Murder on Lexington Avenue (35 page)

By then, Oldham had fallen silent. Sarah couldn’t help wondering what was going through his mind. Locked in his silent world, he would have no idea what to expect. For all he knew, they’d locked him in there and intended to leave him to die. Sarah briefly considered writing him a note and slipping it under the door, but then she felt the wound on her neck again and changed her mind. Instead, she turned her attention to Electra, not quite certain if she could be trusted or not.

“Let’s go back in the other room,” Sarah suggested. Electra shrugged and followed Sarah back into the small parlor where the two lovers had held their picnic.

Sarah went to where the charred notebook still lay on the hearth. It had cooled enough to be handled, but when Sarah picked it up, she realized that the flames had done their work. They would have only Electra’s word now for what it had said.

Electra had found the other notebook and pencil where Malloy had discarded them earlier and was idly flipping through it. When she looked up, Sarah asked, “Did you ever love Adam?”

The girl’s face wrinkled with distaste. “A little, at first. But he is just a teacher. And he killed Brother.”

Sarah could only think of one of the thousands of questions she’d had earlier. “Why?”

Electra studied Sarah for a moment, as if considering whether she was worthy of an explanation. Apparently, she decided she was. She walked over to the sofa from which they’d pulled the dustcover for their earlier picnic and flounced down onto it. She opened the notebook and began to write.

By the time Sarah had joined her, she’d already written several lines, and the words kept flowing.

“I wanted to learn to sign, so I asked Brother to find me a teacher. Adam was like all the other deaf boys I know. They all fall in love with me. He said he wanted to marry me, but I had to tell him my father would never allow it. I told him all about how my father wanted me to act like a girl who could hear and marry a man who could hear so I wouldn’t have deaf children. I told him how my father would hate him and would forbid him to ever see me again if he asked for my hand. He got very angry. And then my father found out he was teaching me to sign. He made Adam come to his office. Father threatened him with all kinds of things if he ever saw me again.”

When she stopped, Sarah took the book and wrote, “Why did Adam go back to see your father on Saturday?”

Electra smiled like a good student who is pleased to hear a question to which she knows the answer. “He wanted to change Father’s mind. He wanted to show Father he was good enough for me. But Father made fun of him because he couldn’t talk and he couldn’t understand what other people said to him. He made fun of the way he wrote in his notebook. Adam lost his temper and hit Father with one of his trophies. He said he didn’t mean to kill him,” she added and shrugged.

“Why didn’t you tell Mr. Malloy all this?”

“I didn’t want to get Adam in trouble. I still loved him, and I wasn’t mad at him for killing Father,” she wrote, her gaze clear and innocent.

No, Sarah thought, she wouldn’t have been. Malloy had told her that Electra’s reaction to her father’s death had been almost exultant. The man who had ruled her life and ordered her days was gone and would cause her no more inconvenience. “Did you know Adam was going to kill Leander?” Sarah asked.

Electra considered this. “No. If he hadn’t killed Brother, I never would have betrayed him.”

“I
CAN’T BELIEVE HOW WRONG WE WERE ABOUT ELECTRA,” Sarah said to Malloy.

It was Sunday afternoon, two days after they’d confronted Electra and Oldham. Malloy had spent most of Saturday questioning Adam Oldham and closing up the case. They were sitting on a bench in Central Park, where Malloy had invited Sarah and her girls to meet him and Brian. Maeve was pushing Catherine and Brian on the children’s swings nearby. The park was crowded, as usual, so the noise of screaming children and chattering adults gave them privacy for this very interesting conversation.

“I should’ve known something was wrong when she seemed glad her father was dead,” Malloy said. “I overlooked it because she’s deaf and . . .”

“And because you felt sorry for her?” Sarah asked.

“I guess. That’s probably how she’s gotten away with a lot in her life.”

“I’m sure. She told me so many things that night in White Plains while we were waiting for you to come back. She said she really did want to learn to sign, but not especially because she wanted to be able to speak to other deaf people. She mostly wanted to defy her father, I think.”

“Oldham said she talked about her father all the time, about how she hated him and how she’d never be able to marry him as long as her father was alive. He’d saved the notebooks where they’d written things back and forth in the beginning, until she learned to sign better. His mother brought them to me to read. I guess she hoped it would help somehow.”

“Did Electra actually ask him to kill her father?” Sarah asked in surprise.

“No, not outright or at least not in writing. Who knows what she may have signed to him, though. I don’t suppose she said anything to you about that?”

“No, of course not. She was trying to blame Oldham for everything, so naturally she wouldn’t. I believe she told him how much she hated her father. Girls that age often do. She also admitted that she purposely let her teacher catch her practicing her signing and then follow her to her meeting with Oldham, so her father would find out. She wanted a confrontation between Oldham and her father.”

Malloy whistled. “I wondered how the teacher was able to follow her so easily. Do you think she was hoping Oldham would kill Wooten?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but she certainly wanted her father to find out she was learning to sign, and she must’ve known how angry he would be at the person responsible.”

“But why did she want Leander to die?”

Sarah considered that. “She didn’t, but Oldham thought he was going to be as strict with her as her father had been. From Oldham’s point of view, Leander had made it clear he wasn’t going to allow Oldham to see Electra again. Leander felt guilty for being the one to bring them together, and he thought Oldham had taken advantage of her innocence.”

Malloy made a rude noise. “That girl hasn’t been innocent for a long time. Did you know she was the one who wrote the note I found in her room?”

“The one asking her to run away with him?” she asked in surprise.

“Yeah, that one. Oldham swore he didn’t send it, and he showed me the one she’d sent him, asking him to meet her. She apparently tried to copy his handwriting from the notebook. She didn’t do a very good job, but it didn’t look like hers either, so I was fooled.”

Sarah was trying to make sense of this. “Why did she write herself a note and leave it for someone to find?”

“She said it herself that night—she wanted someone to come after them. She had no intention of eloping with Oldham. She’d sent him a letter, telling him to meet her at the station, but she knew her aunt would send someone looking for her when she turned up missing. They’d know from the note that she’d taken the train somewhere. Anyone could’ve done what we did and found out where they went. They were a couple that people would remember.”

“She was just surprised we got there so quickly.”

“But why go to so much trouble?” Malloy asked with a frown. “She had the notebook. She could’ve just given it to me.”

“She wasn’t sure it was enough to prove Oldham killed Leander. She wanted him to be guilty of kidnapping her, too. At least that’s what she said.”

“She did seem to enjoy all the attention.”

“What I find really disturbing is how much she enjoyed humiliating Oldham. She took the notebook and kept it to use against him.”

“She really was cruel to him,” Malloy agreed. “He loved her, and she used that for her own purposes.”

“I was afraid he was right and you didn’t have any more evidence when he burned that notebook,” Sarah recalled. “I never had a chance to ask you about that thing you had in your pocket, the thing Electra said was a mechanical pencil.”

“I found it in Wooten’s office the day he was killed. Somebody had broken it in half. The pieces were on opposite sides of the room when I found them, like somebody had tossed them away. I asked all the employees, but nobody had ever seen it before. It was expensive, made out of brass and ivory, so I figured it was Wooten’s and stuck it in my pocket. I almost forgot I even had it.”

“What made you remember?”

“The way Oldham kept writing in his notebook. I’d never seen him do it, but I knew that since he couldn’t read lips or speak, that’s the only way he could communicate with people who couldn’t sign. It made sense that somebody who had to do so much writing would invest in something fancy. The fact that a mechanical pencil didn’t need to be sharpened would be an advantage, too. I wasn’t sure it was really his until I showed it to him, but if he was the killer, it had to belong to him.”

“How did it get broken?”

Malloy shook his head. “Funny thing about that. It’s what got Wooten killed. According to Oldham, he went to see Wooten alone that day. He didn’t want Rossiter to know what they talked about, and he suspected Rossiter didn’t always correctly interpret what Oldham said to Wooten.”

“You mean Rossiter purposely lied?” Sarah asked in surprise.

“No, Rossiter admitted to me that he’d be more diplomatic than Oldham intended, and Oldham had guessed that. Anyway, Oldham wanted to talk to Wooten alone, so he had to use his notebook and write messages back and forth.”

“Mr. Wooten must’ve hated that!”

“He did. He made fun of Oldham because he couldn’t speak or understand what was said to him. When Adam tried to respond, Wooten grabbed his pencil—the pencil his mother had given him when he graduated from college because she was so proud of him—broke it in two, and threw it on the floor. Then Wooten laughed, because Oldham was helpless and couldn’t make himself understood without it.”

“I can’t even imagine how angry that must have made Oldham,” Sarah said. “No wonder he struck Wooten.”

“It’s still against the law to kill somebody, no matter how obnoxious they are,” Malloy reminded her.

“And Leander wasn’t obnoxious,” Sarah pointed out. “He was justifiably concerned about an older man taking advantage of his sister. Oldham had no business trying to court Electra.”

“And he had no business killing Leander.”

They sat for a moment, mulling over the strange facts of the case and watching the children play.

“What will happen to Oldham?” she asked.

“He’ll go to prison, at least. He may get the electric chair. He certainly planned to kill Leander, even if killing Wooten was an accident. What about Electra? Did you tell her mother what you found out about her part in all this?”

“Her mother claimed to be too upset to see me. I tried to tell Mrs. Parmer, but she adores Electra and couldn’t bring herself to believe anything evil about the girl. It is hard to understand how such a young girl could have caused such havoc.”

“Young girls have been doing that for centuries,” Malloy observed mildly.

“I suppose you’re right. But that night at the house, while we were waiting for you to get back, she was writing all the things she told me in Oldham’s notebook.”

“She was?” Malloy asked with interest. “What happened to it? You should show it to Mrs. Parmer.”

“Electra burned it,” Sarah said. “She threw it in the fire when I wasn’t looking.”

Malloy’s face twisted with frustration. “That girl is too clever for her own good.”

“But not as clever as I,” Sarah said. “I’d already torn out the pages she’d written and stuck them in my pocket. I gave them to Mrs. Parmer yesterday. I just hope they’ll convince her that Electra isn’t the innocent child she pretends to be.”

“That’s all you can do.” Malloy slapped his hands on his thighs. “Now, that’s enough of this. It’s a beautiful day. Let’s take the children and get some ice cream.”

“What a wonderful idea, Malloy.”

When they rose from the bench, Malloy offered her his arm, and Sarah took it, slipping her hand through his elbow. For one moment, their eyes met, and Sarah felt all the differences between them slipping away.

Well, for this one afternoon, at least.

M
ANY THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE WRITTEN TO ME with information about the Deaf and their unique issues. Some have shared historical information they learned from family members, and others have simply shared their personal stories or those of loved ones. All were grateful that I had included a deaf character in the Gaslight Mystery Series.

I’ve learned more about this subject through the years I’ve been writing this series, and I felt the time had come to address it. My research taught me many things I didn’t know, especially about the movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to eliminate the teaching of American Sign Language (ASL) in favor of teaching deaf children to speechread and speak. The theories I attribute to Alexander Graham Bell were actually his. He dedicated a great portion of his life and personal fortune to advance them, and he had great success in doing so, very nearly eliminating the teaching of ASL. Only the efforts of the Deaf community preserved this important method of communication, although the debate over which method should be taught still rages today.

I have been careful not to offer an opinion on which method of instruction I feel is better, because this is an issue I feel very strongly is one of the few in which both sides are equally right in their arguments. Each method of instruction is right for particular individuals, and I believe both should continue to remain available.

I have tried to be as accurate as possible in my depiction of the deaf characters in this book. If I have erred in any way, I apologize. It is my own ignorance at fault, and I’m sure my knowledgeable readers will correct me. Some of the terms I have used are not correct by modern standards but were correct in the time period in which Frank and Sarah lived. Others I purposely misused because the person speaking would not have known the correct terms.