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 nightcourt. 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
“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 nightcourt. 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
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