Murder on Astor Place by Victoria Thompson Read Free Book Online Page B

get Frank’s name.
    “Detective Sergeant Malloy,” Frank supplied. If he’d hoped to impress them with his title, he failed.
    Mina simply stared at him in acknowledgment.
    “Mina doesn’t know the reason Alicia ran away either. It’s a mystery to us all,” VanDamm assured him.
    “She ran away because she’s an ungrateful little baggage,” Mina said, making her father a liar. “After all Father has done for her, this is the way she repays us. Running away, getting herself murdered and bringing disgrace down on all our heads. How will we ever go out in polite society again?”
    “I doubt she got herself murdered just to ruin your social life,” Frank tried, unable to resist. But it was obviously impossible to insult the VanDamms, at least by criticizing their finer feelings. They merely stared back at him blankly. He sighed in defeat. “Mr. VanDamm, I’ll need for you to go down to the morgue and identify the body.”
    He frowned at that, but Mina was positively outraged. “How dare you ask my father to go to a place like that? Don’t you know who he is?”
    “He’s the father of a murdered girl,” Frank said. “We need positive identification of the victim. You wouldn’t want to bury some stranger, would you?”
    “I’m afraid the officer is right, Mina,” VanDamm said reasonably. “We must be sure it’s Alicia.”
    Mina opened her mouth, but she must have changed her mind about whatever she’d been about to say. She closed it again with a snap and took a moment to collect herself. Then she smiled a queer little smile that gave Frank gooseflesh because it looked so forced, and she said, “You mustn’t do this,” using a voice that surprised Frank. Suddenly, she was kind and gentle, as if speaking to someone infirm. “No one will blame you for not wanting to see her like that. No one can expect you to put yourself through such an ordeal.”
    VanDamm considered this for a moment, wanting to agree with her, and then he remembered something. “I thought you said someone already identified her,” he said to Frank. “An old family friend.”
    Mina looked shocked, as well she might. “A family friend?” she echoed incredulously.
    “She didn’t exactly identify her. Your daughter’s name was sewn into her jacket, and this woman said she’d thought the girl looked like Miss Mina VanDamm. She knew you, she said.”
    “Who is she?” Mina asked skeptically.
    “Sarah Brandt. She’s a midwife.”
    Mina widened her eyes at him. “I know no such person, although I suppose it’s possible she may know of me. We’re one of the oldest Knickerbocker families in New York.”
    She didn’t have to tell Frank, of course. Everybody knew the Dutch families—dubbed Knickerbockers ages ago because of the knee britches the early arrivals had worn—had been the first to settle in what was then New Amsterdam. Frank didn’t think that made them particularly special, just because their ancestors had fled persecution a hundred and fifty years before his had, but that was the way of the world. Mina VanDamm seemed intent on making the most of it, too.
    “In any case,” Frank explained doggedly, “Mrs. Brandt hadn’t seen Alicia in a number of years, so she couldn’t make a positive identification.”
    Mina VanDamm sighed to show her impatience, then she had another thought. “Alfred can go, then,” she told her father. “He’ll recognize Alicia as well as any of us.”
    VanDamm nodded sagely, as if this were the only logical solution.
    “Who’s Alfred?” Frank asked, thinking for an instant he might have discovered Alicia’s lover.
    “Alfred is the servant who admitted you,” VanDamm said.
    Frank couldn’t believe it. They were going to send a damned butler to identify a member of their own family.
    And just when Frank thought nothing could shock him more, Mina VanDamm turned to him and said, “I think you’ve bothered my father quite enough for one day. You may leave now.”

    SARAH LOOKED UP