Lowell Danvers

Lowell Danvers is 44 and the Kingsmill family's driver and bodyguard. Born in Oakland, the son of a longshoreman, he boxed as an amateur in his youth and kept from the sport his crooked nose and the habit of always staying one step ahead of the person he accompanies. He has worked for the family for nine years and has known Delia since she was ten, when he drove her to and from school.

He lives in an old two-story house in Oakland, with a living room of creaking wooden floors, a brown sofa covered with a wool blanket and a radio he turns on low. He shares the house with a widowed sister, who cooks, and an old dog with sad eyes. He sleeps early on his days off and, on duty days, only gets home after midnight, with the rug wet from the rain.

He is stout, with a broad, reddish face, a boxer's nose and gray hair in a buzz cut. He wears a cheap dark suit, with the tie loose, under a navy overcoat, and keeps a black-covered notebook and a pencil in his shirt pocket. He is dry, wary, and speaks like someone filing a report: short sentences, time, place, name, and no opinion nobody asked for.

About the building's door, his account is matter-of-fact: since September he has sat in the car from 6 p.m. to midnight, on Mr. Kingsmill's orders, and writes down every plate and every visitor in a notebook the boss reads on Sundays. He says he picked up the habit of taking the girl up and down since she was ten, and that he has never seen a problem that couldn't be solved with attention.

Lowell knows the man who watches the door and notes every visit is the first who is asked how the kidnapping was possible. When the detective accuses him of selling out the young woman, he answers, offended, that he took her up and down since she was ten and that he can be jailed for carelessness, but not for betrayal. It could be the wounded pride of a loyal bodyguard. It could be someone protecting a minor secret. The detective will have to decide which.