became involved simply through the misfortune of having rented an apartment in a building that was soon after bought by Worthington. First, she refused to move out when he embarked on his campaign to rid the building of anyone but his cronies. Then, when she noticed the activities taking place next door, she turned out to be a whole hell of a lot sharper than he had bargained for. She became particularly disturbed when she saw that children were involved. Being a decent woman, unlike so many others in this story, she still considered the two boys as children. She made friends with them, according to Little Pete, and tried to get them off the streets. When that failed, she caused Worthington trouble in some way and he ordered Rodney Combs to kill her in as anonymous a fashion as possible. We believe this was to deflect attention away from his building and to make it difficult for us to track her movements. Worthington was, in fact, hoping her death would be ascribed to a heart attack or stroke. And he felt sure that, without an identity, no family would ever step forward to ask for an autopsy or investigation. It was very important that Emily's identity be concealed, Miss St. Claire tells me. But she is vague as to why this is so. Rodney tells a similar story. Neither one of them seemed to care why Worthington wanted Emily dead. They just went along."
"Why do you think she had to die anonymously?" Herbert asked Detective Santos.
He drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "I think maybe your friend, Emily, started calling city agencies and complaining about the use of the young boys. She probably got ignored because our agencies are so overworked and the kids aren't in a home situation and enforcement is pretty much impossible. So maybe she went too far, tried to get photos or some other kind of evidence on Worthington. Or, she may have threatened him with an old law still on the books from the early 1900s that authorizes New York City to seize a building used for 'bawdy' purposes. I don't know for sure. But I suspect that she probably made the mistake of directly confronting Worthington or, even more foolishly, informing him that she had tried to turn him in to every department and official she could think of. She may even have said that she was going to start warning potential backers away."
"Or said she would go public," Auntie Lil chimed in. "We found clippings of Margo McGregor's columns in her pocketbook."
Santos stared at her. "In that case, I'll have to have a word with Miss McGregor." He did not sound entirely displeased at the prospect. "At any rate, any one of these reasons could have triggered the order for her death. Worthington had a lucrative gig going and he didn't want it threatened."
"She had to die without a name in case her name rang a bell with people in those city agencies. As may have happened if her name had been widely reported with her death," Auntie Lil realized. "That would have raised the possibility of a connection to him and the chance that her death was not entirely natural. That's why he had The Eagle remove all traces of her identity from her apartment— just in case they traced her back to there. And then, of course, he moved one of Sally's friends into her apartment as a cover. So far as they were concerned, Emily never existed."
"Probably," Santos agreed. "In fact, I don't think they had even counted on anyone knowing Emily's stage name, either. I don't think he realized that she had friends. She kept to herself so much, except for the soup kitchen. He underestimated her life. And her friends." He complimented them with a small nod of his head.
"I hope you're calling around the agencies, now," Auntie Lil pointed out. "She may have used her real name to report his activities."
"We' re on it," Santos confirmed patiently. "Believe me, we're already on it."
"But how does Bob Fleming tie into Worthington?" T.S. asked.
"Well, frankly, that appears to be Miss Hubbert's fault." Santos looked at her sternly from over the top of his notes. "Worthington was already pretty pissed at Fleming because he sometimes took kids off the street that Worthington needed for his own purposes. But he was willing to live and let live, as I understand he loves to say, until he heard that Fleming was