Murder on Lexington Avenue Read Online Free Page B

odd-sounding voice.
    “Annie said something happened to Father,” she was saying. “Tell me!”
    “Electra,” Mrs. Wooten said, shaking her head in some kind of warning.
    But the girl ignored it. She turned to Frank instead. “What happened to him?” she demanded.
    Frank knew that the students at the Lexington Avenue School could speech-read. He wasn’t sure how difficult it was for them to do, so he spoke slowly and distinctly, just in case. “Your father was murdered.”
    She frowned, her lovely brow wrinkling in confusion. She turned back to her mother. “Murdered?” she asked.
    “Yes,” Mrs. Wooten said with great reluctance. “Your father is dead.”
    Electra absorbed the news for a second. Frank waited, expecting an explosion of tears, but none of the emotions playing across her beautiful face was grief. The one she finally settled on looked very much like satisfaction, and then she lifted her pert little chin and said, “Good.”

2
    “E LECTRA!” HER MOTHER TRIED, BUT THE GIRL WASN’T looking at her, so she did not know she’d been reprimanded.
    “Why is it good?” Frank asked, curious.
    “Because he won’t torment me anymore,” the girl said in the instant before her mother reached her.
    Mrs. Wooten grabbed her arm and wrenched the girl around to face her. “Electra, go to your room!” she commanded when she had the girl’s attention. Then Mrs. Wooten looked over at Frank. “She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She probably didn’t even understand what you told her. She’s deaf, you see, and—”
    “I understood!” Electra cried, fury staining her porcelain cheeks crimson. “I’m deaf, not stupid!”
    Frank silently cursed Mrs. Wooten. Without her there, he could probably learn some very interesting facts about the dead man from his ungrateful child. The mother wasn’t going to let him find out anything, though.
    “I know this is a shock,” he said when the girl turned her angry gaze on him again. “I’m sorry about your father.”
    “ I’m not!” the girl informed him defiantly.
    For a second, Frank thought Mrs. Wooten would slap her, but she must have decided she didn’t want Frank to see her lose control. She settled for giving Electra’s arm another violent shake, drawing the girl’s attention back to her face.
    “Go to your room at once,” she said, her own cheeks scarlet with fury.
    Electra jerked her arm free of her mother’s grasp, and with one last rebellious glare, she turned and strode out without bothering to close the door behind her. Being deaf, she probably didn’t realize the dramatic effect of a loudly slammed door. Before Frank or Mrs. Wooten could think of what to do next, the red-eyed maid appeared in the doorway, looking terrified.
    “Show Mr. . . .” Mrs. Wooten had forgotten Frank’s name again. “Show this gentleman out, Annie.”
    “If you think of anyone who might have wished Mr. Wooten harm,” Frank said, offering her his card, “let me know.”
    Mrs. Wooten ignored the card, and she ignored him, gazing at something only she could see as he followed the maid out. On a table by the front door sat a silver salver, and Frank tossed his card onto it, along with all the other cards from the society people who came to visit the Wootens.
    “Is it true?” the maid whispered as she handed Frank his hat. “Is Mr. Wooten dead?”
    “Yes, he is,” Frank assured her. “Somebody bashed his skull in.”
    The blood drained from the girl’s face, and for an awful moment Frank thought she might faint. This was the reaction he’d expected from Electra Wooten. She crossed herself quickly, but she didn’t faint, thank God.
    “Did you like working for Mr. Wooten?” he asked kindly.
    “I’m sure I couldn’t say,” the girl said tentatively.
    Which meant she didn’t, of course. “His daughter didn’t like him much,” he observed.
    “Miss Electra has a hard life,” the girl said. “She’s deaf, you know.”
    “My son is deaf, too,”