Murder on Lexington Avenue (6 page)

“He probably is,” Sarah said, trying not to encourage any further discussion.

“I’m sure Catherine would love to see him.”

“You’re talking to the wrong person,” Sarah said. “Mr. Malloy will have to bring him here, if Catherine is to see him.”

Mrs. Ellsworth looked over with a twinkle in her eye. “Are you
sure
none of your friends has been murdered?”

Sarah rolled her eyes and resolutely looked away, out to where the girls were finishing up their gardening. Maeve was using the shears to cut the last of the summer’s flowers to form a final bouquet as Catherine watched her intently. Sarah couldn’t see the child’s face, but her little body was nearly rigid with attention. Then Maeve glanced at the girl’s face and her expression changed in an instant to alarm.

“Catherine?” Maeve asked. “What’s wrong?” Then more urgently, “Catherine!”

Sarah was already out of her chair when Catherine began to scream.

F
RANK DIDN’T REALLY HAVE A GOOD REASON TO VISIT Mr. Oldham on this lovely Sunday afternoon, but he didn’t have anything better to occupy his time either. He couldn’t question any of the people from Mr. Wooten’s office until they reported for work on Monday, and he didn’t think he should bother the Wooten family or Mr. Young again so soon. Besides, he wanted to be the one to break the news of Wooten’s death to Mr. Oldham so he could see his reaction. If he waited much longer, Oldham might hear about it from somebody else.

Frank’s mother had been able to tell him where Oldham lived. He didn’t ask her how she knew, but since the address was near the school, he figured everyone knew where the handsome young teacher lived. He found the building without any trouble, and some children playing outside directed him to the right flat. After he’d knocked on the door, he realized a deaf man wouldn’t be able to hear it, but before he could figure out an alternate method of making his presence known, the door opened.

A woman stood there. If she’d been to church that morning, she’d changed into a housedress with an apron over it. Her hair had been neatly pinned up at some time, but the natural curls had worked themselves loose during the day, forming wisps around her face, and she hadn’t bothered to pin them back up. She appeared to be in her forties but was still a fine- looking woman. Her brown eyes took him in with one wary glance.

“Are you lost?” she asked in a pleasingly soft voice.

“I’m looking for Adam Oldham. Is this his flat?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you want with him?”

“I’m Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy from the New York City Police. I need to speak to him.”

Now she was frightened. “About what?”

“I’ll have to talk to
him
about that, ma’am.”

She glanced over her shoulder, then stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door shut behind her. “I’m his mother, and he can’t talk with you at all. He’s deaf, you see, and—”

“I know he’s deaf. I still have to talk to him.”

She lifted her chin in silent defiance. “Then you’ll have to talk to me first, because I’m not going to let you in until you tell me why you need to see him.”

Frank looked at her feminine frame, as if considering whether he could force his way past her, but to her credit, she didn’t flinch.

“If you lay hands on me, I’ll scream,” she informed him.

“Your son won’t be able to hear you,” Frank reminded her.

Surprisingly,
that
made her flinch, but before she could reply, someone jerked the door open behind her. Frank looked into a face even he could see was amazingly handsome. Adam Oldham had his mother’s dark eyes and almost feminine eyelashes. Her dark curly hair was merely unruly on him, giving him a rakish air that must have been enormously appealing to young girls. He wasn’t tall and was slight of build, almost delicate, but a latent masculinity kept him from being effeminate.

His piercing gaze went from Frank to his mother, asking a silent question. Her hands moved, telling him something in the secret language of the deaf. Frank realized he should have brought his own interpreter, although finding one he could trust on a Sunday afternoon would have been nearly impossible. He’d expected to find Oldham alone and to use paper and pencil to communicate.

Oldham’s face registered surprise and something else, the kind of wariness that most people felt when the police showed up at their door. His hands moved, asking her a question.

“What’s he saying?”

“He wants to know why the police are here,” she told him angrily.

“Invite me in, and I’ll tell him,” Frank replied.

“I’m not going to invite you in,” she snapped, fury sparkling in her fine eyes.

“Tell him I’m Brian Malloy’s father,” Frank suggested.

“I’ll do no such thing!”

“Then I will.” Frank reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his notebook and pencil, but before he could even open the notebook, she was signing again, defeated.

Oldham’s face lighted with recognition, and he nodded fiercely, signing a reply to his mother.

“Your son is a student at the school?” she asked in surprise.

“That’s right, and my mother is a volunteer. Now can I come in, or do you want your neighbors knowing all about your business?” Frank added, glancing meaningfully around at the other doors on the corridor, which were all open at least a crack so the occupants could overhear—and observe—their conversation.

With a weary sigh, she signed something to Oldham, and he stepped back, allowing his mother and Frank to enter the flat’s windowless kitchen.

The place was small but neat as a pin. The light coming from the front room showed that the dishes from their Sunday meal had been washed and sat draining beside the sink. A well-scrubbed wooden table and two chairs sat against one wall. To the rear of the flat would be a tiny bedroom, Frank knew. Oldham led them into the front room. Overlooking the street, it had been furnished as a parlor, with a shabby upholstered chair and small sofa. A narrow bed along the far wall showed it doubled as a bedroom, probably for Oldham.

A light breeze stirred the cheap curtains at the window. A newspaper lay on the floor beside the chair. He’d interrupted Oldham’s Sunday afternoon relaxation. Frank wondered idly if the story of Wooten’s murder has been printed yet.

Oldham motioned for Frank to sit down in the chair, and the young man snatched up the scattered newspaper pages, folding them neatly and laying them on the floor again. He and his mother took the sofa. Before she was even sitting, he began signing to her again.

“What’s he saying?” Frank asked.

“He wants to know why you’re here. Is something wrong with your son?”

“No, he’s fine.” Frank watched as she informed Oldham. Then he said, “I came to tell him that Nehemiah Wooten is dead.”

She froze, her shock obvious. “Wooten? What happened to him?”

“Just tell him,” Frank said, sitting back against the cushion and folding his hands across his stomach in a parody of nonchalance.

Oldham had seen his mother’s surprise, and he was signing frantically, trying to get her to tell him what Frank had said.

She ignored him. Her full attention was still on Frank. “You don’t sign yourself?”

“No,” he said, resisting the urge to make an excuse. “How did
you
learn?”

“Adam taught me,” she said simply.

Adam was shaking her arm, desperate for her attention. Finally, she gave it to him, signing slowly and then doing something rapidly with just her fingers, which Frank recognized as finger spelling. Would she have to spell Wooten’s name for him? Frank thought it likely.

When she was finished, she dropped her hands into her lap, as if the effort had exhausted her, and she watched her son’s face carefully. Frank watched it, too.

He had an expressive face, but he showed no expression now. His lively eyes grew blank, and his gaze moved warily to Frank. Frank waited patiently for his reply, and when he made none, she asked, “How did he die?”

“Ask your son, Mrs. Oldham.”

“Sechrest,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Alexandra Sechrest,” she said, her anger still an undertone in her voice. “Adam’s father died when he was a baby, and I remarried.”

“Ask your son, Mrs. Sechrest.”

“How would he know?” her voice rose, almost shrill.

“Ask him,” Frank repeated mildly.

She signed to Adam, the movements swift and sharp, as if she were shouting.

Adam’s head snapped around to Frank, his eyes alive again, this time with outrage. His answer also looked as if he were shouting.

“He doesn’t know!” she said. “How could he?”

But he hadn’t been at all curious about it, Frank noted. “He was murdered.”

“Murdered?”
she echoed in astonishment.

Adam was shaking her arm again, wanting to know what Frank had said. She signed it to him almost absently. He made a strange sound in his throat that might have been shock, but she hardly noticed.

“Adam didn’t have anything to do with it,” she was saying to Frank. “He’s been with me all morning!”

“Did he go to church with you?”

That stopped her. “I was only gone an hour,” she amended. “He wouldn’t have had time to . . . He couldn’t have!”

“Mr. Wooten wasn’t killed this morning,” Frank said, ending her misery. “Where was your son yesterday, Mrs. Sechrest?”

“Here, at home with me, all day,” she insisted.

Adam was demanding an interpretation, and she started signing for him again. What he saw made him even angrier.

“He didn’t leave the house at all?”

“He went out last night, but he went to a friend’s house. One of the other teachers. He’ll tell you. He was there all evening.”

Frank pulled out his notebook again. “What’s his name?”

She signed something to Adam, who replied.

“Uriah Rossiter.”

“Is he deaf, too?”

“No, he’s not. But he teaches at the school with Adam.”

And is paid much better, Frank thought, but he said, “Do you know where he lives?”

She consulted Adam and gave him the address.

“And the rest of the day he was here with you?”

“Yes, yes, I told you he was,” she said, but Frank was pretty sure she was lying. “You can’t accuse an innocent boy of murder just because he’s deaf!”

Frank knew the police could accuse pretty much anybody they wanted of murder, but he didn’t think that information would make Mrs. Sechrest any more cooperative.

Adam was signing something to his mother. She didn’t like it.

“What’s he saying?”

“He . . .” She had to swallow down her anger. “He wants to know if Electra is all right.”

“Did you know that your son was acquainted with Electra Wooten?” Frank asked curiously.

Her lips thinned down the way Frank’s mother’s did when she disapproved strongly of something. “Yes, I know. She was a private student of his.”

“Do you know how they met?”

She signed the question for Adam, who took offense.

“He says it’s none of your business,” she said with some satisfaction.

“Everything is my business,” Frank said. “And if Adam doesn’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll take him down to Police Headquarters and lock him up until he does.”

Mrs. Sechrest blanched again, and this time she didn’t have to be prompted to start signing. Her hands flew as she frantically tried to communicate something to her son.

“What are you saying to him?” Frank asked.

The look she gave him was venomous. “I’m telling him what will happen to him if you take him down to the station house.”

Whatever she’d told him had the desired effect. Oldham was frightened now, frightened and wary.

“How does your son know Electra Wooten?” Frank asked again.

She hated asking the question. Every movement she made radiated her fury.

Adam responded, equally reluctant, and her eyes widened in surprise. Frank waited patiently, giving her time to absorb the truth and to see if she would convey it to him voluntarily.

“He says . . . he was teaching her to sign,” she said in confusion. She asked another question and was even more confused by his answer. “He says she is a student at the Lexington Avenue School. They don’t teach signing there,” she added by way of explanation for her surprise.

“I know,” Frank said, as astonished as she to learn this information. “And Mr. Wooten would never allow her to learn. Is that how they met? Because he wanted to teach her to sign?”

She asked Oldham a question, and he replied.

“He says he was asked to meet with her and teach her privately.”

“Who asked him?”

“He won’t say,” she replied after an exchange of signs. “He doesn’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

“So you knew your son was seeing Miss Wooten, but you didn’t know why?” Frank asked her.

“I knew he’d met her someplace and was tutoring her privately. He was . . . smitten,” she decided, choosing a word that didn’t convey much romanticism. “I understand she’s very beautiful,” she added with a trace of bitterness.

“She is,” Frank said, goading her. “But she’s only sixteen.”

She hadn’t known that, and she wasn’t pleased to know it now. She had to interpret for her son, and his reply was indignant.

“She’s almost seventeen, he says,” she told Frank wearily. She rubbed her forehead as if it had begun to ache. “I didn’t know he was teaching her to sign. I thought she was just a rich deaf girl he’d met and—”

“Let me get this straight. Somebody he won’t name introduced him to Miss Wooten and asked him to teach her to sign. Did her father know about this?”

She asked Oldham, who shook his head vehemently and signed something furiously in reply.

“No, he wouldn’t allow her to sign. He wanted her to be
normal
.” She said the word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.