A Cast of Killers (41 page)

"She was attempting to help in the
investigation of Emily's death," Auntie Lil admitted in a feeble
voice.

"What? Speak up. You talk louder than an
announcer at the ball park. I ought to know. You've been pestering
me for a week. So don't pull that little old lady crap on me. Pull
yourself together and tell me everything you know." In his anger,
all traces of the usual bitter, disillusioned cop had disappeared.
Santos was on his home turf and it had been violated and, by God,
he was now taking charge.

He was right. She was behaving foolishly. She
did have to pull herself together. There was no need for her to
feel guilt over Eva's death… was there? After all, she had warned
the women not to go off on their own. And Theodore had warned them
against being on the streets too late at night. Eva had probably
disregarded both of their cautions. It was not her fault the woman
had died. She straightened her shoulders and began. "She was a
friend of Emily's. They go back many years. As rivals, more than
friends, I would say. I think she had been watching Emily's
building and following various people."

"Following people?" The detective's cigarette
dangled incredulously from one corner of his mouth, making him look
like a Humphrey Bogart character from a forties movie.

"Well, you wouldn't pay any attention when I
told you Emily lived in that building," she said defensively.
"Someone had to look into the situation."

Santos opened his mouth, changed his mind and
shut it abruptly, then stared out a tiny barred window and counted
to twelve softly. Only his lips moved. No sound came out—which did
nothing for Auntie Lil's nerves. "What else?" he finally asked
calmly.

"I don't know anything else," she admitted.
"Eva has been missing since yesterday morning, I think. She did not
show up for lunch at St. Barnabas. Which was, I gather, unheard of
for her."

Detective Santos sighed.
"That puts the last time she was seen at about 11:00
a.m
.," he thought out
loud. "One of the other women at her shelter saw her heading uptown
at about that time. Know anything else?"

When Auntie Lil shook her head, he leaned
across the table toward her until they were nearly nose to nose.
"I'm going to tell you something very important," he began in a
deadly calm voice. "And I'm going to be a lot nicer about it than
Lieutenant Abromowitz was. Who, by the way, I'm beginning to think
may be right about you after all. Two women are now dead. And
something tells me that the second one did not have to die.
Something tells me that if you had not come on the scene and
whipped Emily's friends into a frenzy of righteousness, that this
old woman might have been around to enjoy a few more years of her
meager but fairly comfortable life."

Now that made her mad. "No one forced Eva to
do anything," Auntie Lil said defiantly. "And she would rather have
died doing something important than to have wasted away bored to
tears."

"How about you? How do you want to die?"

"Die?" she repeated faintly, her rebellion
dissolving. "That wouldn't be a threat?"

"It's not a threat from me. Have you thought
that maybe Eva wasn't the intended victim after all? That maybe it
was you. There is a great resemblance between you and the latest
corpse, wouldn't you say? With the exception of that pathetic dyed
black hair, the two of you are remarkably alike in physical
characteristics, aren't you?"

For once Auntie Lil was silent. It was an
unpleasant but inescapable point.

They heard the sound of muttering and heavy
footsteps nearing the room. The approaching male voice sounded
artificially firm, infused with booming enthusiasm and phony
competence. "We consider the case closed," he was repeating in an
overly hearty baritone. "Thanks to our quick work, we feel
confident that we've closed the book on yet another disgusting
chapter of exploitation of the young." Each time he finished the
statement, the unseen man began again, trying on new inflections
and tuning up the words here and there.

Santos buried his head in his hands just as
Lieutenant Abromowitz poked his head in the room, repeating, "…
another disgusting case of—" He stopped abruptly when he spotted
his detective. "Sorry, George, just getting ready for the press
conference on that Fleming pervert. What the hell are you doing way
back here?" He noticed Auntie Lil and his face flushed instantly
and ominously red. "I've been looking for you," he warned her,
stepping toward her and placing his hands on his hips like an angry
father about to chew out his wild teenage daughter.

Detective Santos held up a hand. "Please,
Lieutenant, I told you I'd take care of it. I've been talking to
her. She understands the seriousness of it."

It took all of Auntie Lil's considerable will
not to speak up.

"Did you tell her I'd arrest her if she
continued to interfere?"

"I was just getting to that part," Santos
assured him. "Let me handle it, okay?"

"Arrest me?" Auntie Lil demanded. "I'd like
to see you try."

"So would I," Abromowitz agreed, leaning
across the table on his knuckles. "Oh, boy, so would I."

She was a coward. There was nothing to do but
admit it. It had been sweet of Detective Santos to defend her, but
it had proved, as always, hopeless to try and change Abromowitz's
mind. He was convinced that Auntie Lil was bad news, period. There
was no way he would let her help. Following more dire warnings from
him that she was to butt out immediately (and her false
reassurances that she would) Auntie Lil had returned to St.
Barnabas to see how she could help with that day's meal. Her desire
was driven partly by a wish to atone for her mistakes and partly by
her need to find out more about either Emily or Eva.

Yet, when she passed Adelle and her followers
waiting patiently in line, she did not even murmur the faintest
detail about poor Eva's fate.

She just couldn't do it. Not yet. Much of
what the detectives said had stung its way into her heart. She
needed time to think it through. And, besides, the actresses would
find out about Eva soon enough and, once they did, would probably
be filled with even more resolve to discover both murderers.

Except, of course, that one person was
probably responsible for both deaths. Which didn't lessen the
danger any. Oh, dear—it was getting rather unpleasant.

The St. Barnabas soup kitchen was equally
unsettling. She arrived to find the kitchen at a standstill. Only
two volunteers had shown up. Father Stebbins was nowhere to be
seen, and long rows of raw chickens stretched out on the steel
countertop looking cold and forlorn in the bare room.

"What is going on?" Auntie Lil asked in
alarm. "We have to open the gate in less than three hours."

"Volunteers are dropping out like flies
because the police keep calling them in for questioning," one of
the two women still there reported. "Something else must have
happened. And I don't know where Father Stebbins is. He rushed
through here about fifteen minutes ago and didn't even say
hello."

The trio stared at one another and, most
typically, it was Auntie Lil who finally took charge. "You go and
beg as much rice as you can from Mr. Chang on the corner," she told
one of the volunteers. "If you need help carrying the containers,
take Franklin with you. Do you know what he looks like? I think I
saw him in line." The woman nodded and hurried off to do her
bidding. Auntie Lil turned to the remaining woman. "Do we have any
lemons?"

"There's a whole carton in the walk-in," the
volunteer replied in a skeptical voice.

"Go get them and slice them. I'll find the
tinfoil. We'll have lemon chicken over rice. That only takes an
hour. We'll just have to bake portions in shifts. You help me cook.
People will have to set their own tables today."

She could have run the U.S. Navy without a
hitch.

The enormous task confronting them took all
of their energy and, for the next hour, Auntie Lil had little time
to contemplate Eva's death or Father Stebbins' inexcusable absence.
She had just removed the first batch of chicken from the large
ovens when Father Stebbins returned, face flushed and robes in
disarray. He hurried down the back stairs from the interior of the
church and rushed up to Auntie Lil without any warning, nearly
causing her to drop a pan of sizzling food on his feet.

"Lillian," he told her urgently, grabbing her
shoulders, "I have to apologize for what I said yesterday. I was
wrong. There is wickedness but sometimes it comes in unexpected
forms. A terrible injustice has been done and it's partly my fault.
I must do what I can to amend the damage I've wrought. I've called
Fran, but there's so much more to do."

Mouth hanging open, Auntie Lil stared in
astonishment as he hurried away and disappeared through the front
basement gate. Then she noticed the clock. They had less than two
hours until the gates were scheduled to open and probably eighty
more chickens waiting to be cooked. "I think it's only going to get
worse," she predicted, returning to her task.

But, thankfully, this time she was wrong.
Half an hour later, Fran appeared, calmly walking into the kitchen
as if she had merely run out to the corner store for some forgotten
spice instead of having been missing for days.

"Hello, Lillian," she told Auntie Lil
politely, displaying more manners than she had exhibited in the
past two months put together.

"How nice to see you," Auntie Lil stammered
back. She wanted to add "Fran," but the name stuck in her throat.
After all, she was still her nemesis. Wasn't she? Everything was
being turned upside down.

"What do I need to do to help?" Fran asked
pleasantly. Auntie Lil was too surprised to do anything but point
toward the remaining chickens lined up in a row. Fran nodded and
methodically began preparing them for roasting, without saying so
much as one other word and without complaining a whit about the
recipe chosen.

It was all too mystifying for Auntie Lil, or
at least too mystifying to untangle while juggling a dozen other
chores. But the riddle was only compounded further when Annie O'Day
arrived at the soup kitchen half an hour before the scheduled
mealtime.

"There's an enormous woman yelling for you
outside the basement gate," one of the volunteers informed Auntie
Lil in a calm voice. Nothing else was likely to happen that day to
faze her any more than she already was. “She looks like she lifts
weights and means it.”

"That's Annie O'Day." Auntie Lil hurried to
let the nurse practitioner inside.

"Thank God you're here." Annie grabbed Auntie
Lil's hands in her own and, in her urgent excitement, nearly
crushed them between her strong fingers. "You've got to come to
Homefront right away."

"Now?" Auntie Lil looked over her shoulder.
"I can't. Those people outside are hungry."

"You have to. I'll stay here and help."

"Why?"

Annie pulled her into a corner of the dining
area and lowered her voice. Fran stood behind a counter and watched
them curiously.

"I found Timmy this morning," Annie explained
in a rough whisper. "It took a lot of doing, but he admits that
he's lying about Bob. But he won't tell me who put him up to it. He
said he's afraid of the police but he'll sign a paper admitting
that he was lying. He's sitting in Bob's office right now. But he
won't talk to anyone but you."

"Me?" Auntie Lil asked in astonishment. "I've
never met the young man in my life."

"But you know his friend, Little Pete, and
both of the boys think that you are a close friend of Emily's or
maybe even her sister."

"Emily? What does Emily have to do with
Timmy's allegations?"

"I don't know yet. But I think there's a
connection. He won't tell me anything except that he's afraid. He
doesn't trust anyone. I think he knows who killed Emily, but he's
not sure who else knows. And who may be involved. He knows you're
not involved because of some things you said to Little Pete. That's
why he wants to talk to you."

"He's at Homefront?" Auntie Lil repeated.

"Yes. And he's alone. We couldn't risk
leaving Bob there with him, not after what he told the police and
that reporter about Bob. So Bob's at some diner around the corner
and Timmy's waiting at Homefront alone. That means he could change
his mind at any minute and there's no one there to stop him.
Please, you've got to help us."

Auntie Lil was confused, her brain whirling
with possible theories, but it did not cause her to hesitate. She
had been trying to talk to the young boy ever since Emily died. If
he knew the killer, he could very well be in danger. She had to
reach him before someone else did.

Grabbing her pocketbook, she rushed out the
door at top speed, plowing into a returning Father Stebbins in her
haste. His face was cleared of worry and he looked more at peace—at
least until Auntie Lil crashed into him and sent him tripping over
the trash cans in the foyer. The priest stared after her, shaking
his head as he watched Auntie Lil scurry away down the
sidewalk.

Adelle and her followers also stared after
Auntie Lil's retreating figure and whispers passed among them. They
looked to Adelle for guidance. Should they follow? She shook her
head slightly and they fell back into the line to wait. One thing
they all had plenty of was free time.

T.S. woke again just before three o'clock.
The terrible pounding in his head had subsided to a faint buzz, but
he still could not recall any details of the night before. The wet
towel had soaked through his sheets, but he was too tired to care.
His tongue felt like it had been coated with syrup and dipped in
fuzz. What in the world had he gone through and where was Lilah?
God, what if he had done something to offend her? He reassured
himself that the note she'd left had been friendly.