Murder on Lexington Avenue (27 page)

Frank wanted to ask what there was about the ledger that had caused Colyer concern, but he waited, knowing Decker would tell him when he was good and ready. He probably enjoyed making Frank wait.

“Mr. Colyer believes this ledger belongs to Mr. Nehemiah Wooten,” Decker said.

“I found it in his desk, along with those papers that I brought with it.”

“What did you think it meant?”

“I didn’t know what it meant, but it was in a drawer of the desk of a man who’d just been murdered. I don’t know much about running a business, but in the normal course of things, I’d expect to find the ledgers in the accountant’s office. I needed to know what it was and why it was there.”

“And what did you
hope
it was?” Decker asked with interest.

“I hoped it was a reason for somebody to want Mr. Wooten dead.”

“It is.”

Frank blinked in surprise. “It is?” he asked.

“Yes,” Decker said mildly. “That’s why it caused Mr. Colyer so much concern. That’s why he brought it to me, to make sure his conclusions were correct and to ask me what he should do about it.”

“I guess you think his conclusions were correct,” Frank said.

“Mr. Colyer is rarely wrong when it comes to numbers, Mr. Malloy.”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Frank said. “What are his conclusions?”

He figured he’d probably made a mistake in asking outright like that, but he was getting tired of Decker’s games.

Decker looked up at Colyer. “Why don’t you tell him what you’ve found, Mr. Colyer?”

Colyer cleared his throat. “The ledger, as you probably know, represents the official accounting of Young and Wooten for this year to date. It shows the income, the expenses, and the profits or losses of the company. Somehow, Mr. Wooten must have become aware of some discrepancies, or perhaps he just became suspicious. Businessmen often develop a feel for how much money their company should be earning, and he may have wondered why his expectations weren’t being met. He may also have had some additional documents, probably invoices to other businesses for work Wooten’s company had performed for them. That is what he was figuring on these other sheets.” He picked up one of the sheets covered with columns of numbers.

Decker couldn’t stand it. He had to take over. He took the sheet from Colyer’s hand. “Wooten apparently was adding up these missing invoices here.” He pointed to one column, and Frank stepped closer to the desk so he could see it. “Mr. Colyer could find no record of these particular amounts entered into the official ledger as income. Then Wooten added that sum to the actual amount listed in the ledger as income for each month, and the totals are the numbers he circled.”

Frank nodded his understanding. “The missing invoices were paid, but that income was never officially recorded, so . . .”

“So Mr. Wooten wasn’t receiving his share of it,” Decker said.

“Who was?” Frank asked.

“We can’t tell from this,” Decker said carefully.

“Could it be the accountant? He acted strange when he saw the ledger in Wooten’s desk.”

Decker looked at Colyer, who said, “The accountant may be the one who actually found the discrepancies and brought them to Mr. Wooten’s attention.”

Frank considered this information. “That doesn’t make sense. I was there, investigating Mr. Wooten’s death. I asked him outright if there were problems with the business, and he denied it. All he had to do was tell me.”

Decker looked at Colyer again.

“Mr. Wooten is dead,” Colyer said, making Frank frown.

“I know he is.”

“And his other employer, Mr. Young, is still very much alive. If Mr. Young is the one who was stealing from the company, and if he killed Mr. Wooten to cover his crime, and if you can prove it and make sure Mr. Young goes to prison, then the accountant has a reason to help you.”

“Can you do that, Mr. Malloy?” Decker asked.

Frank could see the problem clearly. “Without Mr. Wooten to bring charges, I’d have a hard time getting proof that somebody embezzled money from the company, and without proof of that, I’d have a hard time proving Mr. Young had a reason to kill Wooten.”

“We all know that even if you had proof that Young killed Wooten, for
any
reason, you would have a difficult time even bringing charges against him,” Decker said.

He was right. Rich men didn’t stand trial for anything in New York, not even murder. A nice fat wad of bills in the right pocket would ensure that.

“And the accountant isn’t going to give evidence against his sole surviving employer,” Frank concluded. “He’d lose his job, and nobody would ever hire him again.”

“I told you he would understand,” Decker told Colyer. Frank wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not. Decker looked back at Frank. “We still might be able to bring Mr. Young to justice, however.”

“Not so fast,” Frank said, surprised Decker would even care about such a thing, much less take it into his own hands. “You’re right, I don’t have proof that Young killed Wooten, although this gives him a pretty good reason to want him dead. He still might be innocent, though, and there are other people who wanted him dead for different reasons.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean justice for murder,” Decker said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. “I don’t even care who killed Wooten. I mean justice for stealing from his partner. Everyone bends some rules in business, Mr. Malloy, but if we allow men to steal from their partners with impunity, none of us is safe.”

Sarah had occasionally mentioned the ways in which the rich punished those who broke the rules they held sacred, things that may not actually be illegal but were offensive nonetheless. “What are you going to do?” Frank asked with interest.

“First of all, I’m going to hire a new accountant, if you will be so kind as to tell me the name of the gentleman who acted so strangely when he saw this ledger in Mr. Wooten’s desk.”

 

 

T
HE MAID WAS WAITING TO SEE MR. OLDHAM OUT, AND no sooner had he left than Mrs. Parmer said, “Oh, wait, he left a notebook here the day of the funeral.” She touched Electra’s arm to turn her attention from Oldham’s retreating figure. “You should return his other notebook.”

Electra looked at her aunt for a long moment and then moved away with no response, as if she hadn’t understood. She went to the window, where she could observe Oldham as he left the house and walked down the street.

“That girl,” Mrs. Parmer murmured, then said to Sarah, “She probably wants it as a keepsake.”

Sarah thought she was probably right. “Mr. Oldham seems like a well-bred young man,” she observed, trying to encourage Mrs. Parmer to express her own opinion.

“He certainly does,” she agreed with more enthusiasm than Sarah had expected. “I don’t know what I expected, but I think I was judging him by Leander’s opinion. Now that I remember, it was Leander who caused the scene at his father’s funeral. Mr. Oldham had done nothing to provoke him.”

Except make Electra fall in love with him, Sarah thought, although in all fairness, he had probably been unable to prevent that. “I gather he expressed himself well,” she tried.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Parmer said. “He gave me his condolences on the loss of my brother, and apologized for the unpleasant scene at the funeral. As soon as he realized Leander objected to his presence, he made his excuses to Leander and left. I can’t really blame him for wanting to comfort Electra. He apparently cares very deeply for her, so naturally, he’d want to be with her when she’s grieving.”

Electra suddenly turned away from the window and back to them. Mr. Oldham must have gone out of sight.

“You like him, don’t you?” she said to her aunt.

Caught off guard by such a direct question, Mrs. Parmer needed a moment to frame an answer. “He seems like a respectable young man,” she said diplomatically.

“I saw you smiling at him,” Electra said. She wasn’t teasing, just stating a fact. “You like him. Why wouldn’t Leander like him?”

“Leander was just worried about you. He didn’t want anyone to take advantage of you.”

“Adam loves me,” Electra said. “He wants to marry me.”

“You’re too young to be thinking about marriage,” Mrs. Parmer said. “And a rich girl always has to be concerned when a poor man wants to marry her.”

“Adam doesn’t care if I’m rich or not,” she insisted.

“Then he won’t mind waiting until you’re of age, will he?” Mrs. Parmer argued.

Electra turned to Sarah.

“I need to see Mr. Malloy,” she said. “You won’t forget?”

“No, I won’t forget,” Sarah promised.

Electra wandered out of the room without another word.

“It’s so difficult to teach her proper manners. She has no idea what the things she says sound like,” Mrs. Parmer observed. “I’m sorry to have involved you in all of this.”

“I’m happy to help, if I can. All of you have been through so much lately.”

Mrs. Parmer’s eyes filled with tears, which she hastily blotted away with her handkerchief. “I don’t know what will become of Electra with only Valora to watch over her.”

Sarah shared her concern. “I understand Mr. Wooten didn’t approve of Electra being courted by a deaf man. Does Mrs. Wooten share his opinion on that?”

“I have no idea what Valora thinks. My brother wasn’t the kind of man to consider the opinions of others when forming his own. He expected his wife and children to obey him regardless, and they learned not to bother disagreeing.”

“Do
you
share his opinion on this?”

Mrs. Parmer had to think about this. “I really don’t know,” she said after a few moments. “I hadn’t ever given it much thought, but after seeing Electra with Mr. Oldham, I can see that there would be certain advantages in marrying someone who bore the same burden, so to speak. Of course, there’s the problem of the children. That was Nehemiah’s concern. He was worried that when deaf people marry each other, they produce deaf children.”

“And yet,” Sarah said, “very few of the students at Mr. Oldham’s school have even one deaf parent.”

“Is that true?” Mrs. Parmer asked in surprise.

“Yes, it is, and neither one of Electra’s parents were deaf,” Sarah reminded her, feeling silly for pointing out the obvious, but Mrs. Parmer’s expression showed she hadn’t thought of it that way before. “And Mr. Malloy’s son is deaf, but he and his late wife weren’t.”

“But there is still the issue of Mr. Oldham being poor and Electra being so young. I believe that was what concerned Leander.”

“He was certainly justified in that,” Sarah agreed. “But as you said, if he truly does care for her, he’ll wait.”

“I can’t imagine why she wants to see Mr. Malloy,” Mrs. Parmer said. “You must instruct him not to tell her what really happened to Leander. It’s enough that she knows her father was murdered.”

“I’ll be sure he understands that,” Sarah promised. She just wondered if Malloy would share Mrs. Parmer’s concern or if he might have a reason for telling Electra the truth.

 

 

F
RANK LEFT FELIX DECKER’S OFFICE WITH THE LEDGER and the pages of numbers. Decker had no objections to Frank’s returning them to where he’d found them. Decker had no further need of them, and Frank might find them useful in some way.

Decker’s plan, as Frank understood it, was to try to hire the accountant, Snodgrass. If Snodgrass gratefully accepted the offer of a new position, Decker would know he was not only innocent of involvement in the embezzling but eager to escape an uncomfortable situation. If he refused, Decker would know Snodgrass was involved in the crime. What he would do from there involved a lot of quiet conversations in gentleman’s clubs that would slowly strangle Terrance Young’s reputation.

Now that Frank had time to think about it, the pieces were starting to fall into place. Young and Wooten had met on Thursday. Snodgrass had tried to skip over that appointment when he’d been describing each of Wooten’s meetings that week. When Frank had asked outright what the two men had discussed, Snodgrass had claimed ignorance, but Frank had suspected he was lying even then. Young had claimed not to have seen Wooten since then. He’d left the office and not returned, according to him. If Wooten had accused him of embezzling at that meeting on Thursday, Young wouldn’t have dared show his face at the office again. Unless he’d returned on Saturday, after everyone had left, to plead for another chance. Wooten, however, wasn’t the kind of man who gave second chances.

Would Wooten have brought charges against him? Probably not. Nobody wanted the scandal of a trial, and Wooten wasn’t the kind of man to publicly admit he’d been taken advantage of. But he’d certainly dissolve the partnership. He’d never have given Young another chance to cheat him. And he’d have told everyone why he’d broken with Young. If Felix Decker could destroy Young’s reputation, Wooten could have done so even more quickly and easily.

At least he’d convinced Decker to wait until Frank was finished with his investigation before taking any action against Young. He needed to know if Young was guilty of more than just embezzlement. He wouldn’t be able to prosecute Young if he did kill Wooten, but at least he’d know for sure and could make certain no innocent person was charged.

Sarah had told him that Young had approached Leander at the funeral and tried to convince him to continue his education and leave running the business to Young and his son. That could have just been the surviving partner showing a natural concern for the dead man’s son. That was what Young would most certainly say. But Leander hadn’t been grateful. He’d been angry and lashed out. Had Leander known about the embezzlement? More importantly, had Young thought he did? Because if he did and Young had killed his partner, he’d also have to kill the partner’s son. And of course, he couldn’t forget about Terry Young. He also had a good reason for wanting Wooten dead, even if he hadn’t known Mrs. Wooten was pregnant. And did he know his father was stealing from the company? Or maybe Terry Young was the one stealing.