Murder on Lexington Avenue (4 page)

“Miss Electra has a hard life,” the girl said. “She’s deaf, you know.”

“My son is deaf, too,” Frank said, hating to use Brian this way, but knowing he needed to reach someone in this house if he had any hope of getting information.

Her eyes widened in outrage. “I don’t believe it!”

“It’s true. He was born that way. He’s only four, but he goes to the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb.”

“That’s Mr. Oldham’s school!” the girl said in surprise, then quickly covered her mouth.

“Mr. Oldham?” Frank echoed. “Is he a student there, too?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t say,” the girl said, frightened again.

She knew she’d revealed too much, although Frank had no idea what she had revealed.

She might not be able to say, but Frank knew who he could ask about it. Meanwhile, he would work on the maid. “My son is learning sign language,” Frank said. “Does Miss Electra know how to sign?”

Now she really was terrified. “Oh, no, sir, not at all. Mr. Wooten, he would never allow it, not for anything! Miss Electra, she can tell what you’re saying by looking at your lips. I don’t know how she does it, but she does. She went to school to learn it. Not Mr. Oldham’s school, another school. And she can talk as good as anybody, too.”

Electra did speak extremely clearly, Frank had to admit. “Yes, she can. It’s amazing. She’s real mad at her father, though. Did he mistreat her?”

The girl’s eyes grew wide again, and this time he knew he’d gone too far. “You better leave now,” she said, scurrying around him to open the front door. “Mrs. Wooten, she’ll be mad if you don’t.”

Frank nodded as he passed her on the way out. “Thank you, Annie. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Oh, no, sir, I never!” she cried in dismay and slammed the door behind him.

Frank took a moment to place his derby hat firmly on his head before making his way down the Wootens’ front steps. He wondered if he had enough time to visit Wooten’s partner before the man went out for the evening. He wanted to get to him before he heard about Wooten’s death from someone else, so he’d better try. And then he’d go home, where he could find out everything he might want to know about the mysterious Mr. Oldham.

 

 

F
RANK DOUBLE-CHECKED THE ADDRESS THAT SULLIVAN had scribbled down for him. Terrance Young lived in a respectable town house only a few blocks from the Wootens. The girl who answered his knock was more experienced than the Wootens’ Annie. She glared at him.

“Tradesmen use the kitchen door,” she said and would have slammed the door in his face if he hadn’t braced his hand against it.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy with the New York City Police,” he informed her, shoving his card at her through the opening. “I need to see Mr. Young about his partner.”

“I don’t know if Mr. Young is home,” the girl hedged, eyeing his card as if it were a poisonous snake. When rich people didn’t want to see someone, they just had their servants say they weren’t home. Frank wasn’t going to let the girl turn him away.

“Let him decide,” Frank suggested. “Tell him what I said. He’ll want to hear this news tonight.”

She finally accepted the card, but she said, “You’ll have to wait here,” and forced the door shut in his face.

Frank waited, fuming, on the stoop until the door opened again. This time she stood back and let him enter. Her expression told him how much she hated escorting someone like him into her master’s house, but she led him up the stairs and into a stuffy room that had been decorated to within an inch of its life with figurines and bric- a-brac and antimacassars on overstuffed furniture and doilies on every flat surface and heavy velvet draperies that kept the sun from fading everything. A large portrait of a young woman hung over the fireplace. The artist’s skill had not been able to disguise the fact that she wasn’t very attractive, and she certainly wasn’t very happy.

A burly man, Terrance Young looked as if he’d been stuffed into his well-made clothing. A roll of fat bulged over his stiff collar, and his round face had flushed red with annoyance. “What’s this about Wooten?” he demanded as soon as the maid had closed the door behind him. “And don’t try asking me to donate to the police benevolent society. I know how you scalawags operate.”

Frank could have taken offense, but then he’d never find out anything from Terrance Young. “Is Nehemiah Wooten your business partner?”

“Of course he is,” Young snapped. “You already know that or you wouldn’t be here. Just tell me what you came here for and get out. I have an engagement this evening, and I don’t want to be late.”

“Mr. Wooten is dead.”

Mr. Young looked confused. “Dead? What are you talking about?”

“Mr. Wooten is dead. He’s been murdered.”

“Murdered! That’s impossible!” He glared at Frank the way his maid had, angry at him for being so unpleasant.

“I’m afraid it’s very possible. He was attacked in his office this afternoon and killed. A Mr. Higginbotham found his body when he arrived for an appointment.”

Young frowned, trying to take it all in. “Higginbotham? He’s from that deaf school, isn’t he? The one Electra goes to.”

“That’s right.”

“Murdered, you say? That . . . That’s unbelievable.” He passed a hand over his face and reached a finger into his collar, as if trying to loosen it. “How did it happen? Who did it?”

He was asking the right questions. “We don’t know yet. It looks like he got into an argument with someone who attacked him.”

“Nehemiah?” Young scoffed. “He never got into arguments. He told you what he wanted, and you either liked it or you got out of his way. Smarter than everybody else, or so he thought. Always right about everything.” Young sounded almost bitter. He walked over to a sideboard where a crystal decanter sat, surrounded by matching glasses. He pulled the stopper out of the decanter and poured himself a generous measure of whiskey. Then he lifted the glass to his lips and downed it in one gulp.

Frank waited patiently, knowing his silence would probably produce more information than a rush of questions.

Young stood still, staring at the wall above the sideboard for a long moment before suddenly remembering he wasn’t alone. He turned back to Frank. “Is that what you came to tell me? That Nehemiah is dead?”

“I also need to ask you some questions,” Frank said, reaching into his pocket for his notebook.

“Questions? I don’t know anything about this. I never even go into the office on Saturday anymore. I haven’t seen Wooten since . . .” He had to think, and whatever he was thinking made him scowl. “Since Thursday afternoon.”

“Maybe you know someone who might have disliked Mr. Wooten,” Frank tried.

Young gave a bark of bitter laughter. “Someone who disliked him? I don’t know anybody who
didn’t
dislike him! I told you, he was always right. People tend to take offense at that after a while.”

“Someone in particular, then?” Frank suggested. “Maybe something that happened recently? A dissatisfied business associate, maybe?”

“People in business are always dissatisfied, but they don’t go around killing each other over it,” he said, angry now, although Frank couldn’t figure out why. “If somebody killed him, it was probably a robbery or something.”

“Nothing was stolen,” Frank said.

Young liked to be right, too. His flush deepened at Frank’s challenge. “A lunatic, then. Some crazy man who broke into the office.”

Frank pretended to write that down. “But how would a lunatic know Mr. Wooten was alone in his office on a Saturday afternoon?”

“How should I know?” Young cried in exasperation. “That’s your job to find out.”

“I wonder if Mr. Wooten was having some family troubles,” Frank mused, pretending to study something written in his notebook, and when he looked up, he was surprised by a look of alarm on Young’s now-perspiring face.

“What do you mean?” he asked uneasily.

“Lots of people have family troubles,” Frank pointed out. “Do you have children, Mr. Young?”

Oddly, he blanched at the question. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” Frank allowed. “I was just thinking that if you have children of your own, then you know how it is when they grow up. They don’t want to obey you anymore. Mr. Wooten has children, and he wasn’t a very tolerant man.”

“Nonsense! Are you suggesting Electra killed her father?” he demanded.

Apparently, Electra’s opinion of her father was well known. “Did she want to?” Frank countered.

The color flooded back to Young’s face. “I’ve had enough of this,” he said. “Get out of my house.”

Frank sighed. He’d have to stop questioning Young now. “I’ll need to come to your office on Monday and question everybody who was there this morning.”

“Is that really necessary?” he asked with distaste.

“Maybe one of them saw something that will help. A suspicious stranger, maybe,” Frank added, knowing that idea would appeal to Young.

“I suppose there’s no help for it,” he said. “But don’t try any of your third degree on my employees.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” Frank said, holding his temper with difficulty. “I’ll leave my card in case you need to contact me.”

“I won’t,” Young assured him. “I told you, I don’t have any idea who might have killed Wooten.”

“Someone else might,” Frank said. “And they might confide in you. I know you’ll want to do everything you can to find out who killed your partner.”

Young didn’t even pretend to agree.

Frank closed his notebook and slipped it back into his coat pocket. “Oh, by the way, what happens to Mr. Wooten’s share of your business?”

He’d surprised Young again. “I can’t imagine that’s any of your concern,” he tried.

“It is if it gave somebody a reason to kill him. Does it go to you?”

“Absolutely not! It goes to his son, Leander.”

Frank wondered if Leander shared his sister’s opinion of their father. He’d make it a point to find out.

 

 

F
RANK HEARD THE CLATTER OF RUNNING FEET ON THE stairs the moment he entered the familiar tenement building. His son, Brian, was running to meet him. He paused, savoring first the sound of his son running, something he wondered if he’d ever get used to, and then the sight of him. His small face was alight with happiness as he jumped the last three steps, straight into Frank’s arms.

He hugged the boy fiercely, inhaling his scent and absorbing the feel of his sturdy body. He was growing so fast. For years Frank had thought of him as a baby because he’d been forced to crawl, unable to walk on his clubfoot. But now he could walk and even run, thanks to Sarah Brandt’s interference in his life. She’d sent Brian to the best surgeon in the city, who had repaired the damaged foot. She’d even been the one who recognized that the boy was deaf and not simpleminded, as Frank had always thought.

No, there was nothing simple about Brian’s mind at all, Frank thought as the boy pushed away and began frantically signing something to him. He recognized the sign for “grandmother,” but not much else. He set Brian on the steps and took one of his hands to indicate they should go upstairs together. Brian frowned. He knew Frank couldn’t understand his new language, and he didn’t like it one bit, but scrambled up the stairs beside his father, knowing their interpreter waited upstairs in their flat.

“It’s about time you got here,” his mother’s voice called as they stepped into the immaculate front room. Mrs. Malloy came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She was a small, plump Irishwoman whom life had aged far beyond her years. “The boy’s been asking for you every five minutes.”

“I know, but I just couldn’t tear myself away from all those hoochie-coochie dancers down at the theater,” Frank said as seriously as he could manage.

His mother’s eyes grew wide with shock for a few seconds before she realized he was teasing her. She did not like being teased. “What a thing to say! In front of the boy, too!” she huffed, outraged.

“He can’t hear me,” Frank reminded her, unrepentant. “Do you have anything for me to eat?”

“Of course I do,” she snapped, and then noticed Brian frantically signing. “He wants you to help him put a puzzle together. I’ll call you when the food’s ready.”

Frank shrugged out of his suit coat and slipped off his shoes before allowing the boy to drag him over to where he had partially assembled a wooden puzzle. They had it completed by the time his mother informed him she’d made him a sandwich.

Brian tried to protest Frank’s leaving, but he hoisted the boy onto his shoulder and carried him into the kitchen with him. Mrs. Malloy gave the boy a cookie, and he was content to sit and watch his father eat his makeshift supper.

Frank waited until he was finished eating before asking the question that had been on his mind for several hours now. “Do you know a teacher named Oldham at Brian’s school?”

Because Brian was only four, Mrs. Malloy accompanied him on the long trip to school each day. She’d been determined to make sure they treated the boy well, so she’d stayed to watch for the first few days, until she’d been recruited as a volunteer. Now she helped out every day, and she had learned to use signs almost as well as Brian had.

“Mr. Oldham? Why are you asking about him of all people?”

“Because I am,” Frank said. He could be as contrary as she. “I met a family with a deaf child today, and his name came up. I’m wondering what you know about him.”

“He’s not in trouble, is he?” she asked in alarm. “Did something happen to him?”

Frank looked at her in surprise. She’d never shown that much concern about
him
! Not to his face, at least. “No, nothing happened to him. I told you, his name came up. So you do know him, I take it.”

“Of course I know him,” she snapped, annoyed about something he could only guess at. “He teaches the older students. A fine young man.”