her true identity. And if anyone among them doubted Emily's love for drama, they've stopped doubting now: though her real name remained a mystery, her friends discovered that Emily had been poisoned. Who would bother to murder an unknown, nearly penniless, old woman? It was a puzzle that our overburdened police force could not afford to solve. But her friends would not let it go. Young and old, black and white and, yes, even rich and poor, they banded together to unravel why Emily had died.
They found that she died giving of herself to others. Emily Toujours, an old woman who only weighed 84 pounds at her autopsy, died because she tried to help two young runaway boys leave our streets. One boy was black and the other was white. Both of them called her "Grandma." There's nothing really special about either of these boys. They're the kind of kids the rest of us pass by every day. They smirk and make us uncomfortable. We, in turn, make them invisible.
But they weren't invisible to Emily. She turned to every agency, every hotline, every task force and every department in this city for help. Logs show she made more than 85 phone calls in all. What she wanted was someone, anyone, to show her a way to save two young boys from our streets. What she found instead was disinterest, apathy, discouragement and just plain exhaustion. And, like so many other New Yorkers, I am among the guilty ones.
Left to her own, Emily did what she could to encourage the boys to leave New York. She opened her home and what little money she had to two young men she hardly knew. For no apparent reason other than a belief that, even here in New York City, children should be allowed to be children.
Unfortunately for Emily, her plans threatened someone with money and power. That someone apparently paid to have her killed. But he made a classic mistake. He underestimated the determination of Emily's fellow New Yorkers. Thanks to their continued efforts and the help of a NYPD detective who can still find it in his heart to believe in justice, Emily's killers are now behind bars. In death, she beat the odds in New York City: her murder will be marked "solved."
In many ways, Emily triumphed. One of the boys is now off the streets. He has a home and someone to care for him. The other lies in a hospital bed, his future uncertain. But at least the hold of the streets has been broken, albeit along with his bones.
In other ways, Emily continues to fight. She still lies in a city locker on the East Side of Manhattan. And her friends still refuse to give up the search for her real name.
Whether "Emily Toujours" is a real name or not, Emily was definitely a real New Yorker. And her story is a real New York tale, with a moral that holds meaning for all of us: today, in what used to be the greatest city in the world, we often have no one to turn to but ourselves. If we're going to make it at all, we're going to make it by helping each other. So, for God's sake, tear those walls down.
Rest in peace, Emily. Whoever you are. And many thanks for the lesson.
New Yorkers are not a sentimental lot, especially about themselves. Response to the column was just a notch below the reaction that Margo McGregor had received for revealing that the fix was in at the last Madison Square Garden cat show. But, two days later, the column was picked up on the AP wire and landed in fifty million more homes all across America. Including a small clapboard farmhouse a few miles outside of Devils Lake, North Dakota.
Margo McGregor had just returned from a lunch date with Detective Santos when the telephone on her desk rang. Casting caution to the wind, she decided to answer. She was in a good mood—she could handle any kook in the world that day.
"Margo McGregor," she said crisply and was answered by an oddly important silence. The quiet gave way to what seemed at first to be static. Then the columnist realized that it was the sound of someone crying very far away.
"You found my mother," a muffled voice told her.
Margo McGregor broke unexpectedly into tears.
Exactly two weeks to the day after Emily's death, they held the funeral at St. Barnabas. Eva had been buried by the Franciscan