Murder on Amsterdam Avenue Read Online Free PDF Page A

examine the dead man?”
    â€œHe’s been embalmed.”
    Wesley shrugged. “I still might be able to tell something. If they didn’t discard his organs, I’d like to have a look at them, too.”
    â€œI’ll write down the name of the undertaker for you.”
    â€œAnd you’d better have someone from the family tell them it’s all right for me to see him. Undertakers can be a possessive lot.”
    â€œI’ll do that.” Frank pulled a small notebook and a pencil from his coat pocket and scribbled down the information, then tore out the page and handed it to Wesley.
    Wesley eyed the sack. “How long has the cat been dead?”
    â€œA couple days. They’d buried it in the yard.”
    â€œGood thing or we might never be able to prove the poisoning.”
    Frank gave him one of the calling cards Sarah had ordered for him. At the time, he hadn’t been able to imagine using them, but now . . . “How long until you’ll know something?”
    â€œTomorrow evening.”
    â€œI’ll come back then. If you need me before, that’s where you’ll find me.”
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    â€œY ou’re getting an autopsy on a cat?” Sarah asked when Malloy had finished telling her about his afternoon.
    They were sitting at her kitchen table as they had been doing every weekday evening since the Malloys had moved into the house down the street where they would all live together when Sarah and Malloy married. Malloy would havedinner with his family, and Sarah with hers. After his mother put Brian to bed and Sarah’s daughter, Catherine, was asleep, he’d walk down to visit with her for a few hours. It was a strange courtship, but Sarah cherished their time alone.
    â€œYou should have seen the coroner’s face when I told him.”
    â€œI’m sure Dr. Haynes was thrilled.”
    â€œHe would have been, but he couldn’t do it. Too busy. He sent me to a fellow named Titus Wesley.”
    â€œHe’s a coroner?” she asked with a frown.
    â€œDoc Haynes says he’s a real doctor, and he knows what he’s doing.”
    â€œToo bad he can’t look at Charles’s body.”
    â€œHe’s going to try. He said he still might find something.”
    â€œI hope he finds nothing,” Sarah said. “I just hate the idea that poor Charles was poisoned. Who would do such a horrible thing?”
    â€œA woman.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPoison is a woman’s weapon.”
    Sarah glared at him. “That’s unfair.”
    â€œMaybe, but it’s also true. Women aren’t usually strong enough to kill with their hands, like men can, or with a weapon like a knife or a club, and women hardly ever know how to shoot a gun. They also don’t usually kill in the heat of passion unless it’s self-defense or they’re defending a child or someone weaker.”
    â€œSo you’re saying women take their time and plan murders.”
    â€œAs a general rule. They also don’t like to make a mess.”
    Sarah had to smile at that. “Of course not! They’re the ones who’d have to clean it up.”
    â€œPoison is a great equalizer. A tiny woman can bring down a man twice her size with very little effort at all.”
    â€œI’d never thought of it that way before, but I suppose you’re right. So who do you think killed Charles? Assuming he really was poisoned, of course.”
    â€œI won’t know that until I know more about who lives in the house. What can you tell me about the family?”
    â€œOh, it’s a wonderful story of how his parents met.” She told him what her mother had said about the two and their wartime romance.
    Malloy leaned back in his chair when she’d finished, frowning. “I guess you think it was all very romantic.”
    â€œAnd you don’t?”
    â€œI can see it might have