Murder on Lexington Avenue by Victoria Thompson Page A

Frank added.
    “None of this concerns you,” Young insisted impatiently. “Wooten is dead and I had nothing to do with it. That’s all you need to know.”
    “Then you won’t mind telling me where you were on Saturday.”
    His expression tightened as he realized that was the day Wooten was murdered. “I was at the office that morning, as usual. I left at noon, like everyone else.”
    “Everyone?”
    “Well, Mr. Wooten stayed. He often did.”
    “Who was the last one out of the building?”
    “I don’t know. It wasn’t me.”
    “Do you have a key to the building?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “But your father does.”
    “Of course he does. He owns it.”
    “And you’re his son. Why don’t you have one?”
    “I don’t need one. The clerk has one, and he opens the door for everyone first thing and locks up at the end of the day.”
    “And you can always borrow your father’s key if you need it.”
    “I suppose I could . . . Wait a minute! I don’t like your implication!”
    “I don’t have an implication. I was just stating a fact, and you agreed. Did you borrow your father’s key and go back to the office on Saturday?”
    “Certainly not!”
    “Why not?”
    “I didn’t need it. I had no intention of going back to that godforsaken office again until Monday. Why should I?”
    “Don’t you like your work?”
    He sputtered at that, loath to admit he didn’t and unable to deny it.
    “All right,” Frank said, relieving him of the burden of replying. “What did you need to talk to Wooten about that afternoon?”
    Young’s eyes grew wide. “Nothing!” he lied, too forcefully.
    Frank had taken a shot in the dark and hit a bull’s-eye. “Were you going to confess your love for Mrs. Wooten and ask him to divorce her so you could live happily ever after?”
    “Of course not!” he cried, although Frank wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth or not. Even though that would have been a foolish thing to do, people had been doing foolish things that ended in murder ever since Cain killed Abel.
    “Then what were you going to talk to him about?”
    “I wasn’t, not really. I just . . . Well, uh . . . I was going to speak to him about Electra.”
    “What about her?” Frank said, his interest piqued.
    “She . . . It had just come to my attention that she has been conducting herself in a manner completely inappropriate for a girl in her position.”
    “What position is that?”
    “As Nehemiah Wooten’s daughter,” he clarified indignantly. “What else could it be?”
    “I thought you might have meant her being deaf. Was she acting inappropriately for a deaf girl?”
    “I don’t think a deaf girl is held to a different standard than a normal girl,” he said haughtily.
    Frank wondered if Electra Wooten would appreciate being considered different from a “normal” girl. He’d have to ask her. “How was she being inappropriate ?”
    Young’s lips thinned down into a stubborn line.
    Frank shrugged. “I can wait all night for your answer, Mr. Young, but it will be much more convenient for me if we’re at Police Headquarters because I can lock you up down there.”
    “You wouldn’t dare lock me up,” Young said, having recovered some of his common sense as the shock of Valora Wooten’s pregnancy began to wear off. “My father would have your job.”
    He certainly would, Frank knew. “But you would still have been locked up in a cell with every drunk and crook and murderer in the city overnight. So why don’t you just explain what you wanted to tell Mr. Wooten on Saturday.”
    Young heaved a weary sigh. “It has come to my attention that Electra is . . . Well, she’s been secretly seeing a young man who is totally unsuitable for her. I was going to inform him of that.”
    “But you didn’t?”
    “No, I did not.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because I learned that Mr. Wooten had already learned this information and Mr. Higginbotham from the school Electra attends was meeting with him that