A Cast of Killers (50 page)

"You've got no witnesses," Leteisha
challenged him. But clad so absurdly in women's clothing, the
revealed killer was suddenly more pathetic than frightening. His
defiant posture and threatening tone seemed silly and out of
place.

"We'll find a witness, don't you worry." A
polite, deep voice tinged with a heavy Southern drawl floated out
from the shadows behind them. Franklin stepped into view, his
massive body clad once again in his customary overalls. Behind him,
movement rippled in the darkness. An unseen crowd had gathered. The
homeless who had declared the abandoned upper roadway their home
had been drawn to the pier by the flashing lights and the unusual
sounds.

Franklin twisted his hat in his hands and
stared steadily at the killer, his natural diffidence nowhere in
evidence. "I've spent all week looking and I don't plan to quit
now. I'll find the man that saw you. Just you wait and see."

"Franklin!" T.S. stepped up to shake his
hand. "Where have you been?"

"Been looking, that's where I've been." His
head nodded toward the unseen homeless gathered in the darkness on
the fringes of the pier. "I'm getting close. Met a man up here
tonight who knows the old fellow who was sitting next to Emily the
day she died. I'm on my way down to the Bowery for him now."

"He's our witness," Auntie Lil announced in
triumph. "Franklin will find him."

"Met another man up there who saw you with
Miss Eva the other day," Franklin continued softly to Leteisha.
"'Course, you looked a little different than you did that day at
the soup kitchen." He pretended to look Leteisha over carefully.
"More like you look right now, I'd say. With the wig back on, of
course. Ma'am."

Detective Santos had been watching this
exchange with a patience quite unlike him. Now he turned back to
the waiting officers. "Take him in," he ordered tersely, pointing
at Leteisha. "I'll meet you there in half an hour."

"Just him?" the policeman protested. He
looked at Auntie Lil pointedly, then back at the detective.

"That's what I said," Santos explained
tersely. "And no one talks to him until I get there. Understand? No
one, not even the Lieutenant."

"What about her?" the male officer asked
again. He pointed his baton at Auntie Lil.

"Miss Hubbert and I will be there shortly,"
the detective answered smoothly. "After we get this little nick
here checked out." He took Auntie Lil's arm tenderly and patted her
hand as if she were a rare jewel. "I owe you an apology, Miss
Hubbert. That and a return favor. We'll stop by the hospital
first." He broke into a big smile. "You'll get good service, I
guarantee it. I plan to escort you there myself."

Auntie Lil tried to smile back but found
herself bursting into fervent tears. T.S. took her firmly by the
shoulders and made her sit on the curb. There—surrounded by her new
friends—she cried until she could cry no more. Detective Santos and
the ambulance crew waited patiently for her to finish.

Detective Santos kept his
word. Auntie Lil and T
.S.
were quickly ushered in past the hospital waiting
room crowd. No questions asked and no questions answered. Within
half an hour, the hospital was behind them and an unmarked car was
waiting at the curb. Auntie Lil climbed in front with the driver
without a word, leaving the back seat to Santos and T.S. The men
exchanged glances and both understood that she was still shaken up
by her ordeal. Santos had spent much of the time in the hospital
questioning them about their actions in the previous days.
Reviewing the events had made it all too clear to Auntie Lil that
she had no one but herself to blame for her near-miss with
death.

"Billy tried to warn me," she said suddenly
as they pulled away from the hospital and headed for the precinct.
"Every time I went into his deli, he tried to warn me."

"Billy's a good guy," Santos agreed. "I told
him to keep an eye out for you two. He called me twice tonight to
say you were still snooping around. Unfortunately, I've just picked
up the evening shift and was out on my dinner break."

It was Auntie Lil's turn to be tactfully
silent. Anyone who would take their dinner break at the Westsider
was not exactly nutritionally minded.

The driver gunned the motor and they were
thrown back in their seats as he maneuvered skillfully past a line
of taxis jockeying for lane supremacy. It shook Auntie Lil out of
her momentary reverie. She shivered slightly and turned to Santos
and T.S. "Leteisha must have been following me the whole time," she
told the two men. "I had dinner with Little Pete right in the
middle of that picture window. It was stupid of me. Very stupid."
Auntie Lil's sigh lingered in the quiet of the car and Detective
Santos changed the subject to one nearer his own heart.

"So you think the big man is this Worthington
guy?" he asked T.S. for what must have been the third or fourth
time. “And he’s a low rent Broadway producer?”

"Has to be him. It's either Worthington or
someone he knows. He's the one who sent me to that apartment." T.S.
shook his head, still unsure. He had already explained his
attendance at Worthington's party and his subsequent memory loss to
Santos at the hospital while Auntie Lil was being bandaged. Neither
spoke of the event in her presence. No sense giving Auntie Lil
ammunition with which to shoot down T.S.'s new sense of
equality.

"Think the kid will confirm who the big man
is?" Santos asked hopefully.

"I doubt it." T.S. shook his head. "Little
Pete won't stand up and say so, at least not in court. He's mad
enough at Rodney to turn on him, but he's still too afraid of the
man."

"That's okay. We probably won't need him
anyway," Santos decided. "I've got enough to bluff it out. Rodney
will roll over before the night is up. All it's going to take is
Worthington's name and a reference to two counts of murder one. His
lawyer will tell him to make a deal. He'll turn in the big man,
whoever he is, before the sun is up. They always do. That's what
those guys never figure out. They act so surprised when their
people turn on them. But when you lie down with dogs, forget about
the fleas. It's getting bit you ought to worry about."

As T.S. was untangling the detective's
metaphor, they reached the precinct. The driver pulled up directly
in front of the main door, leaving the car to block the entire
sidewalk. It was one of the few perks that cops in NYC enjoyed. A
small crowd stopped to see who was being brought in. The onlookers
seemed disappointed that neither Auntie Lil nor T.S. was handcuffed
and they walked away, grumbling. New Yorkers were hard to keep
entertained.

Auntie Lil and T.S. were allowed to wait in a
small room off the main floor. While additional detectives could
question the other pier witnesses, Santos wanted to take their
official statements personally. They had agreed to wait until after
Leteisha/Rodney was questioned, though they'd been warned that it
would be a long time.

The other witnesses were waiting a few blocks
away at the Delicious Deli until they were notified that their turn
to make a statement had arrived. Given the busy precinct, it was a
good solution. It was far more pleasant to sit in the deli sipping
coffee than to sit around the precinct watching drunks and
wide-eyed crackheads being dragged in by angry and overworked
officers.

Unless, of course, you were Auntie Lil.

Even in her subdued state, she enjoyed the
excellent view their small waiting room afforded. It was a good
spot. They could see the front reception area, but were sheltered
from the periodic chaos that inevitably afflicted Midtown North on
a Friday night.

A few minutes later, a commotion in the
reception area inspired Auntie Lil to limp to the door for a better
look. A booming voice cut through the babble of apologetic police
voices and roared, "Why didn't anyone call me in earlier?"

T.S. checked his watch. Detective Santos had
managed a whole twenty minutes alone with Leteisha/Rodney before
Lieutenant Abromowitz arrived. He hoped it had been enough time. A
flash of movement at the door caught his eye. "What in the world
are you doing?" T.S. stared at Auntie Lil incredulously. She had
slipped behind the old-fashioned door and was cowering quietly
behind the slab of massive oak.

"There is a time for discretion in everyone's
life," she whispered.

Abromowitz's heavy footsteps approached the
doorway and thundered past just as T.S. turned his back to examine
an intriguing stain on the tabletop. Perhaps Auntie Lil was right.
Having taken on a killer and a four-minute mile already that night,
T.S. was in no mood to tangle with an angry lieutenant. He waited
until the heavy footsteps stomped up the stairs and faded away in
the distance. "You can come out now," he assured Auntie Lil,
patting her chair with a smug smile. "The danger has passed."

She glared at him and sat down with aplomb.
"I didn't see you rushing out to shake his hand."

"No," T.S. admitted. "But I am going to give
Lilah and Herbert a call."

"Herbert." Auntie Lil gave a faint sniff and
it was clear that she was miffed at Herbert for being absent during
their adventure. "He's probably still out whooping it up with that
Adelle woman, who's no doubt into playing her party girl role
tonight."

"Aunt Lil, Herbert can't always be there to
untangle your messes. My God, the man is only human and you'd
detest being followed around twenty-four hours a day. Which is what
it would take to keep you out of trouble."

Herbert Wong was home and so distraught at
hearing that he had not been there to rescue Auntie Lil that it
took a good three minutes for T.S. to convince him that she was
safe and did not hold a grudge. Herbert was relieved to know that
she was safe, but unfooled about the grudge part.

"I should not have gone to have that cocktail
with Miss Adelle and her friends. Lillian will be angry at me,"
Herbert predicted. "Her fear and pain will make her angrier."

"I can't contradict you there," T.S.
admitted. "But I'm sure that she'll get over it."

"You are there all night?" Herbert asked. "At
the police station?"

"At least for the next three or four hours,"
T.S. predicted. "They're taking everyone's story and you know
Auntie Lil—she won't leave until the end."

"But of course. There are still many pieces
missing from the puzzle," Herbert said. "And you know that
Lillian's curiosity is a powerful force."

T.S. had to agree. It was a nice way of
saying she was perpetually consumed with nosiness. "We'll call you
tomorrow with details."

"Oh, no. I am coming down. Otherwise, it will
be a year before Lillian forgives me for abandoning her. Besides,
sleep will not come. This was to be my shift for watching Miss
Emily's building."

There was no changing his mind, especially
when T.S. couldn't put his heart into it. Herbert was right. Auntie
Lil probably would hold it against him for a year. Or at least
torture him with it for a good eleven months.

He checked the time again as he dialed
Lilah's number. It was only half-past eleven and yet it felt like
at least four o'clock in the morning. In fact, it seemed as if an
entire year had passed since the day that Emily died.

Despite the late hour, Lilah was not home.
With her servant, Deirdre, away for the week, only the answering
machine was available to pick up. T.S. listened to the mechanical
invitation to leave his name and number with a sinking feeling of
acute disappointment. There was so much he wanted to say but so
little that he could actually articulate, at least to a machine. He
simply told her where he was and promised to explain in the
morning.

T.S. was so absorbed in his misery that he
nearly ran down a petite woman blocking his path back into their
room. "Sorry," he mumbled, slipping past her. Auntie Lil still sat
at the table, staring into her coffee. Until the caffeine kicked
in, she'd have little energy for anything else. T.S. rejoined her
without a word, consumed by frustration and despair over Lilah. He
felt himself being watched and, after a moment, looked up to find
the small woman still there. She was eyeing them curiously.

If she could forego manners so blatantly, so
could he. T.S. stared back. She looked relatively normal but, for
all he knew, she'd been brought to the precinct for pushing people
in front of subway cars. She was about forty or forty-five years
old, and just slightly overweight with a broad, round face and
bright dark eyes anchored in a fine sea of laugh lines. Her
medium-length black hair was touched with gray in spots and cut
shoulder length. It flipped up in a smooth wave at her
shoulders.

She looked familiar but he couldn't quite
place her. "Do I know you?" he asked loudly.

The woman stepped into the
room and sat down. "I'm Margo McGregor," she told him in a
confident voice. "I'm a columnist for
Newsday.
I got a tip that someone
was murdering old ladies around here. Is she involved?"

Of course. When she nodded toward Auntie Lil,
T.S. recognized the slight smile from her newspaper photo. But
other than the grin, it was obvious that the photograph was at
least ten years out of date. That depressed T.S. even more. He'd
had a crush on an illusion, a silly old man's crush.

"If I was involved, I wouldn't tell you,"
Auntie Lil said calmly. "You have no manners. I've called you at
least a dozen times in the past two days with vital information and
not once have you tried to call me back."

The columnist looked to T.S. for help, but he
was too exhausted to come up with more than a halfhearted, "Now,
Aunt Lil."