Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue Read Online Free Page A

Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue
Book: Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue Read Online Free
Author: Victoria Thompson
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exploring this room.
    A walnut desk sat against one wall. Pollock was either very neat or he didn’t really do any work at this desk. The top was bare except for an inkwell and a few knickknacks,and it had been polished to a shine. She checked the drawers but found nothing of interest there either. If Pollock kept money in the house, he probably had a more secure location than an unlocked desk. Two ugly landscape paintings hung on the walls, but neither concealed a wall safe. Pollock had no bookshelves to conceal hidden passages the way they did in novels, and the only other furnishings in the room were two comfortable-looking leather armchairs and the table between them.
    Maeve sat down in one of the chairs and looked around the room again, wondering what she’d missed. That’s when she noticed the table between the two chairs was rather oddly sized. The cube-shaped object seemed a bit too short for the job and, beneath a collection of singularly ugly knickknacks, was completely covered with what looked like a large silk scarf. The only reason you hid something with a scarf was because you didn’t want anyone to see how old and battered it was, but everything else in this house was bright and shiny and new.
    Maeve lifted the scarf and found a squat and ugly but very sturdy-looking safe.
    Maeve sighed. Gino had been right about Pollock having a safe. He’d been concerned she wouldn’t be able to open it, of course, and that was a legitimate concern. He probably couldn’t imagine someone like herself being able to crack a safe either. That would, of course, be a valuable skill to have, especially at this particular moment. Her grandfather had taught her many things, but not that, unfortunately. He had, however, taught her another skill that might serve her even better. This time when she searched Pollock’s desk, she checked his nearly blank appointment diary more carefully and found the series of numbers he’d written at the bottom of the very last page in pencil.
    As she had hoped, they opened the safe on the second try—Pollock had been clever enough to list the numbers backward in case someone found them and guessed what they were. The safe opened with a satisfying click when she lifted the lever. She’d hoped to find a few hundred dollars inside that Mrs. O’Neill could use for a lawyer, but what she did find sent her rearing back with a most unladylike yelp.

2
    P olice Headquarters was unusually quiet when Gino arrived that morning. Of course, he was early for his shift because he wanted to see what he could find out about the Pollock murder, and early morning was that calm period of the day when the drunks from the night before were safely locked up and sleeping it off and the evildoers of the daylight hours hadn’t gotten started yet.
    The desk sergeant gave him a knowing grin, obviously remembering the to-do about Maeve’s phone message the day before. “So, when’s the wedding?”
    â€œNothing so drastic,” Gino said, grinning back. “She just missed me.”
    â€œIs she that girl what works for Mrs. Brandt?”
    Everyone at Headquarters knew Mrs. Brandt. “She’s Mrs. Malloy now,” Gino reminded him. “And yes, Miss Smith works for her.”
    â€œAh yes, Mrs. Malloy,” the sergeant mused. “That lucky bastard Malloy.”
    Gino wasn’t sure if the sergeant thought Malloy was lucky because of his sudden wealth or his marriage to Mrs. Brandt, but he said, “I don’t know about luck. After what happened to that Pollock fellow yesterday, marriage isn’t looking too good to me.”
    From his high desk the sergeant nodded at Gino. “You’re right. Poor fellow. Although who’s to say he didn’t deserve it, eh?”
    â€œYeah, a woman doesn’t usually bash her husband on the head for no reason. Did you hear anything about him?”
    The sergeant shrugged. “Nothing
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