But the tea was instantly forgotten when a new thought hit her. Suppose it had been Timmy or Little Pete who had accused him? Suppose it was all tied together?
She changed directions and marched resolutely toward Fleming's Homefront office. If anyone was in, she'd try to find out more.
The door was locked and the lights out in the front office. But Auntie Lil could see a figure in the back, head down on a desk. She knocked and when she got no response, she proceeded to try and bang the door down with her pocketbook. After several seconds of ear-deafening assault, the figure rose and drifted her way.
It was Annie O'Day and she had been crying. A lot. The stained cheeks and puffy eyes seemed horribly out of place on her previously cheery and healthy countenance. "You've heard?" she asked glumly as Auntie Lil barged inside.
"I did and I'm having trouble believing it." Auntie Lil looked around to make sure that they were alone. "Lock the doors."
"I just did," Annie mumbled in reply as she led her inside. "Let's sit in back. I'm beginning to like the darkness."
"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