Murder on Lexington Avenue (29 page)

“Maybe somebody did.”

“Who? It could only have been Leander, Electra, Oldham, or Rossiter. He doesn’t even know Oldham or Rossiter. Electra wasn’t going to tell, and why would Leander?”

“I see. But he did know about it.”

“He knew about it when I questioned him on Monday. Anybody could’ve told him about it by then, even Mrs. Wooten. They were together when I got here, remember.”

“I remember! But why go to such pains to make up a phony reason for the meeting?” Sarah asked.

“Because he needed a logical reason to explain why he didn’t go to Wooten’s office that afternoon, even though he’d made an appointment.”

“So what do you think the real reason for the meeting was?”

“Oh, I haven’t had a chance to tell you what Colyer found out. We’d better sit down.” He moved the ledger from where he’d left it and set it on the floor.

“I hope you gave Mr. Colyer my regards.”

“He sends his in return, and so does your father,” he added wryly.

“My father? Did you see him, too?”

“Oh, yes. What Colyer found was so interesting, he felt he had to show it to your father. It seems somebody was embezzling from the company.”

“See? I told you it would involve trouble with the business. Who was it?” she asked eagerly.

“Probably one of the Youngs,” he said. “Terry wasn’t surprised when I mentioned it just now, so he knew. So either he’s protecting himself or his father or both of them.”

She considered this information. “So you think Terry went to this meeting with Mr. Wooten, they argued about the embezzlement, and Terry killed him.”

“That’s one theory, but Terry claims he never saw Wooten. He says when he got there, somebody else was already in the office with Wooten.”

“Who?”

“He says he doesn’t know, but if he’s telling the truth, and he didn’t do it himself, it was probably the killer.”

“And he didn’t hear a voice or see anyone?”

“He says not, but he’s lying about something. I know he was lying about the embezzlement and about not keeping the appointment. He also might be lying about not knowing who was with Wooten.”

“Especially if it was his own father.”

“Or he could be lying and nobody else was there at all because he’s the killer. Or he could be telling the truth about everything except the reason for the meeting, and he really doesn’t know who was with Wooten. Because there’s a good chance it was Leander, and Terry would have no reason to protect
him,
so he’d tell us if he knew it was him.”

“How do you intend to sort it out?” she asked in amazement.

Frank sighed. “First I have to find out if Leander came to see his father that day. That’s the main reason I’m here, to get the names of his friends at school.”

“I guess that means you have to go there to question them.”

“I was going to send somebody else, but you’re right, I think I’d better go myself.”

The door opened, and Electra burst into the room, bringing both of them to their feet. “You promised you’d tell me when he came!” she said to Sarah. Her cheeks were flushed with anger.

“I was going to. I needed to speak with him, too.”

She wasn’t interested in Sarah’s excuses. She turned to Frank. “What happened to my brother?”

Frank looked to Sarah for guidance.

“Mrs. Parmer doesn’t want her to be upset,” she said.

“Aunt Betty won’t tell me what happened to him!” Electra said. “She said he had an accident and hit his head. Where was he?”

“He was in the Bowery,” Frank said, feeling his way. He wasn’t sure what part of the story Mrs. Parmer thought would upset her, and he wasn’t getting any guidance from Sarah either. She just stood there looking as puzzled as he felt.

“Where is that?” Electra asked.

“A dangerous part of the city,” he said. “Someone hit him on the head and robbed him.”

Electra closed her eyes and released her breath in an enormous sigh. Then her whole body seemed to go limp, and both Frank and Sarah reached to catch her before she could fall. They managed to get her down into one of the chairs.

Sarah began chaffing her wrists. “Electra, are you all right?” she was asking, forgetting the girl couldn’t hear her. Her eyes were still closed.

After another moment, she opened them. “Thank you,” she said to Frank. “I was so frightened.”

“Why were you frightened?” Sarah asked when she’d gotten the girl’s attention.

She seemed surprised at the question. “I . . . I was afraid because they wouldn’t tell me the truth. But now I know.” Tears flooded her eyes, and she began to weep. “Poor brother!”

Frank shook his head. Girls never made any sense to him. He stood back and let Sarah comfort her. The weeping only lasted a few minutes before she was able to get control of herself again. She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief she had pulled from her pocket. When he judged her calm enough, he asked her one final question, the one no one had been able to answer so far.

“Do you know why Leander went out that night?”

She just stared at him in that way she had, then rose from her chair, turned, and walked out of the room. He looked at Sarah for an explanation.

“I think she does that when she doesn’t understand what someone has said to her.”

Or, Frank thought, when she didn’t want to answer a question.

“You need the names of Leander’s friends at school,” Sarah said. “I’ll ask if Mrs. Parmer can see you.” She started out of the room, then paused. “Oh, I almost forgot, do you know what this sign means?”

She made a sign with her hand, holding up some fingers and her thumb, and Frank grinned. “Has some deaf man been courting you, Mrs. Brandt?”

She quickly closed her hand back into a fist. “Of course not! What does it mean?”

“It means
I love you
.”

He was still grinning, and she grinned back. “I saw Oldham make it to Electra.”

“Well, just be careful who
you
make it to.”

“I will,” she promised.

 

 

F
RANK FIGURED HE HAD ENOUGH TIME TO TRAVEL TO New Jersey and back and still be able to find possible witnesses in the Bowery that night. The Bowery would just be getting started after nine that night, and if he didn’t get there until midnight, so much the better.

He was lucky and didn’t have to wait too long for a train. The neat little town of Princeton wasn’t really far from New York City, but it might as well have been on another planet. The rolling fields stretched away in every direction, greening back up now after the summer heat. The stone buildings of the newly renamed college sat placidly in Gothic splendor, their tall windows seeming to point toward heaven. Frank had to ask several young men for directions to the residential college where Leander Wooten had lived. His classmates were just returning from their dinner and were shocked to find a policeman waiting for them.

Victor Patton was the one Frank wanted to speak with first. He’d been Leander’s roommate. He looked very much like the friends Frank had questioned in the city, with his expensive clothes and his phony sophistication. Except these young men already knew Leander was dead, and they were feeling shock, if not genuine grief.

“Is Wooten really dead?” the young man wanted to know before Frank could ask a single question himself. “We couldn’t believe it when they told us.” They were sitting in the room Patton had shared with Leander, a messy place that smelled like dirty socks. Frank had been given one of the two desk chairs to sit on, after Patton had removed a pile of dirty clothes. Patton had chosen a bed.

“He’s dead,” Frank confirmed bluntly, figuring that shocking these rich boys was the quickest way to get their attention “He was down in the Bowery, where he had no place being, and somebody hit him over the head and robbed him.”

“Good God,” Patton said. “Poor Woo Woo. That’s what we called him. Woo Woo. We all have nicknames.”

Frank decided not to comment on this. Or to ask Patton what his nickname was. “I’m trying to trace Wooten’s movements from the day his father died. I understand Mr. Nehemiah Wooten sent his son a telegram on Friday night.”

“Oh, yes, there was quite a folderol about that, I’m afraid. Woo Woo was in a state. The old man was angry about something. It was the sister, you know. What’s her name? I never can remember.”

“Electra,” Frank supplied.

“Oh, yes, a fool for the Greeks. The old man, that is. Gave his children the silliest names, but what can you do?”

Frank didn’t point out that Woo Woo was pretty silly, too. “So the telegram was about Electra?”

“I don’t think so. At least, it didn’t say anything in particular. The old man wasn’t going to put his daughter’s name in a telegram that anybody could see, was he?”

Frank didn’t suppose he was.

“He wanted Leander to come home right away. That’s about all it said, but it didn’t need to say much else. We all know what it means when the old man sends for us, don’t we? It’s never good news. The old man never sends a telegram to say, ‘Come on home, son, I want to raise your allowance,’ or something like that. Oh, no. It’s always when you’ve been caught out and he’s calling you on the carpet.”

Frank’s father had never sent him a telegram to tell him anything, so he couldn’t judge. “So Leander thought his father was calling him on the carpet?”

“He was sure of it. Something about his sister. She was going to be in trouble with the old man, too, or at least that’s what Woo Woo thought. They were in it together anyway. I’m sure of that. He was more worried about her than himself. She’s deaf. Did you know?” Frank nodded. “And he was scared. I don’t know what he thought the old man was going to do, but he was scared.”

He had every reason to be, Frank thought. “So when did he leave for the city?”

“On Sunday morning, after he got the message that the old man was dead.”

“What?” Frank asked, confused.

“On Sunday morning, after—”

“But his father wanted him to come on Saturday,” Frank said. “Isn’t that what his telegram said?”

“It is, but that’s what all the folderol was about. You see, we were out on Friday night. We were out quite late, which isn’t unusual, and when we got back, we were . . . well, quite drunk. Neither one of us noticed the telegram. Somebody had slipped it under the door, you see, and one of us stepped on it or something. We didn’t even turn on the lights when we came in. Fell into bed with our clothes on. Slept until afternoon the next day.”

“So Leander didn’t even get the telegram until Saturday afternoon,” Frank said.

“No,” Patton confirmed. “I found it sticking out from under my bed when I finally woke up. Woo Woo was in a state. He knew the old man was already pretty angry, but he’d be livid when Woo Woo didn’t show up. Not seeing the telegram because you were too drunk isn’t a good excuse either, let me tell you.”

Frank didn’t suppose it was. His mind was racing. “Are you sure Leander didn’t go to New York on Saturday?”

“Oh, no,” Patton said. “We were both passed out here until after lunch. They sent somebody up to check on us when we didn’t appear. I told Woo Woo he should just clean himself up and catch the next train. That was all he could do, wasn’t it? He did go to the dean’s house and ask to use the telephone. He tried to phone the old man, but he didn’t get an answer, so he decided not to go. Really, I think he was just too hung over to make the trip.”

“Did he phone his father’s house?” Frank asked.

“I don’t think so. Somebody would’ve answered there, wouldn’t they? A servant at least. It must have been the office. He wanted Woo Woo to meet him at the office, I think. Wait, the telegram might still be here on his desk.”

Patton jumped up and rummaged around for a moment and came up with the telltale yellow sheet of a telegram from among the stacks of books and papers Leander Wooten had left behind. “Here it is.”

It said simply, “TAKE TRAIN HOME SATURDAY STOP MEET MY OFFICE STOP FATHER.” Exactly the allowable ten words. Nothing really ominous unless you knew you’d violated your father’s most sacred desires and arranged for your deaf sister to learn to sign. And Leander had missed his appointment. He hadn’t even gone to the city that day.

He hadn’t killed his father. So who had? And who’d killed Leander?

 

 

F
RANK TOOK TWO UNIFORMED OFFICERS WITH HIM TO the Bowery that night. He didn’t want to end up like Leander Wooten, dead in an alley with his pockets turned out. Leander’s death still might have nothing to do with his father’s, still might be an unfortunate coincidence, but Frank didn’t believe things happened by accident. When two bad things happened together, they were usually connected in some way.

The Grey Goose was a lively place by the time Frank arrived near ten o’clock. He wanted nothing more than to head home to his own bed, but he had to find out if anybody remembered seeing Leander Wooten on Tuesday night. If he waited much longer, he’d have no chance at all. To those who frequented places like the Grey Goose, one day was pretty much like another.

He started with the bartenders, who wouldn’t even look at the photograph until he’d paid for an expensive drink he didn’t receive. One of them remembered Leander, mainly because he’d bought only one beer. Young men like that came to the Bowery to get drunk, and they usually came in groups and had lots of money to spend. The bartender had been happy to see a rich young blade stepping up to the bar until he’d looked around and realized he was alone.

“He only had one drink?”

“He only had one here,” the bartender clarified.

“Did you see him talking to anybody?”

The bartender gave him a withering look. “It’s not my job to keep track of who talks to who. I got work to do.”

Frank gave it one last shot. “Did you see him leave?”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t see him do anything but pay for his drink and walk away. Stupid fool, and then he gets himself killed almost on the doorstep. Now I ask you, what swell in his right mind will ever come down here again?”