Leteisha's hair. The wig ripped off with a sticky sound like a zipper, to reveal a smooth brown scalp beneath. Her head was completely shaved.
Even the jaded officers looked stunned at the development.
"It's a wig all right," Billy agreed.
"It's a man!" Nellie corrected.
"It's Rodney!" Little Pete announced loudest of all, fear discarded in favor of anger. He stared Leteisha in the face. "It's Rodney. The man who beat up Timmy."
The cops stared at one another, uncertain what to do. Auntie Lil took advantage of their inaction.
"Rodney?" she asked, turning to T.S. for guidance.
He nodded grimly, sucking at his injured knuckles. "You know him all right," he told Auntie Lil. He gripped the long glove that adorned Leteisha's right hand and peeled it back to her wrist— revealing a large eagle tattoo adorning the prostitute's lower bicep. The eagle clutched branches in his talons as he swooped downward in fierce supremacy.
"I give you The Eagle," T.S. told the assembled group, sweeping his injured hand out like a magician's. "Behold the disappearing man."
"He is real," Auntie Lil whispered, flushing as the closeness of her own death was reinforced.
"Damn right I'm real," Leteisha shot back, struggling to stand upright. Her voice deepened and she grew more defiant as she gingerly touched her bleeding nose. The game wasn't over yet and so far as she was concerned, her name was still Leteisha Swann. "So maybe I was assaulting this lady," she told the officers. "But I was just trying to get her pocketbook. And I have no idea of who this Rodney guy is."
This unleashed another round of protests from the group until the policewoman blew her whistle for silence. Confused, but still determined to maintain his authority, the male officer addressed Leteisha Swann. "Robbery is a serious crime," he began.
"Not as serious as murder," a confident voice interrupted. The small crowd parted automatically at the sound of this new voice and Detective Santos stepped through into the clearing.
"What are you doing here?" the male officer demanded grumpily. He didn't like someone else taking over on his home turf.
"I was up the street," Santos explained tersely, nodding toward The Westsider. "I saw the flashing lights."
"I called you twice at the precinct like you asked," Billy spoke up angrily. "Fat lot of good it did her." He nodded toward Auntie Lil's bleeding leg, but Detective Santos ignored the jibe. His conscience was clear—he had warned Auntie Lil.
Santos stared at Auntie Lil then squinted at Leteisha Swann's eagle tattoo.
"He beat up Timmy," Little Pete piped up bravely. Nellie patted his shoulder in reassurance.
"That so?" Santos said softly. He scrutinized Leteisha as carefully as an exhibit in a museum. "Interesting tattoo. I believe we may have to make that charge murder."
"You've got no witnesses," Leteisha challenged him. But clad so absurdly in women's clothing, the revealed killer was suddenly more pathetic than frightening. His defiant posture and threatening tone seemed silly and out of place.
"We'll find a witness, don't you worry." A polite, deep voice tinged with a heavy Southern drawl floated out from the shadows behind them. Franklin stepped into view, his massive body clad once again in his customary overalls. Behind him, movement rippled in the darkness. An unseen crowd had gathered. The homeless who had declared the abandoned upper roadway their home had been drawn to the pier by the flashing lights and the unusual sounds.
Franklin twisted his hat in his hands and stared steadily at the killer, his natural diffidence nowhere in evidence. "I've spent all week looking and I don't plan to quit now. I'll find the man that saw you. Just you wait and see."
"Franklin!" T.S. stepped up to shake his hand. "Where have you been?"
"Been looking, that's where I've been." His head nodded toward the unseen homeless gathered in the darkness on the fringes of the pier. "I'm getting close. Met a man up here tonight who knows the old fellow who was sitting next to Emily the day she died. I'm on my way down to the Bowery for him now."
"He's our witness," Auntie Lil announced in triumph. "Franklin will find him."
"Met another man up there who saw you with Miss Eva the other day," Franklin continued softly to Leteisha. "'Course, you looked a little different than you did that day at the soup kitchen." He pretended to look Leteisha over carefully. "More like you look right now, I'd say. With the wig back on, of course. Ma'am."
Detective Santos had been watching this exchange with a patience quite unlike