Murder on Amsterdam Avenue by Victoria Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

news, even if he’s expecting it, and he obviously is or he wouldn’t have hired me to investigate. Suspecting your son was murdered and finding out for sure that he was are two different things, though. Add to that the fact that he was killed in their house, so the killer must be someone close, well, Oakes might change his mind about finding out who did it. I don’t think he’d want a stranger there while we’re discussing the possibilities.”
    Gino nodded, obviously trying to hide his disappointment. “That makes sense.”
    â€œI’m thinking I need to tell Mrs. Brandt what we found out, though. She’ll be wondering, and I don’t want her doing anything silly, like going to call on Mrs. Oakes to find out.”
    As Frank had expected, Gino visibly brightened at the prospect of seeing Sarah. “You won’t mind if I go with you to Mrs. Brandt’s, will you?”
    â€œI won’t have time to see her before I go to visit Oakes. I want to get to him before the family sits down to supper. I was thinking you could go see Mrs. Brandt without me, though. You know as much as I do about the case now.”
    â€œI’d be happy to do that,” he said, looking
more
than happy to do that.
    â€œAnd maybe Maeve will give you a kiss to welcome you home.”
    â€œWha . . . Why would she do that?” Gino stammered, blushing furiously.
    â€œNo reason I can think of,” Frank confessed, “but a man can hope.”
    Frank and Sarah had more than once discussed the apparent attraction between Sarah’s nursemaid and the young policeman. Judging from Gino’s reaction just now, they’d been right about his feelings for the young lady. Her feelings were still not nearly as certain, at least not so far as Frank could tell. Knowing Maeve, though, she’d lead Gino on a merry chase, no matter what.
    â€œOh well, I see,” Gino said, although he plainly didn’t see anything at all. “I’ll go right over and tell Mrs. Brandt what we know so far.”
    â€œYou do that and tell her I’ll come by later to tell her what happened with Oakes.”
    â€œShould I wait there until you come?”
    â€œNo, it’ll be late, but come to my house in the morning. We’ll all go to Charles Oakes’s funeral tomorrow.”

3
    S arah and Maeve were in the kitchen, discussing what to have for supper, when someone rang the doorbell.
    â€œIs it a baby?” Sarah’s daughter, Catherine, asked from where she’d been sitting at the kitchen table listening to their discussion.
    â€œI thought you were sending all your patients to other midwives now,” Maeve said.
    â€œI am, but you’ll remember that sometimes people just come knocking on my door with no warning because a woman went into labor and they know I’m a midwife. If it’s truly an emergency, I can’t refuse to help.”
    â€œI hope it’s not a baby,” Catherine said. “Because then we’ll just have sandwiches for supper.”
    Sarah was still smiling when she reached the front door. A young man’s silhouette showed through the glass, so she was very much afraid she really was being summoned to adelivery. Young men were most often the ones sent to fetch a midwife.
    When she opened the door, however, she saw that this young man was smiling much too widely to be involved in the anxiety of an imminent birth. She needed a moment to recognize him.
    â€œGino! You’re back!” Without a thought for propriety, she grabbed his hand, pulled him inside, and threw her arms around him. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said as she released him to find him blushing furiously but looking very pleased. She held him at arm’s length and looked him up and down. “I hardly recognized you without your police uniform. You’re thinner.”
    â€œThat’s what my mother noticed first, too,” he