Murder on Amsterdam Avenue Read Online Free PDF Page B

your friends, you have to take what’s available.”
    â€œOh, like when Tammany Hall gets jobs for the people who do them favors.”
    â€œExactly, except I’m sure Charles went to his Republican friends instead of Boss Croker.”
    â€œAnd now the family has lost its wage earner. That’s a pity.”
    â€œAnd it also means his family didn’t have much reason to want him dead.”
    â€œUnless his wife was a lot madder about not going to Newport than he expected.”
    â€œOrdinarily, I’d take you to task for saying something like that about a poor widow, but in this case . . .”
    He perked up at that. “Do you think she really might’ve killed him?”
    â€œYou always tell me not to decide someone is innocent just because I like them, so I’m not going to decide she’s a killer just because I
don’t
like her.”
    â€œAh, but you’re not saying she couldn’t possibly have done it either.”
    â€œNo, I’m not, but good heavens, they’ve only been married a year. She’s hardly had time to grow to hate him that much.”
    â€œHow long do you think it takes?” he asked with interest.
    â€œI have no idea.”
    That made him grin. “So who else lives in the house who might’ve learned to hate poor Charles?”
    â€œBesides the servants and his parents, I don’t know.”
    â€œAre Gerald’s parents still alive?”
    Sarah tried to remember. “I haven’t really kept track of my parents’ friends, but I think his mother is.”
    â€œYou didn’t see her when you were there?”
    â€œNo, she probably isn’t receiving visitors. I was surprised Jenny Oakes was, in fact. Most of the time when there’s a death, the family just lets people drop off their cards and doesn’t see anyone at all except at the funeral. I suppose we should attend, shouldn’t we?”
    â€œI suppose we should. It’s day after tomorrow, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes. You’ll have an opportunity to see the family for yourself.”
    â€œI can hardly wait. Now come over here and sit on my lap for a while before I have to go home.”
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    F rank was starting to wish he’d made arrangements to visit Charles Oakes’s body along with the coroner Wesley. The day had been a series of construction disastersas the workmen installed a second bathroom upstairs in the suite of rooms Sarah and Frank had claimed for their own. He was just about to lose his temper completely and order all of them out of the house when someone knocked on the front door, reminding him again about the broken doorbell.
    Ready to shout at some nosy reporter or some bum looking for a handout, he found a soldier on his doorstep instead. He needed a moment to recognize him.
    â€œGino! I didn’t know you were back from Cuba,” he said, absurdly happy to see the young man.
    Gino grinned. “We’ve been back for a few weeks. They kept us out on Long Island for a while before we got discharged.” He’d resigned from the police department several months ago to fight with Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in the war with Spain. Mercifully, the combat had only lasted a few weeks before the Spanish had been soundly beaten, at least according to the newspapers.
    â€œCome in. Don’t mind the mess. We’ve got workmen fixing the place up. How’d you find me?”
    â€œThey told me at Police Headquarters. Everybody knows where you live now.”
    Frank led him into his mother’s parlor. “Are you back on the force again, then?”
    â€œNo, I . . . Not yet.”
    Frank motioned for him to sit down on the sofa. “I hardly knew you in your uniform, and you’re awfully brown.”
    â€œI got sunburned. All the Rough Riders did. Cuba is . . . Well, it’s not like anything I’ve