Plot

Homicide detective Steve Carella is trying to solve the brutal murder of 17-year-old Muriel Stark. Her younger cousin Patricia, who saw the killer and barely escaped with her life, helps him. However, the case soon takes a bizarre turn.

Montreal: Late at night the teenage Patricia flees into a police department, covered all over with blood. She states together with her cousin she took shelter from rain in an entry way on their way home from a party, when an unknown man threatened them, forced her cousin to perform oral sex and then killed her. Patricia could barely escape. The police starts searching among the known sex criminals - but then Patricia changes her statement and states her brother Andrew, who had an affair with his cousin, was the murderer. Inspector Carella doesn't quite believe both the statements.—Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

In Montreal, the fifteen year-old Patricia Lowery and her seventeen year-old Muriel Stark are running in a rainy night seeking for shelter and out of the blue Muriel screams in an alley. Patricia runs to a precinct covered with blood and the police officers take care of her. Detective Steve Carella, who is investigating the murder case of Muriel, comes to the police station and interviews Patricia. She tells that her cousin and she had gone to a party, and a man attacked them in the alley forcing Muriel to have oral sex with her before killing her. The police force seeks out sex offenders with the description provided by Patricia, but she fails in the lineup. When Det. Carella finds Muriel's journal, he learns that the teenager logged every movement she takes in her diary and he raises suspicion in Patricia's statement.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil