of being a dime-a-dance girl!" Eva insisted. "When she met her own husband by standing in dark alleys near the USO like some kind of pro—"
"That's enough," Adelle commanded firmly. "Perhaps you should just shut up."
"She was the one who got kicked out of the USO, not me," Eva added sullenly. "And you didn't like her any more than…" Her voice trailed off suddenly as she realized the extent of her friend's disapproval.
Officer King was staring at Eva curiously and Adelle hastened to explain. "She's talking about things that happened forty years ago," she told him. "Don't pay any attention to her. She's old and grouchy."
"And you're not?" Eva glared at Adelle angrily.
"Ladies, ladies," T.S. soothed them. "Let's see if we can't put our personal differences behind us. After all, the police need our help."
Officer King grunted, not liking the idea that he needed anyone's help. He started in again: "You're telling me that no one knows her real name? No one knows where she lives? And no one knows if she has family?" The cop stared at them incredulously.
"Why don't you use what little brains you have?" someone in the middle of the pack finally thought to ask. "She had a pocketbook on her. Why didn't you look in there?"
The cops were starting to stare at each other, exchanging distinct but unspoken messages. They were getting bored and had better things to do—like battling packs of drug addicts, a far more rewarding and productive task than battling this gang of old ladies.
"There was no pocketbook on her, ma'am," the young cop explained patiently.
"Certainly there was," Adelle answered stiffly. "She always carried a pocketbook to match her dress. It was a regular fetish with her."
"We searched the room thoroughly," the policewoman replied. "No pocketbook."
"Well, it's no wonder, the way you stood by and let someone steal it," Auntie Lil pointed out, specifically addressing Officer King. "The way you ordered us out of there, you practically handed it to the thief and held the door open for his getaway."
The cop stared back at Auntie Lil for a long moment of silence, then turned his back abruptly and headed for the blue station wagon holding Emily's body. "Okay, let's pack it in," he ordered the other officers. "That's that. We have here Miss Jane Doe, the latest in a continuing series of unidentified Miss Jane Does, laid low by lost dreams and the cruel anonymous indignities of the ever-gracious City of New York."
His blunt and meanly poetic announcement, combined with their rapid departure, had a stunning effect on those left behind. Was that it? Was there nothing else they were going to do to help poor Emily? The old ladies exchanged shocked and hurt expressions as the officers and police cars wandered away. One or two started to cry as they watched the blue station wagon peel off from the curb and head down the street.
"What's this?" T.S. asked anxiously, putting an arm awkwardly around one old lady. "Delayed reaction?" His sympathy did not have the desired effect.
"No," the woman sniffed, bursting into full-blown tears. She lay her head on T.S.'s shoulder and sobbed with verve. "But that awful policeman is right. It's anonymous and cruel. We should have known her real name. I feel terrible. They'll just throw her into the river or something." This inaccurate and alarming remark sparked new sets of tears.
"Oh, stop it, Anna, that's really being too dramatic." Adelle spoke with unenthusiastic authority and dabbed at her eyes with a hankie. She, too, was dismayed by the sudden end to events. "Surely, they'll bury her somewhere."
"Yes," someone declared through rising sobs. "In some mass grave in Potter's Field with homeless drug addicts and abandoned babies and dead convicts that no one wants."
This last statement, topping all others in dramatic impact, opened the emotional floodgates of the assembled old actresses and tears spread contagiously until nearly everyone was sobbing. Even the feuding Eva, her tears fueled by guilt, wept uncontrollably. T.S. and Auntie Lil stared at one another in dismay.
"And I thought you were overly dramatic," he whispered to her.
Auntie Lil did not smile. "I would not like to die unknown, Theodore," she pointed out curtly.
"It could have been any one of us," Adelle declared then, triggering fresh tears.
Nearly a dozen old ladies were sobbing by now and, naturally, people passing by were slowing to get a better look. Clearly, more than a few felt the group had somehow been defrauded by some sort of street con artist.