A Cast of Killers (36 page)

"Is this true?" Auntie Lil demanded,
producing the newspaper.

"No, it's not true. But it doesn't matter.
Bob is being questioned by the police right now. They wouldn't let
me stay with him. It's been at least five hours." The huge Irish
woman reached for a tissue and blew her nose with a mighty honk,
then tossed the Kleenex into a wastebasket across the narrow space.
It banked perfectly and slid inside. "He's ruined whether the
allegations turn out to be true or not, I expect. He'll be poison
by the time they get through with him. It'll be the end of any
grants or donations for Homefront."

"Who says he did this?" Auntie Lil asked,
glaring at the newspaper as if it were the columnist's fault that
Bob Fleming's character and life had been destroyed.

"Don't you know?" She looked up at Auntie Lil
in surprise. "It's Timmy. Bob told me when he called from the
stationhouse. It's the little boy you were looking for. Bob hardly
knows him. And then he does this. Why? What did Bob ever do to
him?"

Auntie Lil was silent. It had occurred to her
at once that Bob Fleming's main contact with Timmy had been on her
behalf. What questions had the Homefront director asked on the
streets, trying to help her? Was this why he was being
attacked?

"Why are you so quiet?" Annie demanded.

"I was wondering if Bob had had any contact
with Timmy since I last spoke to him," Auntie Lil said
carefully.

Annie shook her head vigorously. "He'd been
asking around about Timmy," she explained. "Trying to find out who
that guy that keeps him is. Trying to see if Timmy had a last name,
or how he was involved with that old lady that was killed. Little
Pete wouldn't tell him much, so he had to go to other people on the
street. But you know what he was asking about better than I do. He
was doing it for you." If it occurred to Annie that Auntie Lil was
somehow at fault for what had happened, she did not show it.

"Timmy." Auntie Lil repeated the young boy's
name softly and stared thoughtfully at the newspaper. "I want to
talk to him."

"You and me and half the police force," Annie
replied miserably. "I've been looking for him all day. He's nowhere
to be found. And Little Pete has disappeared with him."

"Someone talked to him," Auntie Lil pointed
out. She had to bring the newspaper practically to the tip of her
nose to be able to read it, but it was a humiliation she was too
angry to pay any heed to.

"What do you mean?" Annie stared at the
newspaper.

"This woman talked to him." Auntie Lil set
the paper back on the desk and placed a strong finger over Margo
McGregor's face. "She doesn't use his name, but it sounds like she
talked to him for quite a long time. In fact, it sounds like she
was the one to break the whole story."

"Let me see that." Annie O'Day slid the paper
closer and peered at it. "I get the other paper. It was just a
small article crammed in at the last minute. I didn't even see this
one. God, it takes up half a page. What does it say?" Her voice
trailed off and anger settled over her innocent features, lending
them a hardened, unpleasant look. She looked up at Auntie Lil. The
rage reflected in her ice blue eyes was frightening. "This woman
printed very single lie that kid said. That's not fair. That's like
trying Bob in the press."

"Perhaps we should have a word with Miss
McGregor. I could give her a call," Auntie Lil suggested calmly,
hoping to erase the terrible anger that had imbued Annie's face
with a suddenly ominous and threatening strength.

"You call her," Annie replied defiantly. She
threw the newspaper on the floor. "If Margo McGregor can find
Timmy, I can find Timmy. And I'm going to, if it's the last thing I
do." The article had filled her with fresh resolve and she was up
and out the door before Auntie Lil could stop her.

Auntie Lil stood in the back office,
wondering what to do next. It was not in her nature to sit and do
nothing, but how was she supposed to lock the door behind her if
she left? Annie had marched out with the keys. There was nothing
she could do but wait until Bob Fleming or Annie returned. She
might as well make the best of it. Auntie Lil bolted the door from
the inside and crept back into the darker interior. She was not in
the mood to deal with any runaways at the moment. There was work to
be done.

She gathered the newspaper pages from the
floor and put them back together. She did not want to believe Margo
McGregor either, but it sounded as if the columnist had done her
homework.

Damn. She should have remembered at once.
Margo McGregor had cropped up before... in Emily's pocketbook, her
photo on each of the clippings carefully saved on a variety of
subjects. Even worse: Theodore had thought them important. And she
had not. She just hated it when she was wrong.

Could Emily have contacted the columnist
about Timmy? Was that how the story got started? But there had been
no evidence of correspondence with anyone in Emily's apartment, and
especially not with Margo McGregor.

There was nothing left to do but go right to
the source. She chose a telephone from the many lined up on the
wall and began. Pretending to be Margo McGregor's mother, she
greased her way through three levels of screening and right to the
columnist's desk. Unfortunately, she was not there. A harried and
disinterested-sounding colleague took a message and said he'd leave
it on her desk. She thought about what to say and decided on: "Have
vital information on Emily Toujours' death." That should bring a
rapid response. She left the number printed on the phone, hung up
and waited confidently.

A half-hour later, it had not brought any
sort of response. And she was steamed. She didn't appreciate being
trapped in Homefront until Annie O'Day returned while the entire
world ignored her phone messages. A whole afternoon of doing
nothing would kill her. She'd just have to pester Detective Santos
while she waited.

He was in, since there was still another hour
before the official cocktail hour began.

"Did you find The Eagle?" she asked
anxiously, forgetting to introduce herself.

An introduction was not necessary. "No, we
did not find The Eagle," the detective replied crisply. "We
thoroughly searched that building, Miss Hubbert, and there is no
tall black man living there with an eagle tattoo on his arm. In
fact, there is not a single black man living in the entire building
at all. Which is unusual in itself but not, so far as we can tell,
necessarily illegal."

"But we saw him go in and he never came
out."

"Even if that was true—and I have my doubts
about it, to be honest with you—there are plenty of ways he could
have gone out undetected," Santos explained. "Down the back fire
escape, or up to the roof and over onto another building's roof.
See what I mean?"

She was silent. He had a point.

"Listen, Miss Hubbert, I know you're trying
to help. And I think that I've been a pretty good sport about it.
But that was the last time I'll be able to humor you. Two officers
spent an entire afternoon checking apartments and questioning
people again. With zippo results. I simply can't afford the
manpower to go off on any more goose chases. I've got another death
on my hands this afternoon, this time a floater with no
identification. And there will probably be another murder by
morning." He sighed. "Go home and take up knitting or something. Go
home and leave us all alone."

The detective hung up gently and Auntie Lil
stared out the picture windows of the darkened storefront. A
floater. The waters of the Hudson had claimed another victim. She
shivered. The secrets of Hell's Kitchen seemed darker than
ever.

It had been an excellent day for T.S. Such a
good day, in fact, that he was halfheartedly considering retiring
the tan slacks and black sweater he'd worn to mark his triumph.
Why, the sweater still smelled faintly of Lilah's gardenia perfume.
And surely there were a few of her silver hairs nestled among its
nap. After all, they'd sat side by side for hours in the Performing
Arts Library, poring over old Playbills in search of Emily Toujours
in cast listings or a glimpse of her face in any photos. Their lack
of success at this task had not dimmed the triumphs of the day.

At first, he had felt a bit guilty about St.
Barnabas and was unsure if his help had been expected there or not.
But he had managed to rationalize that worry away quite nicely by
remembering that they had tossed his dear old aunt out on her ear,
and that Father Stebbins had failed to even recognize him the day
before. So surely his obligations to the soup kitchen could take a
back seat to the investigation.

And why should he begrudge himself a cozy
lunch with Lilah at a small French bistro off Sixty-Second Street?
What better way to cap off a morning of careful scrutiny than with
exquisite dishes, an excellent dry white, a beautiful woman and a
maître d' with enough sense to provide a candlelit atmosphere in
the middle of the day. Thus fortified, they had returned to the
library and spent a number of happy hours paging through still more
Playbills while reminiscing about the many Broadway shows they had
seen with other people… and the many more they hoped to see
together.

Eight hours passed by as quickly as eight
minutes, made that much more delicious by the thought that there
was still an evening together to come. Who cared if they had to
spend that evening in the supercilious company of a cheesy would-be
Broadway producer? In fact, who cared that not a trace of Emily
Toujours had been found, not even as an extra or in a backstage
capacity? He had spotted several of the other old actresses, he
thought, in their earlier incarnations, though he could not be
positive. The young and painted faces that stared out at him in
faded photographs held little relation to the heavily wrinkled
versions they now wore.

Except for Adelle. It was true, he
discovered, that she did look quite a lot like she had when she was
younger. Her broad face and regal neck weathered well. And he found
more traces of her career than anyone else's. She appeared to have
worked her way up to featured roles by the late forties and early
fifties, before disappearing into obscurity again. It was
interesting and rather sad from a sociological standpoint, but shed
no light on Emily's murder so far as T.S. could determine.

Fortunately, lack of progress made in finding
any trace of Emily Toujours was balanced out by progress that had
been made in other, quite important areas. Tonight more would be
made, T.S. was sure. He searched his closet for evening attire
appropriate for a wealthy investor, and settled on his very best
suit, custom-made in Hong Kong according to Auntie Lil's strict
specifications.

He had a plan: if all went well, he and Lilah
would be able to quickly eliminate Lance Worthington as nothing
more than a typical Broadway fringe sleaze. Then they could forget
about murder for a few minutes and find a small and charming bistro
that served drinks.

He hummed as he dressed. He was starting to
like retirement; it afforded the luxury of ignoring business as
usual. He had risen that morning without even so much as a glance
at the newspaper, and now here he was plunging into a world of dim
lights, quick looks and shared smiles. A world that would last for
as long as he cared it to. There would be no rising early for him
tomorrow, no damnable office to sap his energy. He was free. He
could be whoever he wanted to be. The emergence of T.S. Hubbert,
new man in town, continued on its uncertain course.

He helped it along a bit by selecting a slim,
purple tie that shimmered in the right light. Then he turned up the
volume on his stereo and blasted show tunes at a volume that
astounded his nearest neighbors and sent the cats galloping into
the bathroom closet for quiet.

The music was so loud, in fact, that he
failed to hear the phone ring. Nor did he notice the message light
blinking before he hurried downstairs to meet Lilah. She was
waiting in the back seat of the limousine. His highly impressed
doorman, Mahmoud, dashed out to open the door for him, bestowing
silent and respectful homage on T.S. as a tribute to his excellent
taste in women.

If Grady stepped on it, T.S. decided, they
would have just enough time for a quiet dinner together before
Lance Worthington and his party beckoned. There was a small Indian
restaurant on the Lower East Side that he thought Lilah would love.
It was appropriately exotic and a bit off the beaten path. A good
choice, considering the unusual romantic journey (for him, anyway)
that he had embarked upon.

T.S. had not talked to Auntie Lil even once
that day. Had she known why, it was doubtful that Auntie Lil would
have minded a bit. But she didn't know why and, consequently, she
was steaming.

She slammed the phone back in its cradle with
childish temper, thinking of how much she loathed answering
machines.

Evening had arrived. Auntie Lil sat in the
darkness of the Homefront office and glared out onto the crowded
street. How dare all those people rush past without a glance, while
she was stuck in here? Where was Annie and who the hell had the
keys? She ought to just walk out and damn the consequences of an
unlocked front door. There was nothing for her here. She was
wasting her time.

It occurred to her that Bob Fleming might
keep an extra set of keys in his desk. She opened the top drawer
and searched through it hopefully, encountering coffee shop packets
of sugar, ketchup, jelly and salt; a supply of tattered paper
napkins; three cough drops; some loose straws; and an upturned
plastic box of paper clips. No keys.

Then it hit her. Good God. She was getting
old. Why was she sitting here pouting? She was being handed a
golden opportunity to rummage through all of Homefront's files. It
was nirvana to someone as exquisitely nosy as she: one large desk,
two large file cabinets, all kinds of dark corners and countless
messy piles of documents. All for the taking. She glanced once more
at the front doorway and briskly set to work.