Read Online New York Nocturne by Walter Satterthwait - Free Book Online Page A

was from Detective O’Deere. If he had heard that much from O’Deere, then presumably he had heard the rest of it, too. But he wanted to hear it again, so I recounted it all—Chumley’s, El Fay, the Cotton Club—and then the events of this morning.
    Neither Mr. Vandervalk nor Becker asked questions. Mr. Vandervalk occasionally scribbled something into his notebook.
    When I finished, Mr. Vandervalk smiled at me again. “Very good. Thank you, Amanda.” He turned to Becker. “Lieutenant?” he said.
    Becker looked at me, and for the first time, he produced a smile. It was brief and bleak. “We’ve been in touch,” he said, “with the police in Boston.”
    â€œYes?” I said politely, and I felt the skin of my back prickle, as though a chilly breeze had curled across it.
    Becker said, “This isn’t the first time you’ve bumped into a dead body, is it?”
    I wondered who among the Boston police had told him. It didn’t matter, of course. Any of them could have known, and any of them could have told Becker. Although the murder had been committed outside of Boston, in a small town along the shore, for a time it had been Big News in all the city newspapers.
    â€œNo,” I said. “It isn’t.”
    â€œYour mother,” he said.
    â€œMy stepmother,” I corrected him.
    â€œAnd she was killed with a hatchet, wasn’t she?”
    â€œThat’s right. Yes.” I glanced at Mr. Vandervalk. He sat there with his arms crossed over his chest, his lower lip pushed out. He was looking at me with concern. He narrowed his eyes and nodded.
    Becker said, “No one ever did figure out who did it.”
    I corrected him again: “No one was ever arrested.” In the end, the local police did actually know who had done it. But for various reasons, the identity of the murderer had been kept secret.
    I turned to Vandervalk, my one ally in the room, my one ally in the city of New York. “You don’t really think I killed my uncle.”
    He smiled again, a friendly, kind smile. “Amanda, all we’re trying to do here is get to the truth.”
    â€œBut I’ve told you the truth. I don’t know who killed him.”
    Becker said, “It’s an amazing coincidence, isn’t it? One little girl finds two dead people. Both of them killed with a hatchet.”
    â€œI was only thirteen years old then.”
    â€œOld enough to hold a hatchet. Old enough to use it.”
    â€œYes, but I didn’t.”
    Mr. Vandervalk waved Becker gently away. “Now, Amanda,” he said softly. “Listen to me, dear. We’re not ogres here. Lieutenant Becker and I are trying to help you.” He leaned toward me, his smile friendly beneath his mustache. “You know what? I’ll bet you had a good reason. An excellent reason.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œIt happens all the time. We know that. A good-looking young girl. An older man living alone. There’s an attraction. Perhaps, at first, it’s even mutual. We can understand that. Believe me, we can. But then the older man, well, he takes things a little bit too far. He demands more from the girl than she’s prepared to give. He reaches out, and he touches—”
    â€œ ‘Touches’ ?”
    â€œIf your uncle touched you, if he—”
    â€œ ‘Touched’ me ?”
    â€œIf your uncle touched you, if he—”
    â€œThat’s crazy ,” I said.
    But I knew that it wasn’t, not entirely.
    In a sense, Mr. Vandervalk was right. Mutual or not, there had been an attraction. I remembered the way I had looked at John while he was reading or writing or sitting beside me watching a show; I remembered the way my glance—tentative, always ready to dart away—had caressed the clean lean lines of his face. I remembered the flecks of gold floating in the blue of his eyes. . . .
    â€œIt’s