A Cast of Killers

CHAPTER FIVE



Auntie Lil didn't have long to wait. Father Stebbins arrived at the basement entrance a few moments later, his beefy face an alarming shade of purple. "Terrible news, Lillian, isn't it? It's quite a shock to my system." He shook his head in dismay as he unlocked the back gate.

Typically, Fran hovered a few paces behind. Her beatific expression of obedience faded into a scowl the moment she saw Auntie Lil. "What are you doing here?" she hissed. "Haven't you caused enough trouble?"

"What in the world are you talking about?" Auntie Lil demanded. She drew herself up to her full height, but that wasn't saying much. She still stood nose-to-nose with Fran, whose stouter build gave her a decided advantage.

"Now, now, ladies. Please." Father Stebbins raised two arms in a bishop-like plea for peace. He had probably practiced in front of a mirror. "Let's talk to the police and get it over with. They didn't sound very happy on the phone."

So, Auntie Lil realized, the police had called Father Stebbins and Fran had conveniently been lurking nearby. And both of them thought that Auntie Lil had been telephoned as well. She saw no reason to correct their misconception. It would be so much more convenient for them all, especially her, if she simply weaseled her way inside on their coattails.

"Poisoned," Fran hissed in Auntie Lil's ear as they marched inside the soup kitchen. "That certainly was some special chili recipe you used."

Auntie Lil ignored her, yet managed to convey the distinct impression that Fran was too petty to bother with—more important things were going on. The soup kitchen hummed with activity. Several men were going through the cabinets in a mechanical, bored fashion, sniffing condiments, examining the contents of boxes and occasionally placing small samples in labeled plastic bags.

Three uniformed officers sat drinking coffee at an empty table, including Officer King. They flanked the soup kitchen volunteer who had arrived early to find the police waiting to gain entry. She looked frightened and pale, but had joined the waiting patrolmen in observing a cluster of plainclothes detectives gathered around a heavyset man standing at the far side of the cafeteria-style counter. The man was barking out orders in a heavily accented New York voice and gesturing with a hammy hand for emphasis as he spoke. Something about him was tantalizingly familiar to Auntie Lil. She squinted to get a better view. His hair was dark but thinning in back; it glistened greasily under the fluorescent lights. His white shirt was stained under the armpits with sweat and perspiration poured down the back of his neck. The men around him began to inch back subtly, as if afraid his body heat was contagious. Thanks to the man's authoritative roar, Auntie Lil could hear better than she could see.

"I'm handing you the case, George," the beefy man was yelling, as if sure that George would try to disagree. "But I'll be watching you every step of the way."

A middle-aged Hispanic man with a handsome but bloated face raised his eyebrows in mock appreciation. "Thanks for the confidence, Lieutenant," he said, making no attempt to conceal his sarcasm. "This case is nowhere to start with and you're going to be breathing down my back to boot?" Obviously, neither the detective nor his cohorts were aware yet that civilians were present.

The situation was about to change. Officer King had finished his coffee and had finally noticed the presence of Auntie Lil and her companions. He scrutinized them intently. It took a moment to process the information through his hard head, but belated recall finally transformed his scowling features into an expression of menacing recognition. He stepped up to the unseen lieutenant and whispered in his ear, pointing across the room with an accusatory jab.

The gathered officers looked up in interest and the fat lieutenant whirled around. "Where? Which one was cooking?" he asked, staring intently. His small black eyes focused on them without success. Obviously too vain to wear glasses in public, he took a step closer and stared harder.

"Which one of you was cooking?" he demanded again.

Auntie Lil—who was also too vain to wear her glasses in public— took her own step forward. And froze. No. It could not be. It was an impossibility. A piece of luck so incredibly bad that it could not have happened to her. Not this time.

But it had. Lt. Manny Abromowitz stood staring back at her. "You?" His voice swelled with warning and his massive chest puffed up, straining against his too tight shirt. His face flushed deep red and swelled until he resembled a cross between a wart hog and a blowfish about to explode. "What the hell are you doing in the middle of this?"

Even Auntie Lil was cowed by his unleashed anger, never mind the detectives who froze in their tasks to stare curiously at the innocuous little old lady who was giving their pompous lieutenant a heart attack simply by her benign presence.

"I work here," Auntie Lil said calmly, much more calmly than she felt. "I cooked the chili the day Emily died."

Fran stepped closer to Father Stebbins. She placed an arm on his elbow and they exchanged open-mouthed glances. Whatever was going to happen to Auntie Lil, clearly it was bad. What in the world did this policeman have against her?

His red face deepened even more, to the mottled scarlet of a radish going bad. "I had hoped that we might never meet again," he announced in a deadly tone of voice. "It was, in fact, my very fondest wish."

"The feeling is mutual, I can assure you," Auntie Lil replied stiffly.

"You think she did it?" the detective named George butted in. He stepped between the two of them and gestured toward Auntie Lil. "This lady has a record?"

"I certainly do not," Auntie Lil snapped. "And of course I didn't poison her. If I'd been throwing handfuls of cyanide in the chili, there would be a lot more than one person dead. Any idiot should know that. Even the lieutenant."

"Cyanide?" Lieutenant Abromowitz repeated slowly, giving weight to each of the three syllables. "And just how did you know it was cyanide? Huh? How?"

"I have my ways." She clutched her pocketbook against her chest to calm the beating of her heart. She had thought the lieutenant might be a bit peeved after she solved his last case out from under him, but really… this was going too far. The man was positively boorish.

"Well, I suggest you tell George here exactly what ways." The lieutenant gestured toward a chair and cocked his thumb. George took Auntie Lil by the elbow and led her to a table. Lieutenant Abromowitz stood over them, glowering. "Interview this woman very, very thoroughly," he ordered. "I want to know every move she made the day the victim died." Then he whirled on his heels and stomped out the door.

Auntie Lil turned back around for a satisfying peek. He had put on weight since she'd last seen him and his stomach jiggled over the top of his belt as he strode across the room. To top it off, his hair was definitely thinning. Practically gone. But wait—there was a wink of gold on one finger. Oh, dear. Some poor woman had actually married the man and Auntie Lil thought she knew who. He reached the door and slammed it shut behind him.

The resounding crack served as a signal for everyone assembled to turn back and stare at Auntie Lil. Father Stebbins seemed both transfixed and perplexed, while Fran was too baffled to display her usual resentment. Auntie Lil met the gaze of everyone present with a very sweet smile.

"I see the lieutenant hasn't changed a bit," she said. "What a shame for you all."


Auntie Lil suspected that her detective, whose full name turned out to be George Santos, didn't like Lieutenant Abromowitz very much. His idea of grilling Auntie Lil was a rather dispirited request to retrace her steps on the day Emily died. This Auntie Lil was able to do in excruciating detail. Her memory was excellent and she had already gone over the scene many times in her own mind, searching for a clue as to how Emily had been poisoned. It took nearly forty-five minutes for poor Santos to take down her full statement. He wrote methodically and without comment, only raising his eyebrows when she mentioned The Eagle and explained their trip to the medical examiner's office. When he was done, he promised to have it typed and to give her a chance to look it over. She nodded, satisfied. She already knew it would do fine. She had even managed to halfheartedly implicate Fran with a vague reference or two to her having disappeared during the cooking (which was true). It would serve as payback for those looks she'd given Auntie Lil earlier.

"So, how do you know the lieutenant?" the detective asked curiously as he tucked his small notebook back into his shirt pocket.

"I had the misfortune of meeting him on a previous case."

"Yes, it's always a misfortune to meet the lieutenant, isn't it?" Santos patted his pocket and rose to go. "They had to kick him somewhere, I guess. It was just my luck it was Midtown North." He stopped to look Auntie Lil over carefully, then assured her, "The lieutenant may want to suspect you, but you seem like a straight-shooter to me. If we need anything else from you, we'll get in touch."

"Will the kitchen be able to open today?" Auntie Lil asked anxiously. She could see Father Stebbins and Fran being questioned at separate tables by other detectives. Both looked annoyed, worried, anxious and alarmed all at the same time.

"Sure. Business as usual," Santos promised. "We haven't found anything on the premises yet and, like you say, only one person died. And nobody died yesterday, right?" He gave a disinterested laugh. "If she was even poisoned here, which we won't know until they run further tests, it must have been put into her individual serving somehow. That means we're going to want to talk to everyone who was sitting around her at the time."

"These are very transient people," Auntie Lil told him. "I'm not sure you'll be able to find them."

"We're going to try," Santos promised, patting his pocket again. "Starting today. That's why it's business as usual."

They were shaking hands when Officer King ambled up to glare down at Auntie Lil. He would be the type who brown-nosed his way into the lieutenant's affections by assuming his every grudge and posture. "Lieutenant says the kitchen can open as always," he announced.

"Thanks, I've already told her that," Santos said calmly. "Don't you have a drug dealer to beat up somewhere, pal?"

Officer King ignored him. "Except for her," he said. He cocked a thumb at Auntie Lil. "The lieutenant says she's not to be allowed back in the kitchen until we find out who did it. He wants to be on the safe side."

The detective looked back and forth between Auntie Lil and the patrolman. "Who are you kidding?" he finally said. "Abromowitz is just being an a*shole. There's no reason to keep her from helping out."

"That's what he says. And he's the lieutenant." Officer King shrugged happily and walked away whistling a very bad version of "Jailhouse Rock."

"Sorry," George apologized. "There's nothing I can do."

Auntie Lil rose to make a dignified exit. "That man will never make detective," she declared, nodding toward the departing Officer King.

"What do you mean?"

"Anyone so stupid as to side with Lieutenant Abromowitz on anything deserves to spend their life pounding the pavement." Auntie Lil pinned her hat firmly on and left the befuddled detective behind. She sailed past Fran, who glared at her out of habit, patted Father Stebbins reassuringly on the back, and escaped out the front door.

Well, she'd been kicked out of far worse—and far better—places before. Besides, it had been a real learning experience: it was just as she suspected. The police knew nothing. And with Abromowitz in charge, they never would.


T.S. was waiting for her outside. "What's going on?" he demanded. "How come you were inside and they won't let me in?" Other volunteers stood behind him, listening anxiously. Several people in line were eavesdropping as well, their anxious faces lined with both worry and hunger.

"The police wanted to question me about Emily's death," was all Auntie Lil said. "I suggest we go elsewhere to talk."

"Are we going to open up today?" one of the volunteers asked. The early people in line looked at her in alarm, their worried looks deepening.

Auntie Lil nodded. "Yes, but probably late. Better get inside. They're going to need help with the cooking. I was going to make spaghetti. Make sure you use plenty of oregano and garlic and don't let Fran overdo the basil."

The volunteers scurried down the steps and began to call through the gate. Auntie Lil led T.S. quickly away down the block. "Let's get out of here," she said. "Adelle and the ladies will be arriving soon. When they find out Emily was poisoned, there's no telling what will happen. We have more important things to do right now." She dragged him across Eighth Avenue toward Forty-Sixth Street, neither one of them noticing that an old actress who had been waiting in line was now scurrying away in the opposite direction.

"Where are we going? What's more important?" T.S. asked. He removed her hand from his arm and carefully brushed the nap of his sweater back into shape.

"Lovely sweater," she said absently. "I gave it to you, didn't I?"

"No. You most certainly did not." She was always trying to take credit for his own good taste.

"I've found out that Emily lived on Forty-Sixth Street. We just have to find out which building. And you won't believe this, but Lieutenant Abromowitz is working out of Midtown North now."

T.S. groaned. "Now it really is up to us."

"I'll say. What did you find out at the library?"

"No understudies were listed in the Playbill," T.S. admitted reluctantly. "She might have been in the chorus scene or worked backstage, but that's a lot of people. I wrote them all down. There's no one named Emily at all, except for the main character. I could start tracking the cast members down and asking them if they remember her. If anyone's still alive. But she could have been with the company for only a week, for all we know." They were passing the man with the bulbous nose and Auntie Lil gave him a cheery wave as if he were her very best friend. He nodded back and stared at T.S.

"May as well try," Auntie Lil agreed. "But do it in your spare time. We're more likely to have better luck once we find out where she lived."

"That's true." T.S. scanned the now busy block. "Where do we start?"

Auntie Lil took out the pack of photos from her purse. "I doubt she was able to afford these expensive restaurants," she said, looking up and down the sidewalks. "But we can't afford to skip them. Someone besides Billy has to know her."

"Who's Billy?" He held a photo in his hand and suppressed an involuntary shudder at the sight of the dead Emily.

"Billy owns the Delicious Deli back there," she explained. "He said she lived on this block."

Most of the block was taken up by expensive restaurants either closed or filled with crowds of business people. T.S. had to agree that it was unlikely Emily frequented any of them, but just to be on the safe side Auntie Lil insisted on entering every single establishment and showing Emily's photo to the bartender or host. Flashing photos of a dead old lady in front of waiting patrons did not prove to be a popular task and T.S. began to feel more and more like a pariah as they worked their way down the block.

"Maybe we should come back when they're not so busy," he suggested.

"We have to do it while they're open," Auntie Lil argued reasonably. "Besides, now we're getting somewhere. This is more her style." They had reached the end of the block nearer to Ninth Avenue. Large restaurants gave way to smaller shops and cheaper eating places.

"I'm getting hungry," Auntie Lil declared. "I had a hero earlier, but that must have been three hours ago." She eyed the brightly painted sign of a tiny Jamaican restaurant named Nellie's. "That place looks good."

T.S. peered inside. A small black man sat at a lone table eating a stew of unidentified, grayish origins piled over bright yellow rice. A plump woman the color of toffee was perched on a table behind the counter, staring out at the street with half-closed eyes. She had a beautiful face, broad and polished, that was lightly touched by the fine wrinkles of a satisfied woman in her mid-thirties. Her hair was braided in dozens of tiny plaits with brightly colored beads studding their length. The braids bobbed and swayed as she turned her regal neck, watching people go by.

"It looks like a real popular eating spot," T.S. said sarcastically. Just then, the woman's gaze met his and his words froze in his mouth. Her eyes were dark and sparkling. They seemed to see right through him. Unlike so many eyes in New York City, hers were not cloaked in suspicion but held a sharp intelligence and, yes, maybe even a little bit of kindness. The woman surveyed T.S. with unabashed thoroughness and when she was through, her brightly painted red lips curled back over white teeth in a hint of a grin.

"That woman smiled at me," T.S. said incredulously. "Someone just smiled at me right in the middle of New York City."

"I told you it was a good place to eat," Auntie Lil declared. She marched inside and he had no choice but to follow.

"Hello, granny," the woman greeted them in a musical voice full of lilting Caribbean tones. "You in the mood for a little goat curry today? I make it myself."

The small black man eating looked up briefly, dismissed them, and returned to his stew.

"I'm not that hungry," Auntie Lil decided. "Besides, I had it twice last week."

T.S. would have expected this statement to have been received with extreme skepticism, but the woman simply nodded in slow approval. "You more in the mood for a snack, granny?"

"Yes. That's quite right. A snack." Auntie Lil eyed some meat pies with garishly orange crusts that were baking beneath a heat light. She gave no sign of objecting to being called "granny." Not that there was a need to object, the title had been uttered in quite respectful tones.

"No, granny. You don't want those pies," the woman told Auntie Lil. She hopped down from her perch and the beaded braids tinkled as they swayed with her every move. "Those are frozen. Cheap for people who don't know any better. You want one of my homemade pies. A dollar more, but worth it." She slid a tray out of a small warming oven against one wall and placed it on the countertop. A spicy aroma filled the tiny shop and, against his will, T.S.'s stomach grumbled. "Maybe your son there like one, too," the woman suggested, her eyes twinkling.

"He's my nephew. But he'll take one." Auntie Lil sniffed deeply. "You made the crust yourself?"

"Of course. That's why it's not that Halloweeny orange."

"In that case, I'll take two."

"Very spicy, granny. Maybe try one, then another."

"Oh, no. I like spicy. Give me two." Auntie Lil accepted the pies wrapped in white paper as if she ate them from a roadside stand every day of her life. She bit into hers with characteristic gusto and groaned in approval.

"Delicious," she said, sputtering a fine spray of crumbs over the front of T.S.'s sweater. "Don't you agree, Theodore?"

He did not. He had discovered a raisin in his pie filling. T.S. loathed, hated, positively despised raisins in any form whatsoever.

"There're raisins in here," he said faintly, holding the offending pie out to his aunt.

"For heaven's sake, Theodore. Aren't you ever going to outgrow that fetish?" Auntie Lil and the woman giggled together. T.S. was just grateful that the small black man didn't join in at laughing at him, the amusing white middle-class male.

"I'll eat it if you don't want it," Auntie Lil finally offered. She placed his pie beside her second one and munched happily on her first. "This is heaven. I've never had better meat pies. Not in Kingston. Or even in Spanish Town."

"You been to Spanish Town?" the woman asked. "My mama came from there."

"I spent several months there one year," Auntie Lil admitted. "We were experimenting with a new kind of batik."

The woman absorbed this information respectfully, but had no curiosity to ask for details. She watched impassively as Auntie Lil polished off her two meat pies and started in on the third. With one hand holding the pie, Auntie Lil pulled the photos from her pocketbook with the other.

"Do you know this lady?" she asked, her mouth full of food as she slid the images of the dead woman across the counter top.

The woman peered down at it. Her face grew very calm and T.S. could almost feel the cooling in the room. Finally, she looked up and shrugged. "All old ladies look alike to me. One granny just like another." Her voice had changed dramatically, its former warmth replaced by suspicion and, perhaps, fear. She crossed her arms and backed away from them, settling on the small table behind the counter again. She stared back out the picture windows, as if they weren't even there.

T.S. knew she was lying. He'd worked with people too long not to know.

"You've never even seen her walking by on the block?" Auntie Lil insisted. She finished off the pie and scrubbed her fingers clean with the edge of her napkin. Small crumbs still clung to her mouth, but she'd soon talk those off.

The woman shook her head firmly, the braids clacking together in terse rhythm. "No, granny. I have not even seen her walking by." Her mouth shut firmly. She was saying no more.

Auntie Lil sighed just as the little black man finished his meal. When he rose to depart, his chair scraped against the tile floor with an angry screech. He stretched leisurely and patted his stomach in approval. "You are a good cook, Nellie," he told the black woman. "You are not such a good liar." He pulled the photos toward him and looked at Auntie Lil from under his bushy eyebrows. His face was small and pinched, and his black eyes glittered deeply from a crevasse of wrinkles like two tiny currants inside a bigger raisin.

His hatred of raisins aside, T.S. decided he was going to like the fellow.

The old man looked T.S. over silently, inspected Auntie Lil once again, then stared down at the photos for a closer look. "You are family?" he asked them.

"Not really. But friends," T.S. said firmly before Auntie Lil could lie.

"She lived next door," the old man said calmly. "I think on the sixth floor." He pushed the photos back toward them. "And now I bid you goodbye."

Nellie shook her head in disapproval, braids bobbing and beads clacking angrily. "You are a good man, Ernest. But not too smart. Some things go on here, better not to get involved. Too many ways to get hurt."

Ernest shrugged and headed for the door. "That may be true, my lovely Nellie, but old Ernest here, he just can't say no. Look again at those photos. That old woman, she did not die in peace. I think it is my choice, not yours, if I get involved." He bowed and waved a brief goodbye before disappearing through the door and turning toward Ninth Avenue.

Nellie shrugged. "You heard the man. He say she lived next door, she lived next door."

T.S. stared at Auntie Lil. They moved as one toward the exit. The woman called after them just as they reached the sidewalk, "But remember, old Nellie here, she didn't know a thing."


Next door was a small six-story brownstone, in cheaply renovated condition with a new brick facade that was already beginning to crack and crumble. The front door to the foyer was locked and they peered inside at a row of twelve mailboxes. Six stories, two small apartments to a floor. Which one belonged to Emily? The man in Nellie's had said he thought it was the sixth floor, but hadn't been sure. T.S. could not see a name on either of the sixth-floor mailboxes. Both occupant labels were blank.

"Someone's coming," T.S. pointed out. He could see a small elevator through the door window, the indicator shining bright green in the dim hall light. "This place is a real Taj Mahal," he added. "An elevator and everything."

"Which explains how an old lady could live on the sixth floor. Who is it?" Auntie Lil asked anxiously, pushing against him and tramping the backs of his heels in an effort to peer through the window with him.

A young man emerged from the elevator. He was of average height and very thin, with sharp features and willowy limbs. His long blond hair was cut in a single length and hung down the sides of his pointed face in long waves. He looked like an Afghan hound but moved like a hyperactive Chihuahua. He bent his limbs with unnatural grace and each step was more a miniature jete than a stride.

"A dancer," T.S. predicted. "He'll probably break into a song from Oklahoma."

Auntie Lil did not appreciate his wit. She was too busy thinking up a good lie.

"Young man," she cried enthusiastically, grasping the fellow's arm before he could scurry down the steps.

The young man—who, up close, looked more like a forty-five-year-old who was aging badly and trying to hide it—jumped in alarm, then patted the sides of his now obviously dyed blond hair before asking in a high, precisely articulated voice, "Yes? Can I help you with something? There's no need to get pushy, you know."

"I think my sister lives in this building, but I've forgotten the apartment number. I'm from out of town and this street is quite frightening to me. Can you let us in to find her? Her name is Emily."

The man stared at her through suspicious, almond-shaped eyes. "Everyone who lives in this building is in the business," he informed her primly. "There's not a soul over thirty, sweetie." He shrugged and whirled gracefully, traipsing lightly down the steps, too quickly to catch Auntie Lil's mumbled retort about him dreaming on if he really thought she believed he was a day under forty.

But T.S. was not ready to give up. "That's a coincidence," T.S. called after him. "I'm a producer myself."

The man stopped in mid-hop and twirled back around, hands on his hips. He surveyed T.S. with a bright smile. "Really? Not the Chorus Line road show by any teensy weensy chance… I'm just on my way to…"

"No, no," T.S. lied smoothly, inspiration flowing through him with genetic enthusiasm. "That's ancient history. I pulled out of that old war-horse years ago. Right now I'm in the process of locating some fresh new talent. We're mounting an Equity showcase of Peter Pan Grows Up. It's fascinating really. We've created a whole new CHAPTER in Peter's life."

"You don't say?" the man exclaimed, mouth wide with delight. "Peter Pan is one of my very favorite favorites!"

"Another coincidence," T.S. declared brightly. "See, in my new show, he grows up, marries Wendy and moves back to London. They have children of their own and my show is all about his struggle to mature while still maintaining his childlike wonder. And, of course, Tinkerbell is terribly jealous—she represents the younger woman figure—and all of this threatens his very… Peter Panishness. In the end, he comes to realize that his childhood will always live on in the form of his children and grandchildren. So he gives Tinkerbell the boot and he and Wendy retire to Florida and open an alligator farm, a touch of irony you see, and live happily ever after. It's all very, very nineties. A guaranteed smash."

Auntie Lil stared at him in open-mouthed admiration.

The man's eyes had grown wider and wider. "Have you cast the lead yet?" he asked artfully, as if slightly bored, but willing to humor T.S.

T.S. inspected a minute flaw in his sweater. "No. We need a fresh face, a new name, an unknown with tremendous star quality. But with the maturity to handle sudden fame, of course. It's going to Broadway, you see. After nine months, if the reviews are even lukewarm or better. I consider it a waste of my time to mount anything without a strong future. Of course, the backing is relatively modest."

The man's face fell.

"But I think eleven million will be enough to get us through at least the next year."

The mention of cold cash inspired a playful leap in the man. He cast any pretense of ennui to the wind in favor of appropriately youthful… Peter Panishness. "Listen, when you start auditioning, will you give me a call?" he asked gaily, chirping like a member of the Vienna Choir Boys. "If it's a fresh face you need—God knows, I'm fresh!" He twirled violently in a complete circle, dipped down low and extended an arm, his eyes rolling up in the top of his head as he gave T.S. a large wink. He was holding a small white card.

T.S. took it gingerly and examined it. He had created a monster. gregory rogers, it read, dance master extraordinaire, equity & aftra. T.S. smiled broadly, "Of course. I see that you have your Equity standing already. Convenient." He placed the card in his wallet, then looked back at the apartment building with a worried frown. "Now, if I could only find my great-aunt. Auntie Lil here is only in town for a few days and anxious to see her sister. I've been so busy with my accountant and all, I haven't really kept up with Aunt Emily…"

"Try the sixth floor," the young man offered promptly. "I know everyone on one through five, so if she's here, it's got to be the sixth. Here." He ran lightly up the stairs, bouncing as if he had small springs imbedded in each instep. He unlocked both front doors with a flourish, and scurried back to help Auntie Lil up the outdoor stairs, not noticing her determinedly granite expression. He then bounded to the elevator and pressed the button for them.

"I think we can take it from here," T.S. assured him. Good God. Enough was enough. Any more encouragement and he'd want to carry Auntie Lil over the threshold.

"Call me?" he asked T.S. in a naughty-boy tone, wagging a finger in playful admonishment. He then gave a little half-wave and disappeared down the steps with a stride so determinedly peppy that he kept popping into view above the door glass as if he were on a trampoline.

"Good God," Auntie Lil declared once they were safely in the elevator. "If we had any respect at all for Mary Martin's memory, we'd put that young man out of his misery."

T.S. sighed. "It was kind of a dirty trick to play on him, but I didn't like his attitude."

"And I always thought I was a good liar." She looked at T.S. in keen admiration. "Of course, you inherited your talent from me."

"Probably did." It was one point he would not argue.

They reached the sixth floor and stepped out into a small hallway with cheap blue carpeting. The elevator occupied a corner of the building front. Both apartments' doors opened off the back wall and were situated side by side on the south side of the building. Loud music blared from behind one of the doors, making it impossible to tell whether the second apartment was occupied or not.

"What do we do now?" T.S. whispered, although talking softly was a moot point.

"What do you think we do?" Auntie Lil stepped up to the door of the silent apartment and firmly pressed the bell. No one answered. She pressed it again with equally unsuccessful results.

"No one's home. Time to go," T.S. declared with some relief.

"Don't be daft." Auntie Lil stared at him incredulously. "Of course no one's home. The occupant's dead."

"We don't know for a fact that she really lived here," T.S. reminded her.

"We will in a minute." Auntie Lil surveyed the door carefully. "Good God, it looks like Fort Knox." There were four supplemental locks on the door in addition to the regular deadbolt. Unfazed, Auntie Lil began to rummage through her gigantic pocketbook.

"You must be joking," T.S. said. "You can't pick any of those locks."

She produced a credit card from the depths of her bag. "I can try."

"It's not the right kind of lock," T.S. began, but Auntie Lil would hear none of it. She tried to slip the thin wafer of plastic between the doorjamb and the door, but a heavy metal strip prevented insertion.

"Damn!" Auntie Lil banged a fist against the door and froze. It had yielded an inch. "Theodore!" She pushed it again and it opened further. "It's not even locked. Four locks and not one of them is locked."

"I don't like this," T.S. said. "Isn't there usually a dead body on the other side when this happens in the movies?" He pushed up behind her and they opened the door cautiously, peering around the edge and making their way slowly inside.

There was no dead body inside. Only a dark and deserted studio apartment, devoid of any signs of life at all. The fold-out sofa bed's cushions had been pulled off and left heaped on the floor. Several tables had been swept bare, the contents scattered onto the floor in a jumble of magazines, cracked vases, upturned lamps and three-day-old newspapers.

Several picture frames had been toppled from a window sill and lay face down on the carpet. Auntie Lil picked them up—the glass was shattered and any photos that had been inside were gone. "Someone had to break these deliberately," she said, pretending to demonstrate. "They'd have had to crack the frames sharply against this edge of the window sill." A small pile of glass lay in a mound, proving her theory. "Why?"

Books were pulled from a small bookshelf against one wall and piled in careless heaps on the floor, pages mashed together or ripped. Even the refrigerator door hung open. The meager contents—a carton of milk, a dish of mold-covered pudding, three eggs and an opened can of now rotting pineapple chunks—no longer smelled fresh.

"It's been searched," T.S. whispered. "At least a couple of days ago. I wonder what they were looking for."

"Shut the front door," Auntie Lil whispered back.

"What?"

"Shut the door. I don't want anyone walking by and seeing us in here."

He obediently shut the door and fumbled for the light switch of a lamp mounted on the wall. Illumination only made the mess that much more depressing.

"The Eagle," T.S. said. "The man sitting beside her. He must have stolen her pocketbook and gotten her keys. The place has been robbed. He knew where she lived."

"It hasn't really been robbed," Auntie Lil said. She picked up a photo frame. "This is sterling silver. Why didn't he take it?" She searched among the piles of possessions strewn across the floor. "No jewelry left. Of course, she might not have had any. But here are some settings of real silver. And the television's still here. Look, here's some sort of handheld video game, still in the box." She held up a crumpled sheet of colorful paper and some ribbon. "It was a present and it's been unwrapped, but the burglar didn't take it. If it was a robber, he wasn't very thorough."

T.S. noticed a small bureau in the miniscule hallway leading to a tiny bathroom. Clothes had been pulled from the drawers and dangled down in multicolored strips. Old lady clothes. Out of style. Smelling musty.

"Here's the closet," Auntie Lil announced in a loud whisper. She poked her head inside and set to work taking inventory. "This is where she lived, all right," she hissed back over her shoulder. "This wardrobe is right out of Central Casting for a proud, retired actress. Besides, I recognize this green suit. Lord & Taylor. Circa 1964. And look at this."

Several stacks of Playbills at the back of the closet had been toppled into disarray. A box of ticket stubs had been opened and dumped on top of the mess. T.S. poked through the small magazines, looking at the titles.

"She's been to just about everything that's hit the stage here in the last few years," he said in admiration. "Talk about supporting the theater."

"Now we know where all her money went," Auntie Lil replied. She picked up a handful of ticket stubs and let them flutter through her fingers. "And why she came back to live in New York. Remember how Eva said she'd left to get married?" She stared at the now empty closet shelves. "Check the hallway bureau. See if there's anything left of a personal nature."

But T.S. did not find any personal possessions in the bureau drawer. And none in the bathroom. And nothing at all in the corner kitchenette. "She didn't eat much," he muttered when he saw the bare cupboards.

"She didn't have much," Auntie Lil replied. "You know what's missing?" she asked her nephew suddenly, as if quizzing a favorite pupil.

"Yes." This was one test he could easily pass. "There's nothing left in the apartment that could identify her. No photos. No personal papers, and here, look at this, even the front page has been torn out of her Bible." He held up a small, leather-bound Bible. The front cover had been bent back and the first page sloppily ripped away. "In fact, it looks like they took out the front page of every book that might have had her name in it." He pushed the piles of books around with his feet. Her clothes were out-of-date, but her books were not. She had the latest volumes of celebrity biographies and several expensive picture books on the Broadway theater.

"What's that red thing dangling down?" Auntie Lil demanded. She pointed to the Bible. A thick red ribbon marker several inches wide had been slipped between two pages. "It's a bookmark," he told Auntie Lil. He thumbed through to see what Emily had been reading before she died. "And it looks like she was big into the meek inheriting the earth." He quickly paged through the rest of the Bible. "She's marked a lot of spots about how blessed the children are and stuff like that."

"Give it to me," Auntie Lil asked excitedly. She grabbed the Bible and turned the red marker over, rubbing it between her fingertips. "This bookmark is funny. It's too wide and too thick. There's something between the two layers of ribbon." She pried apart the bottom end of the double ribbon and wiggled two fingers inside. "It's just been tacked shut with rubber cement or something. Look at this." She slid a strip of four dime store photos out and they huddled under the one lamp left standing to examine it more closely.

Two young boys—one black and one white—stared uneasily into the camera. The white child had jet black hair that hung in greasy strands over his face. The black child had close-cropped hair trimmed flat on top and shaved close to the skull on the sides. Both boys had pinched and suspicious eyes. And both of them looked tired. They had curious expressions on their faces, almost grimaces. Their lips were pulled back unnaturally over dirty teeth and their chins were thrust forward.

"They're trying to smile," Auntie Lil declared. She pressed a hand to her heart. "Bless them. They're trying to smile and I don't think they know how."

T.S. examined it more closely. She was right. The boys were trying to smile, despite the dirt and grime and hopelessness revealed by the harsh glare of the cheap photo booth's light. It illuminated them unmercifully, highlighting every bruise and imperfection on their faces. And they each had plenty.

"Those are very old faces for boys so young," T.S. pointed out.

"Yes, they are, aren't they?" Auntie Lil brought the photo up just a few inches from her eyes, then turned the strip over and examined the back. "'To our Grandma,'" she read out loud. "And they've underlined 'Grandma'." That's it. It doesn't say anything else. No names. Nothing."

"Let me see." T.S. snatched the strip of photos back, turned it over, stared, and flipped it back around to look at their faces again. "How old do you think they are?"

"Not more than eleven or twelve, I'd say. But how can a woman have one completely black and one completely white grandchild?" Auntie Lil asked.

T.S. did not answer. He was too busy staring at their faces. "I know this black kid," he finally said slowly. "At least, I think I do."

"You do?" Auntie Lil stared at him skeptically.

"I think so. But I can't remember where I saw him."

Their whispering was interrupted by a strange sound. The heavy music blaring from next door was not loud enough to mask a newer, more disturbing beat. Something was banging against the wall separating the two apartments with an urgent, pounding rhythm. T.S. could hear heavy breathing, occasional deep laughter, and what sounded like small, muffled sobs.

Auntie Lil, who would not admit to slight deafness, apparently could not hear everything. "What's that banging?" she demanded in puzzled irritation. "Do you hear a banging?"

"Never mind, Aunt Lil," T.S. assured her. If her hearing spared her the salacious details, he wasn't going to fill her in. "Put those photos in your pocketbook and let's get out of here."

"Wait." She pulled her arm away and gestured toward the apartment's single window. "Look. The window's been left open." They approached it cautiously. It overlooked a small patch of deserted lot squeezed in between the apartment building and the one behind it located on the next block. The window had been left cracked a few inches. They opened it slowly and peeked their heads out. The apartment shared a fire escape with the one next door. T.S.—who was closer to the neighboring apartment—caught a quick glimpse of what the commotion was all about: he saw a bald head gleaming and a stout body bent over someone or something much smaller. T.S. blinked and drew quickly back inside.

"Let's go," he said tersely, not wanting to think about what he had just seen.

"Not so fast," Auntie Lil complained, bending back out onto the fire escape. "Don't rush me. I might miss a clue. Like this." She picked up a curl of dark paper and smelled it. "It stinks. What is it?"

"It's the back of a Polaroid photograph," T.S. told her. He scanned the fire escape. "Here's one more."

"Someone was taking photos out on the fire escape. What on earth for?"

T.S. chose to remain silent. "Let's go," he said grimly, grabbing her elbow again. "Someone has already cleaned the place out. We'll tell the police and leave it at that."

"The police?" Auntie Lil asked indignantly. "They don't know her name any better than we do. What good is that going to do?"

"The owner of the building can tell them her name," he explained patiently. They stepped out into the hall and shut the door carefully behind them. "And I think it might be best if you didn't mention our little escapade inside. Let's just say we found out where she lives and leave it at that, shall we?" He jabbed the button of the elevator five times in quick succession, anxious to put distance between himself and what he thought he had seen in the other apartment. They waited a moment without success and he impatiently pushed the button several more times, then stopped abruptly. The loud background music had suddenly ceased. The door to the second apartment opened and a middle-aged man and a young boy stepped out into the hall. The older man had a large bald head that gleamed in the hallway light. A fine sheen of perspiration clung in droplets to the side of his skull. He was red in the face and hurriedly rebuttoning his jacket, taking no notice of the boy behind him.

The boy had light blond, very nearly white, hair that was cut badly in wisps about his face. A small ponytail no bigger than a watercolor brush scraggled down his neck. He wore a black tee shirt emblazoned with jagged strips of silver lightning and the logo of a heavy metal band. His black jeans were so tight T.S. wondered how he could move, but he could—albeit sullenly and without any interest in either the bald man or T.S. or Auntie Lil.

The bald man stopped abruptly when he noticed he had company, stared at the two of them, said nothing, then veered suddenly toward the fire stairs. Without a word, he pushed through the door and disappeared. Auntie Lil took a few steps forward and stared intently after him, puzzled.

The young boy looked up and noticed them for the first time. His eyes were reddened and rimmed with purple shadows underneath. They flickered over T.S. with dulled suspicion, passing by with disinterest until they spotted Auntie Lil. And then the boy literally jumped. Both feet—expensively clad in high-priced athletic shoes— actually left the carpet. His eyes grew wide and he turned even paler than he had been before. Then he slumped against the wall and stared harder at an oblivious Auntie Lil. When she finally turned around and noticed him, the young boy's face cleared and settled back into a dull mask of apathy.

"Son?" T.S. said, sorry to be a middle-aged man at that moment. Even that close a kinship to the thing that had just left them was too close for T.S.

The boy stared again at Auntie Lil. He stopped short of shaking his head, gave T.S. a sharp look and took off running. He pushed past them and fled through the fire door, following the bald man down the steps without a single word.

"What in the world?" Auntie Lil sniffed. The elevator finally arrived and she stepped inside it indignantly. "How very rude."

T.S. didn't think that "rude" even began to describe the boy's behavior. Never mind the sweating man's. But—having seen what the loud music had tried to hide—he did not intend to explain it to Auntie Lil, not even with all her knowledge of people and years of self-professed experience.

There were just some things he'd have to keep to himself.


Auntie Lil would not leave the building until they tried to speak to the superintendent about Emily's identity.

"I think we should leave this to the police," T.S. suggested for the third time. "We may be in over our heads." He did not want to say anymore.

"Nonsense. If you don't spoon-feed the police everything, they're no help at all." She pressed the superintendent's bell firmly and did not let up. T.S. was sure that no one was home, but after a good twenty seconds of nonstop buzzing, the door flew open and an irritated round face peeked out.

"What the hell you think you're doing leaning on my buzzer like that?" a small Hispanic woman demanded of Auntie Lil. She was missing a front tooth.

Auntie Lil responded to her rudeness by pushing the door open and peering inside the apartment. Despite the sunny day outside, the drapes were tightly shut and no lights were on. An old air conditioner in one corner of the room hummed loudly, chilling the apartment to near-refrigerator conditions. A tattered red sofa dominated much of the only room that was visible and a short, fat man dressed in a sleeveless undershirt and a dirty pair of pants lay across it. He was ignoring the intrusion and slurping at a beer while he stared at the only light in the room: a television set turned loudly to a game show. Auntie Lil decided to shout above it.

"Where's the super? I want to know the name of the old woman who lives on the sixth floor," she demanded, without any attempt at politeness or a cover story. Auntie Lil had decided that she did not like the events now unfolding.

"I'm the super," the woman who had answered the door replied indignantly. "And you take your crabby old hands off my door."

Auntie Lil stepped back and glared at the woman. T.S. moved beside her for support. Together, they stared down the superintendent. She was as short and round as the man on the couch, and her hair had been dyed an unlikely orange. She wore a shapeless shift that was torn under one arm and she, too, held a beer in one hand.

"What is the name of the old woman who lives on the sixth floor?" T.S. asked more politely, though the effort was painful to make.

"There's no old woman living on the sixth floor," the super replied nastily. "No one lives on the sixth floor at all. Go away before I call the police."

T.S. opened his mouth to argue, but before he could get a single word out, the door slammed firmly shut in his face.

"Well, I never," Auntie Lil said. "We are going to the police. I don't like the looks of this, at all."

"We're doing more than that," T.S. suddenly decided. He had seen enough to make him very angry. And when he was angry, T.S. could be every bit as determined as his aunt. "I'd like to keep a very close eye on this building. Something is wrong and I don't like it at all."

They hurried out of the claustrophobic hallway and paused on the outside steps.

"Why in the world would that woman lie like that?" Auntie Lil wondered.

T.S. thought of what had been going on in the occupied sixth-floor apartment, and of the disarray in Emily's rooms. "I don't know. But it isn't good."

"Perhaps she got killed for her rent-controlled apartment?" Auntie Lil suggested. "I read about this case in the July True Detect… well, this periodical I have a subscription to, that told about a woman who was killed for that very reason."

"Killed for an apartment?" T.S. interrupted. "That's a bit extreme, even for New York City."

"People get killed for twenty-five cents in this town," Auntie Lil protested.

T.S. thought about it. "You're right. I'll find out who owns the building and we'll go from there."

"We should also start watching the building," Auntie Lil added. "And we need to talk to people at the soup kitchen ourselves."

"Then we need some more help," T.S. said firmly. "That's all there is to it. Whether the police believe us or not, we need someone else to watch this building while we poke around the neighborhood."

Just then, an Asian man passed by. He was wheeling a dolly cart loaded with boxes of fresh produce as he headed toward a corner fruit and vegetable stand. T.S. and Auntie Lil watched his progress down the block, then turned to one another in mutual inspiration.

"Herbert Wong," T.S. said, smiling because—for once—he'd beaten Auntie Lil to the punch.

"Herbert Wong," Auntie Lil agreed with relieved enthusiasm. "Herbert Wong is most definitely our man."