Murder in Morningside Heights (A Gaslight Mystery) Read Free

but they’re still women. You may feel the need for some feminine insight when you question them, and if you do, I’m sure I could spare the time to assist you.”
    Malloy glanced around the comfortable room again. “If you’re willing to give all this up, then I’m sure I would appreciate the sacrifice.”
    She ignored his provocation. “When were you planning to see them?”
    “Not until tomorrow, I think.”
    “What are you going to do in the meantime?”
    “Go see Doc Haynes. He did the autopsy.”
    *   *   *
    D oc Haynes looked up from behind the piles of paperwork littering his desk and glared at him with eyes that had seen far too much death. “I thought I’d seen the last of you when you struck it rich, Malloy.”
    “So did I, but you know how it is.”
    “No, I don’t. How is it that a man who never has to work another day in his life shows up at the city morgue looking for a dead body?”
    “I’ve opened a private detective agency.”
    “Have you, now? And a good thing it is, too. I guess you’ll be solving the cases the police can’t.”
    “I couldn’t possibly do that. I’m only one man, Doc.”
    Doc chuckled at the implied insult to the New York City Police Department. “So who is it you want to see today?”
    “Abigail Northrup. She was killed at the Normal School.”
    “Oh yes. What a shame. So young, and you can still see how pretty she was.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Didn’t they tell you? Oh, maybe her parents don’t know. Somebody at the school identified her body, so there was no need for the parents to see her like that.”
    “Then she was beaten, too?”
    “In a way.” Haynes shuffled through a stack of folders untilhe found the right one. “She was stabbed in the face. Looks like it was three times.”
    “How did that kill her?”
    “Let me finish. Three times before the final, fatal blow that went into her eye and then into her brain.”
    Frank muttered a curse. “What was she stabbed with?”
    “A screwdriver.”
    Contrary to logic, the more information Frank got about this case, the less sense it made. “A screwdriver? Who kills somebody with a screwdriver?”
    “I’ve seen it before,” Haynes said, “but usually it’s two fellows who get into a fight while they’re working, and one of them grabs the closest thing to hand.”
    “So you think she was killed by some workman?” Frank didn’t think college professors had much use for screwdrivers.
    “I did ask, because it was so strange, and it seems the janitor was doing some repairs to the gazebo where she was found and had accidentally left it behind.”
    “Or so he said.”
    “Yes, well, figuring that out is not my job. What I
can
tell you is that somebody stabbed her in the face three times with the screwdriver and then put it through her eye, either by mistake or on purpose.”
    “And that killed her?”
    “Obviously.”
    “How quick?”
    “Not right away, but she didn’t last long. It kind of looks like the killer tried to pull it back out and she was probably struggling, and well, there was a lot of damage. And a lot of blood.”
    Frank shook his head in wonder. “Was she interfered with?”
    “No, and her clothes were all neat and tidy except for the blood. She was most likely still a virgin, too. You can’t alwaystell, contrary to popular belief, but there was no sign of recent activity, and they watch those girls at the Normal School pretty close, I’ve heard.”
    “Jewelry?”
    “A locket and a ring. I kept them in case her family wants them.” Most jewelry and all the cash on a dead body would usually disappear long before the family came to claim the body.
    “Valuable, do you think?”
    “Not the crown jewels, but good quality.”
    “Then a thief would have taken them?”
    “If she was being robbed, sure, but this wasn’t a robbery.”
    “Of course it wasn’t. In that neighborhood, in broad daylight, right on the school grounds? And the only things of value she had