Read Murder on Lexington Avenue for Free Online

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.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “What does what mean?” she asked, still annoyed. She was always annoyed by Frank.
    “That he’s a fine young man. Does it mean he doesn’t smoke or drink or does it mean he’s a good teacher or does it just mean he’s handsome?”
    “I don’t know where you get these ideas!” she exclaimed, snatching up the empty plate in front of him and carrying it over to the sink to wash.
    Frank bit back a smile. “I guess that means he’s handsome.”
    She gave him a glare over her shoulder, and Frank noticed Brian was watching the conversation with great interest. He could only imagine the boy’s interpretation of what was going on. “He’s a nice- looking young man, if that’s what you mean,” she conceded, “but he’s also very responsible, and he doesn’t smoke or drink, at least that I know of.”
    “He’s a good teacher, then?”
    “I suppose so. They wouldn’t keep him if he wasn’t. He’s deaf, you know.”
    “I did know,” Frank said, recalling that was the reason he was an unsuitable husband for Electra Wooten.
    “If you know so much, why are you asking me about him?”
    Frank bit back his own irritation. “Did you know he wanted to marry a deaf girl?”
    This surprised her, he was gratified to see. She frowned as she dried the dish he’d used and put it into the cabinet. “I never heard nothing about it,” she decided. “All the female students . . . Well, like I said, he’s handsome, and girls can be silly. Even some of the teachers . . . But the female teachers aren’t deaf, at least not most of them.”
    “This girl isn’t a student there. She goes to the Lexington Avenue School.”
    Now she was