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.