A Cast of Killers (55 page)

Left to her own, Emily did what she could to
encourage the boys to leave New York. She opened her home and what
little money she had to two young men she hardly knew. For no
apparent reason other than a belief that, even here in New York
City, children should be allowed to be children.

Unfortunately for Emily, her plans
threatened someone with money and power. That someone apparently
paid to have her killed. But he made a classic mistake. He
underestimated the determination of Emily's fellow New Yorkers.
Thanks to their continued efforts and the help of a NYPD detective
who can still find it in his heart to believe in justice, Emily's
killers are now behind bars. In death, she beat the odds in New
York City: her murder will be marked "solved."

In many ways, Emily triumphed. One of the
boys is now off the streets. He has a home and someone to care for
him. The other lies in a hospital bed, his future uncertain. But at
least the hold of the streets has been broken, albeit along with
his bones.

In other ways, Emily continues to fight. She
still lies in a city locker on the East Side of Manhattan. And her
friends still refuse to give up the search for her real name.

Whether "Emily Toujours" is a real name or
not, Emily was definitely a real New Yorker. And her story is a
real New York tale, with a moral that holds meaning for all of us:
today, in what used to be the greatest city in the world, we often
have no one to turn to but ourselves. If we're going to make it at
all, we're going to make it by helping each other. So, for God's
sake, tear those walls down.

Rest in peace, Emily. Whoever you are. And
many thanks for the lesson.

New Yorkers are not a sentimental lot,
especially about themselves. Response to the column was just a
notch below the reaction that Margo McGregor had received for
revealing that the fix was in at the last Madison Square Garden cat
show. But, two days later, the column was picked up on the AP wire
and landed in fifty million more homes all across America.
Including a small clapboard farmhouse a few miles outside of Devils
Lake, North Dakota.

Margo McGregor had just returned from a lunch
date with Detective Santos when the telephone on her desk rang.
Casting caution to the wind, she decided to answer. She was in a
good mood—she could handle any kook in the world that day.

"Margo McGregor," she said crisply and was
answered by an oddly important silence. The quiet gave way to what
seemed at first to be static. Then the columnist realized that it
was the sound of someone crying very far away.

"You found my mother," a muffled voice told
her.

Margo McGregor broke unexpectedly into
tears.

Exactly two weeks to the day after Emily's
death, they held the funeral at St. Barnabas. Eva had been buried
by the Franciscan sisters several days before. Now, it was time to
tell Emily goodbye.

It was a true Indian-summer day. White clouds
scuttled across the blue sky above the Hudson and private planes
buzzed down the river corridor in enthusiastic confusion. The
mournful toot of a liner pulling away from the dock signaled the
hour before noon. The assembled mourners shifted on the front steps
of St. Barnabas, unwilling to leave the bright day behind.

Among them were T.S. and Auntie Lil. They
scanned the arrivals, looking for friends. As they waited, a small
man dressed in tan with a huge bulbous nose hurried up the steps
toward them. He tipped his hat to Auntie Lil and hurried by.

"Wait," she called after him. "I owe you a
thank-you."

He shook his head, bowed deeply and
disappeared inside.

"Who's that?" Auntie Lil asked, pointing to
Eighth Avenue.

"If I didn't know better, I'd think it was
Little Pete."

Nellie was hustling the small boy down the
sidewalk, lecturing into his ear. She wore a voluminous flowered
dress that flapped in the wind and she was desperately trying to
keep her hat on with one hand while subduing her skirt with the
other. Suddenly, a gust of wind sent her dress flying up to her
waist and her hat tumbling down the sidewalk. Little Pete dashed
forward and rescued the hat inches from the gutter. He ran back
with his prize and they laughed together, heads thrown back, before
slapping their palms in a gleeful high five.

"It's going to work," T.S. predicted.

"Thank God," Auntie Lil agreed.

Nellie and Little Pete stopped to shake hands
with them before entering the church.

"You look exceptionally beautiful today,"
T.S. told her. "And Pete, my man, I have to say that you're
absolutely stunning."

Little Pete eyed him carefully, trying to
decide if he was being teased or not.

"He ought to look stunning," Nellie
interrupted. "I figure this suit took me 843 meat pies worth of
profit. Of course, Granny here ate about half of them." She looped
an arm over Little Pete's shoulders and smiled at Auntie Lil. "You
come in next week for my goat curry, okay?"

Auntie Lil agreed enthusiastically.

T.S. and Auntie Lil watched them enter the
church together. "It's gonna work," T.S. predicted again. "Hey,"
T.S. elbowed Auntie Lil, but when she saw why, she didn't mind a
bit. Detective Santos was trying to sneak in the far door of the
church and it looked like he had Margo McGregor with him. "Is that
a romantic first date or what?" T.S. asked. "He's taking her to a
funeral."

"I don't think it's their first date,
Theodore, dear. And let's just be grateful he didn't take her to
the Westsider."

"That's funny. He looks like he's avoiding
us."

"What's funny about that?" Auntie Lil
admitted. "I find it quite sensible."

"I knew I'd see you here!" Billy Finnegan was
the next to arrive and he had his entire family in tow. Megan
looked like a miniature version of her mother, but clearly hated
the full skirt of her dress. Billy's son, Michael, looked like a
miniature version of his father, down to the hair still wet from a
water combing.

"Don't you look like quite the little man,"
Auntie Lil ventured in a burst of goodwill toward the child.

Michael scowled and grabbed at his collar
with a chubby fist. "Aarghh," he gargled as if he were choking.

His mother slapped his hand away from his
collar with the speed of a rattlesnake striking. "Michael," she
warned slowly. The single word was enough. The small boy stole a
peek at Auntie Lil and stuck out his tongue.

"I'm going to be a detective when I grow up,"
Megan announced to Auntie Lil, unexpectedly slipping her tiny hand
into hers. Auntie Lil found herself deeply touched. It was such a
small and warm and trusting hand. My goodness, children were
innocent.

"A detective?" Auntie Lil echoed.

Megan nodded. "Yes. I'm going to grow up and
be just like you." She beamed up at Auntie Lil. Auntie Lil beamed
back.

"Let's go, Megan," her mother ordered, and
the small girl dutifully followed her family inside.

T.S. was staring at Auntie Lil strangely.
"You were nice to that child," he said incredulously.

"She's an unusual child with unusually good
taste for someone so young," Auntie Lil defended herself. "She
wants to grow up to be me."

"Here comes Franklin." T.S. pointed out a
huge figure headed up Eighth Avenue. "And it looks like he has
someone with him."

Auntie Lil burst out laughing. "It has to be
his brother."

Indeed it was. They were twin giants, as
alike in size and coloring as two bears.

"Mr. Hubbert, Miss Hubbert," Franklin said
when he reached their step. "I'd like you to meet my brother,
Samuel. We'll be heading home to South Carolina tomorrow. I wanted
the chance to tell Miss Emily and all of you goodbye."

"Franklin. Samuel—how nice to meet you."
Auntie Lil grasped each of their hands in turn and T.S. could have
sworn that she gulped. He even thought that he saw tears glistening
on her eyelashes.

His thoughts were interrupted by the
well-timed arrival of Adelle and her followers. The group swept
past in a flurry of black silk and rustling, not unmindful of the
handful of photographers who had arrived to capture the requisite
heartwarming shot in case no sensational murders popped up that
day.

"Black net is making a comeback," T.S.
observed.

"With that crowd, it never left." Auntie Lil
waved enthusiastically as a scurrying Herbert hurried up the steps
to their side.

"I am not late?" he asked anxiously,
straightening his tie and smoothing down his thinning hair with one
palm.

"Not at all. And don't you
look marvelous. Isn't that a wonderful suit, Theodore?
Theodore?
Theodore.?''

T.S. did not hear her. A long black limousine
had pulled up to the curb and an elegant figure was unfolding from
the back. Lilah wore a simple black knit dress and a strand of real
pearls. Her hair shone in the sunlight.

"What on earth are you looking so green for,
Theodore?" Auntie Lil demanded.

The answers to her question emerged from the
car behind their mother. Two young ladies in their late teens, each
dressed in navy, stood on the sidewalk clutching their purses and
shyly eyeing T.S. He was acutely aware that Lilah must have
described him to her daughters. He wondered what she had said.

Herbert tactfully hustled Auntie Lil inside
the church, providing T.S. with privacy.

"Theodore." Lilah kissed him on each cheek
and the familiar smell of her gardenia perfume gave him strength.
"This is Alicia. And this is Isabel."

T.S. nodded and managed a smile. Alicia and
Isabel ducked their heads together, giggling, and looked up at him
from under long eyelashes.

Any nervousness he felt was erased a few
seconds later when he distinctly heard one of the daughters
whisper: "He looks kind of like an older version of that actor,
Richard Gere."

"Yeah," said the other. "Except really,
really old."

Well, he would take his compliments where he
could get them. He straightened his tie and escorted Lilah
inside.

Vase after vase of lilies and gladiolus lined
the walls on either side of the church. The smell of flowers wafted
through the pews and sunlight streamed through the stained-glass
windows, sending tongues of red and purple and blue tumbling
exuberantly across the marble floor. The front doors were propped
open and fresh air and sunshine poured down the aisle, filling the
church with the promise of the living. It seemed more of a
beginning than a goodbye. It was appropriate for Emily.

"Look at all these flowers," T.S. said. "Who
in the world paid for them?"

Lilah patted his hand discreetly. "Let's just
say that a grateful friend of mine who no longer has to back a
certain show about Davy Crockett decided that he'd like to make a
small gesture of his appreciation."

T.S. stared at the rows of people filling the
church. Many were neighborhood residents, some were nothing more
than curiosity seekers. A few were strangers, but even more were
his new friends. He recognized many of them from the soup kitchen
and it was hard to tell the volunteers from the homeless. Everyone
was well scrubbed, subdued and seemingly at peace. Bob Fleming sat
stiffly in a shirt and tie in a front pew, next to a radiantly
healthy Annie O'Day, who looked equally uncomfortable in her dress.
T.S. smiled. They were perfect for one another. Bob would need
someone like Annie to help him rebuild.

Emily's coffin gleamed in the filtered
sunlight, its rich brown mahogany finish glowing with the reflected
glory of the stained glass.

"Good Lord," T.S. whispered. "You really went
all out on that thing. It's big enough to hold Orson Welles."

"It's my money, Theodore," Lilah reminded him
sweetly. "I have scads of it and I intend to spend it however I
like."

"Well, then why don't you throw a few
handfuls at poor Bob Fleming?" T.S. whispered. "Homefront really
needs it right now."

"I know. And I will." Lilah patted his hand
and shot him a private smile.

They found their seats next to Auntie Lil and
Herbert. T.S. was well content to sit between the two women he
loved most.

Father Stebbins conducted the ceremony with a
majestic and tasteful demeanor that surprised both T.S. and Auntie
Lil. In his skillful hands, the sometimes ghoulish ceremony of
wafting incense around the coffin was transformed into an ancient
and vital farewell to the dead. His eulogy, of course, was peppered
with cliché after cliché. After all, a leopard doesn't change his
spots. But, somehow, it all seemed entirely appropriate. More to
the point, he kept it short.

In fact, when he sat down after only a few
minutes of speaking, T.S. stared at Auntie Lil in some puzzlement.
This was not the Father Stebbins that they knew. But his reason for
brevity soon presented itself.

A small woman had been sitting quietly in the
front row. She was the kind of woman that was easy to overlook. She
wore a simple blue dress and sensible shoes. Her face was plain and
unadorned; her hair a dull brown cut in a functional bob.

No one, in fact, would have been likely to
notice her had she not risen and walked to the podium when Father
Stebbins was done.

"My name is Julia Hansen," the woman began.
Her voice was hushed but it had great strength in it. "You don't
know who I am, but I will be forever grateful to all of you for
what you did for my mother. You were the most loyal and loving
friends that she could ever have had and I see now that she was
right about New York City.

"You have shown a great deal of love toward a
woman you hardly knew. So I'd like to tell you a little about her.
My mother was not alone in this world. She was, in fact, loved very
much—by her husband and by me. She lived most of her life on a farm
in North Dakota. And I think that she was very happy. But after my
father died, there was nothing that my husband and I could do to
stop her from moving back here to New York. I don't even think that
I tried very hard to stop her. I remembered too well how, when I
was a child, she would read about all the new plays on Broadway and
how excited she would get when, sometimes, she even recognized the
name of a friend. She would take me to every touring production
that ever came through town. I knew that my mother had never, ever
stopped loving the theater.