Murder on Astor Place Read Online Free PDF Page A

the jacket and found the embroidery. “This her name?”
    Sarah nodded.
    “You know her? Is that why... ? But you said you didn’t know her,” he recalled.
    “I said I thought she looked like an old friend. The old friend is Mina VanDamm. Alicia is her baby sister. Or was.”
    “Unless the girl stole the jacket.”
    Sarah only wished that were true. She shook her head. “No, I’m sure it was she. I haven’t seen her since she was a child, but she looks... looked,” she corrected herself, “too much like Mina for there to be any mistake.”
    “What would she have been doing here all by herself, then?” he asked, staring at the jacket as if it would give him the answer. “Did the father die? The family break up? Lose all their money?”
    “Not that I know of.” Indeed, she was certain Cornelius VanDamm was very much alive and well and still a millionaire. Suddenly, Sarah had to get out of that room. She rose to her feet. Where was her hat?
    She saw where it had rolled over beside the bed. She went for it in the same instant Detective Sergeant Malloy guessed her purpose and went for it as well. He beat her there, and in his haste, brushed against the shawl that lay at the foot of the bed. It slid to the floor and something metal tumbled from its folds, clanging to the uncarpeted floor between them.
    “What’s this?” he asked of no one in particular. Since he still held the jacket in one hand and had picked up her hat with the other, he shoved the hat at her and bent to pick up the long, slender object. When he rose, he held it up to examine it.
    Sarah couldn’t contain her surprise.
    “Do you know what it is?” he asked.
    Sarah was very much afraid she did. “It’s a curette.”
    “A what?”
    “A medical instrument.” She had a set of them, although she had no use for them now. They had belonged to Tom.
    “Why would the girl have had it?”
    “I don’t think she did.” Everything was making sense now, or at least a little bit of sense. Sarah remembered her impressions of the girl in those brief moments when their paths had crossed yesterday, and the realization she’d had this morning on her way over here. “I think someone must have brought it here.”
    “Why?” His eyes were dark, almost black, and he suddenly seemed very large and dangerous again. She didn’t want him to know this about Alicia, but she had no other choice. He would find out soon enough anyway.
    “Because ... It’s an instrument that... Well, it can be used for other things, but it’s what an abortionist uses.”
    He didn’t say a word, but his very silence was a force, compelling her to continue.
    “I thought when I saw her yesterday... it was just an impression, but sometimes you can tell just by looking at a woman. Something in the eyes ... And that would explain why she was here, why she’d left her family. I think ... I think you’ll find that Alicia was with child.”

2
    F RANK COULDN’T BELIEVE THIS. HE’D LOOKED AT the girl’s body long and hard, and he hadn’t seen anything to indicate she was in a family way. If she was, this Sarah Brandt must be a witch to have divined it. Still, if this really was a tool used by an abortionist...
    “You seem pretty sure of yourself. Maybe you do a little of that on the side yourself,” he tried. Performing abortions was illegal, although the authorities hardly ever prosecuted anyone for carrying out what many believed was a service to humanity. And maybe it was, if it was a service to prevent children who would grow up poor and hungry from ever being born.
    But if Frank had hoped to rattle Sarah Brandt, he failed. She simply stared right back at him, her blue-gray eyes as cold and still as glass. “I’m not trained to perform abortions.”
    “Then how do you know what this is?” he challenged, holding the instrument up to her face.
    She didn’t flinch. “My husband was a physician. I... sometimes assisted him in certain procedures. When a pregnancy goes wrong