Murder on Amsterdam Avenue Read Online Free PDF

seemed that way from the girl’s side. She’d lost her home and her family and everything she’d ever known. Then a handsome young soldier saves her.”
    â€œI know. It’s like a fairy tale from her point of view, but are you saying it’s not the same from his?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe it was. Maybe rich young men like the idea of saving a young girl in trouble.”
    â€œA damsel in distress,” Sarah said.
    â€œAnd she was certainly that. I’ve never been a rich young man, but I wouldn’t want a wife who only married me because she didn’t have any other choice.”
    â€œI can’t imagine they saw it that way. Surely they were in love.”
    â€œIf she was pretty, he probably
thought
he was. I wonder what she thought.”
    Sarah smiled again. “I do know that young men can be as silly as young girls about love.”
    â€œSo maybe they
were
in love, but you said his family wasn’t happy about it.”
    â€œHow could they be? They didn’t know anything about her, and she probably came to them with little more thanthe clothes on her back. They may have even suspected that she tricked him somehow.”
    â€œMaybe she did. She had a baby right away, after all. You’ve met her. What do you think?”
    â€œIt’s funny you should ask. I thought she was remarkably composed for a woman who had lost her only child. Of course, I was taught from birth not to let my emotions get the better of me in public. No one wants to see a woman cry.”
    â€œThat’s true enough, but do you think she was just being proper or do you think she didn’t love her son?”
    â€œI can’t imagine a mother not loving her son.”
    Malloy gave her a crooked smile. “I’m sure you can’t. You even love my son.”
    â€œHe’s very lovable. But you love my daughter, so we’re even.”
    â€œYes, we are, but no closer to knowing who might have poisoned Charles Oakes. What about his wife?”
    â€œShe’s a piece of work. All she could talk about was how angry she was that Charles wouldn’t take her to Newport this past summer and now she’s in mourning and won’t be able to go anywhere at all.”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t he take her to Newport?”
    â€œBecause he couldn’t leave his job.”
    Malloy blinked in surprise. “He had a job?”
    â€œYes, he’d been appointed as superintendent of the Manhattan State Hospital.”
    â€œThe Asylum? Oh, that’s right. I read about him in the newspapers when it happened. So that was Charles Oakes. But why would he want a job like that?”
    Sarah had to think about that for a minute. “I imagine he needed the income.”
    â€œI thought his family was rich.”
    â€œHis family is
old
, and they once were wealthy, but sometimes . . . Well, we don’t talk about it, but sometimes the family money runs out or is lost in bad investments or what have you. A lot of families were hurt in the financial panic in ninety-three. Why do you think Theodore took a position as police commissioner?”
    â€œYou mean he’d lost his fortune?”
    â€œThe Roosevelts—at least his branch of the family—have to earn their keep, yes.”
    â€œIs that what happened to the Oakes family?”
    â€œI don’t know for sure, and I would never be so rude as to ask them,” she added before he could suggest it. “But now that you mention it, I did notice that Mrs. Oakes’s mourning gown was past its prime. And maybe Charles didn’t take his wife to Newport because he couldn’t afford to.”
    â€œSo Charles decided to run the Asylum. That’s an odd choice.”
    â€œI doubt he
had
a choice. Young men like him often don’t have any skills when it comes to earning a living, so they ask their friends for help finding something. If you’re asking for a favor from