my diary, and I said, Yes, Muriel, I’m the one who read your diary, and she said, Why’d you do that, Patricia? I’m freezing to death here, aren’t there any blankets in here?