Blood Relatives (87th Precinct) Read online

  Tuesday, September 2

  The first thing I did when I got to work was call Jack’s office. His secretary asked who this was, and I said it was me, and said I thought I’d found a bookkeeping error. When she put Jack on the line, I explained that I needed desperately to talk to him. We agreed on a place to meet for lunch, and at about a quarter to 1:00 I began telling him the whole story.

  He was shocked.

  He said the first thing I had to do was get out of that house. I told him I couldn’t do that immediately, I would first have to find a place to stay. He said he’d help me do that, and he warned me that meanwhile I must not have anything to do with my cousin, that the situation could only deteriorate. From what I had told him about the various times Andy had become violent with me, Jack was frankly fearful for my safety. I told him I didn’t think there was anything to worry about in that respect, and he said I certainly hope so, Muriel, because if anything should happen to you—and then suddenly he got very quiet, and he looked down at his plate. Finally I said, Yes, Jack, what if something should happen to me? He said he was sorry he’d said that. He was a married man, and I was only a seventeen-year-old girl, and he had no right to express any interest in me other than what a good and concerned friend might express. So I said, Don’t you consider yourself something more than a good and concerned friend, Jack? And he said, All I know is I’m worried about you, Muriel. I want you to get out of that house before your cousin takes it into his head to harm you.

  I assured him that Andy wasn’t the type who’d really hurt me. Even though he’d slapped me that one time, and grabbed my arm a couple of times, I told Jack I didn’t think he was really the violent type. Jack said he was worried, anyway, and he suggested that I take a room in a hotel downtown until I could find a place of my own, but I told him my Uncle Frank would never permit that. In fact, I was going to have a hard-enough time of it just moving out. I was only seventeen, after all, and my Uncle Frank and my Aunt Lillian were my guardians. And Jack said, If they’re your guardians, they should have made certain their goddamned son kept his filthy hands off you.

  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 anyplace. 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 ass
ume, 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.”