Murder on Lexington Avenue (12 page)

“He didn’t
pass away
,” Mrs. Wooten said brusquely. “He was murdered, as I’m sure you already know, so don’t bother trying to spare my feelings.”

“I just didn’t want to upset you unnecessarily,” Sarah said. “You’ll need all your strength to focus on the birth, and I was trying to judge your frame of mind.”

“My frame of mind is no concern of yours. I just need for you to get this baby delivered and then get out of my house.”

“Very well,” Sarah said, not letting her annoyance show. She was used to dealing with ill-tempered women in labor. “I need to ask you some questions and examine you, if you don’t mind, to make sure everything is as it should be.”

“Nothing is as it should be,” Mrs. Wooten said bitterly.

Sarah chose to ignore that remark. No use provoking her patient any further. She sat down and began asking her questions about her general health and any symptoms she might have experienced recently that would indicate problems with the baby. Then she listened to the mother’s and the baby’s hearts with her stethoscope, and laid her hand on Mrs. Wooten’s stomach as she experienced a contraction.

“Is everything all right?” Mrs. Wooten asked when she was finished.

“I don’t see anything unusual. The baby’s heartbeat is good and strong,” Sarah added encouragingly. She couldn’t tell if Mrs. Wooten was relieved or disappointed. Oddly, she just seemed angry.

“I had very short labors with my other children,” Mrs. Wooten said after a few moments. Sarah sensed that she was beginning to surrender herself to Sarah’s care, however grudgingly. “Six hours was the longest, and only three the last time.”

“That was a long time ago, and you’re much older now,” Sarah reminded her. “But we can hope.” She didn’t mention that a woman who was almost forty also had a risk of many complications that a woman in her twenties wouldn’t.

Before Mrs. Wooten could reply, the maid returned with armloads of linens. When Sarah and the maid had remade Mrs. Wooten’s lavish, four-poster bed with a rubberized sheet and clean bedding and the maid had gathered everything else that Sarah would need, Sarah turned her attention back to her patient.

“If you feel up to it, walking can help things move along faster,” she said.

“I don’t feel up to it,” Mrs. Wooten said wearily, “but I do want to get this over with.” She swung her slippered feet to the floor and struggled to rise, accepting Sarah’s help with obvious reluctance. Sarah offered her arm for support, and the two began slowly circling the room, pausing occasionally for a contraction.

“I know what you must be going through, losing your husband so suddenly,” Sarah said after they’d made several circuits of the room in strained silence.

“I’m sure you have no idea what I’m going through,” Mrs. Wooten snapped. “Was
your
husband murdered?”

“As a matter of fact, he was.”

Mrs. Wooten jerked to a stop, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at Sarah, trying to judge the truthfulness of her claim. “I . . . I’m terribly sorry,” she stammered, her inbred manners overcoming her bad temper. “I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Sarah said graciously. “My husband was a doctor. He was murdered one night when he was out on a call.”

“How long ago?”

“Four years.”

“Did they ever . . . Do you know who did it?”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “Mr. Malloy found the killer.”

Her eyes grew wide again at this, then narrowed as she considered the information. “So that’s how he knows you.”

The truth was much more complicated than this, but she said, “Yes. Mr. Malloy is very good at his job.”

For some reason, this news didn’t seem to comfort Mrs. Wooten at all. Before she could reply, if indeed she’d intended to reply, a contraction came and captured her entire attention for several moments. When it passed, she straightened slowly and began to walk again, making no further reference to Malloy’s talents.

After a while, she said, “I couldn’t believe I was going to have a baby.”

“I’m sure it was a surprise after all that time.”

“I thought . . . I thought it was the change coming on. I thought I was too old.”

Sarah remembered her assignment from Malloy, to find out if her husband could have fathered this child. “I’m sure your husband was surprised as well.”

Her gaze cut sharply to Sarah, as if trying to judge her depth of knowledge. Sarah stared back, hoping she looked as innocent as she was trying to.

“Yes, well, I suppose so,” was all Mrs. Wooten said.

Sarah let the matter rest for now.

 

 

A
T THE SOUND OF LEANDER’S VOICE, MRS. PARMER JUMPED to her feet and hurried out to meet him. Although Electra couldn’t hear her brother’s voice, she knew something was happening from her aunt’s reaction. She looked to Frank for an explanation.

“Your brother is home,” he said to her.

She jumped up to follow her aunt, but stopped when she remembered the papers on which she’d written some of her deepest fears and all of her secrets. She snatched them up, making sure to get all of them, and quickly folded them up and stuffed them into her pocket. Then she looked at Frank and said, “Adam did not kill Father.”

Before he could reply, she turned and hurried out to meet her brother. Frank followed, hanging back discreetly so he would have a better chance of overhearing something.

Mrs. Parmer had met the young man at the top of the stairs. She was speaking to him urgently but keeping her voice too low to be overheard. Leander Wooten was large boned and solidly built, like his mother, and as handsome as Electra was beautiful. His dark hair waved on his well-shaped head. Every girl who met him must have fallen instantly in love.

“That’s impossible!” he was saying, apparently outraged by the news that his mother was in the process of giving birth. “I want to see her.”

“You can’t,” Mrs. Parmer said, trying to grab his arm as he moved past her, but he easily shook her off.

By now Electra had reached him.

“Where’s Mother?” he asked her.

“In her room,” Electra replied. “But you can’t go there!” she called after him as he pushed by her.

Then he saw Frank and stopped in his tracks. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy of the New York City Police,” he told him in his most commanding voice.

But rich boys weren’t trained to fear the cops the way poor boys were. In fact, rich boys weren’t trained to fear anything much at all. “What are you doing in our house?”

“I’m trying to find out who killed your father.”

He didn’t even blink. “Then you’re wasting your time here. No one in this house killed him.”

“Something you know might help me find out who did, though,” Frank countered.

That got his attention.

“He’s been asking Electra questions,” Mrs. Parmer informed him.

That got him angry. “Electra? What could she know that would help you?”

“Did you know she’s been seeing a deaf man secretly?”

He was surprised, but only at finding out Frank knew about Adam Oldham. “He’s been teaching her to sign,” Leander said, instantly defensive of his younger sister.

“What’s this?” Mrs. Parmer cried. “Who are you talking about?”

“It’s nothing, Aunt Betty,” Leander said. “Nothing for you to be concerned about.”

“How can you say that? Everything about you and Electra concerns me!” She turned on Frank. “Is that what Electra was telling you? All that writing? Was that what she said?”

“What writing?” Leander asked, furious now. He turned to Electra. “What have you been saying to him about Father?”

But Frank could see that Electra had lost the thread of the conversation. She didn’t know why Leander was angry. “You can’t go see Mama. She’s getting a baby, and she doesn’t want us to see her!”

Leander ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “What is going on here? Will somebody please say something that makes sense?”

“Your mother is having a baby,” Frank said, figuring he might as well answer the young man’s questions, since no one else seemed willing to do so. “A midwife is upstairs with her.”

“That’s impossible!” Leander said.

“I’m afraid it’s not,” Frank said quite firmly. “And I’m here trying to find out who might have wanted to kill your father. I was talking to your mother and Mr. Young when the baby started to come, so I sent for a midwife—”

“
You
sent for a midwife?” He turned to where Mrs. Parmer was standing, wringing her hands in dismay. “Why didn’t
you
send for the
doctor
?”

“Your mother didn’t want the doctor. You know what a gossip he is and—”

“Gossip? Who cares about gossip?” Leander demanded, but no one had an answer for him. Stymied, he tried another tack. “Did you know about this baby?” he asked his aunt.

She stiffened at once, her lips tightening to a thin, bloodless line. “I most certainly did not.” She glanced at Frank and apparently decided the damage was already done, so she needn’t hold back. “I don’t believe your father did either.”

“What are you saying?” Electra cried, completely lost and nearly in tears. “Tell me!”

Leander controlled his own shock and turned to her, instantly tender. “Nothing important,” he assured her. “Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”

“No, it won’t!” she cried. “Father is dead, and Mother is getting a baby, and this man won’t leave us alone!”

“Mr. Wooten,” Frank tried, “if you answer some questions for me, I’ll be glad to leave you alone. I’ll also be glad to answer all of
your
questions,” he added when Leander looked like he was going to explode from frustration.

“All right,” he snapped, then turned back to Electra, instantly gentle again. “I need to speak with this man. Please go with Aunt Betty. She’ll explain everything to you.”

“I most certainly will not!” Mrs. Parmer said.

“Then tell her as much as you can,” Leander said impatiently. “And for God’s sake, don’t upset her any more than she already is.”

“I don’t know how I’ll manage to do both,” Mrs. Parmer grumbled, but she took Electra by the arm and started speaking to her as she led her away, back to the small room where Frank had been questioning her.

Leander turned back to Frank and for an instant he looked as if he would like to throw him out the window. Then his good manners overtook his temper, and he said, “Let’s go in there,” and indicated the parlor where Frank had questioned Terrance Young earlier.

As soon as he’d closed the door behind them, Leander asked, “What’s this about my mother having a baby?”

“I’m afraid it’s true. I don’t know how much you know about the process . . .”

“I know how they’re made,” he said with a trace of irony, “but not much after that.”

“I arrived here this afternoon to ask your mother some more questions, and Mrs. Parmer took me up to her room.”

“Her
room
?” he echoed in outrage. “Why would she do a thing like that?” A man would never be allowed to enter a lady’s bedroom unless he was married to her.

“I think Mrs. Parmer wanted me to understand your mother’s relationship to Mr. Young.”

“How would going to her room do that?”

“He was in there with her. Alone.”

“Uncle Terrance?” he scoffed. “I don’t believe it!”

“If by ‘Uncle Terrance,’ you mean your father’s partner, then no, you shouldn’t believe it. It was Mr. Young Junior who was with her.”

Leander opened his mouth to protest again, but the words seemed to die in his throat. The blood draining from his face, he made a strangled sound and started to keel over.

F
RANK LUNGED AND CAUGHT LEANDER BEFORE HE COMPLETELY collapsed. Then after managing to walk him over to a chair and sitting him down, Frank slapped the young man’s face a few times, until he came to enough to sputter in protest.

“What the . . . ? What happened?”

“You fainted,” Frank told him.

“The hell I did!”

“Then you passed out, or nearly did. I saved you from cracking your head on the floor, so show a little gratitude.”

“Why would I . . . ? Oh,” he said, answering his own question as the memory came back. “You said Terry Young was in Mother’s room,” he remembered, trying to dredge up some anger but managing only a little outrage.

“Did you know about his . . .
interest
in your mother?” Frank asked as diplomatically as he could.

Leander sighed in disgust. “His own mother died years ago, when he was a child. Mother always paid a lot of attention to him. I just thought she felt sorry for him.”

“And what did he feel about her?”

The color rose in Leander’s face. “I thought he idolized her. He was always so . . . so
thoughtful
,” he said, making the word sound like a curse.

“How was he
thoughtful
?” Frank asked.

“He always had a special gift for her on her birthday and at Christmas, something she’d say was her favorite present, something she’d say she’d always treasure. And when he was visiting, they’d be off sitting in a corner, talking for hours.” He looked up at Frank, outrage shining in his fine eyes. “I can’t believe he took advantage of her!”

“What makes you think he did?” Frank asked mildly.

Leander’s lip curled in a sneer. “She’s having a baby that my sister and I knew nothing about, and Aunt Betty said Father knew nothing about.”

“Your aunt might be wrong,” Frank pointed out, thinking Mrs. Wooten might be the one who had taken advantage.

“She wouldn’t lie about something like that, not about family,” Leander said with certainty. He rubbed a hand over his face, as if trying to wipe this whole unpleasantness away.

“What made you pass out?” Frank asked.

Leander looked up, angry again. “I didn’t pass out.”