Stebbins returned, face flushed and robes in disarray. He hurried down the back stairs from the interior of the church and rushed up to Auntie Lil without any warning, nearly causing her to drop a pan of sizzling food on his feet.
"Lillian," he told her urgently, grabbing her shoulders, "I have to apologize for what I said yesterday. I was wrong. There is wickedness but sometimes it comes in unexpected forms. A terrible injustice has been done and it's partly my fault. I must do what I can to amend the damage I've wrought. I've called Fran, but there's so much more to do."
Mouth hanging open, Auntie Lil stared in astonishment as he hurried away and disappeared through the front basement gate. Then she noticed the clock. They had less than two hours until the gates were scheduled to open and probably eighty more chickens waiting to be cooked. "I think it's only going to get worse," she predicted, returning to her task.
But, thankfully, this time she was wrong. Half an hour later, Fran appeared, calmly walking into the kitchen as if she had merely run out to the corner store for some forgotten spice instead of having been missing for days.
"Hello, Lillian," she told Auntie Lil politely, displaying more manners than she had exhibited in the past two months put together.
"How nice to see you," Auntie Lil stammered back. She wanted to add "Fran," but the name stuck in her throat. After all, she was still her nemesis. Wasn't she? Everything was being turned upside down.
"What do I need to do to help?" Fran asked pleasantly. Auntie Lil was too surprised to do anything but point toward the remaining chickens lined up in a row. Fran nodded and methodically began preparing them for roasting, without saying so much as one other word and without complaining a whit about the recipe chosen.
It was all too mystifying for Auntie Lil, or at least too mystifying to untangle while juggling a dozen other chores. But the riddle was only compounded further when Annie O'Day arrived at the soup kitchen half an hour before the scheduled mealtime.
"There's an enormous woman yelling for you outside the basement gate," one of the volunteers informed Auntie Lil in a calm voice. Nothing else was likely to happen that day to faze her any more than she already was. “She looks like she lifts weights and means it.”
"That's Annie O'Day." Auntie Lil hurried to let the nurse practitioner inside.
"Thank God you're here." Annie grabbed Auntie Lil's hands in her own and, in her urgent excitement, nearly crushed them between her strong fingers. "You've got to come to Homefront right away."
"Now?" Auntie Lil looked over her shoulder. "I can't. Those people outside are hungry."
"You have to. I'll stay here and help."
"Why?"
Annie pulled her into a corner of the dining area and lowered her voice. Fran stood behind a counter and watched them curiously.
"I found Timmy this morning," Annie explained in a rough whisper. "It took a lot of doing, but he admits that he's lying about Bob. But he won't tell me who put him up to it. He said he's afraid of the police but he'll sign a paper admitting that he was lying. He's sitting in Bob's office right now. But he won't talk to anyone but you."
"Me?" Auntie Lil asked in astonishment. "I've never met the young man in my life."
"But you know his friend, Little Pete, and both of the boys think that you are a close friend of Emily's or maybe even her sister."
"Emily? What does Emily have to do with Timmy's allegations?"
"I don't know yet. But I think there's a connection. He won't tell me anything except that he's afraid. He doesn't trust anyone. I think he knows who killed Emily, but he's not sure who else knows. And who may be involved. He knows you're not involved because of some things you said to Little Pete. That's why he wants to talk to you."
"He's at Homefront?" Auntie Lil repeated.
"Yes. And he's alone. We couldn't risk leaving Bob there with him, not after what he told the police and that reporter about Bob. So Bob's at some diner around the corner and Timmy's waiting at Homefront alone. That means he could change his mind at any minute and there's no one there to stop him. Please, you've got to help us."
Auntie Lil was confused, her brain whirling with possible theories, but it did not cause her to hesitate. She had been trying