to her, as if asking her to dance, and drew her closer to the jar. Auntie Lil bent over and breathed deeply, then nodded her head. Her action was matched by the satisfied-looking doctor.
T.S. could stand it no longer. "What is it?" he demanded. "What's everyone nodding about?"
Auntie Lil stared at him in uncontained excitement. "Don't you smell that?" she said. "Bitter almonds. Just like I've read." She looked down at the jar, marveling.
"I don't smell anything," T.S. declared. He took a deep breath. Just the same acrid odors as before.
"Not everyone can smell it," Dr. Millerton explained. "Just us lucky ones." He beamed at Auntie Lil fondly.
"But that means…" the assistant said hesitantly, then stopped and looked down at the doctor.
"Yes," the tiny doctor agreed, nodding his head sagely and gesturing at Emily with a broad sweep of an arm. "This woman was poisoned by some form of cyanide. I'm absolutely certain of it."
CHAPTER FOUR
Auntie Lil did not wait to hear the details, which was just as well since Dr. Millerton immediately became lost in a closer scrutiny of the body. His assistant peered over his shoulder and they conferred together in low tones, not even looking up when Auntie Lil dragged T.S. from the room and hustled him down the corridors toward the exit. Rodriquez pursued them, exclaiming that it was his job to show them out. But Auntie Lil, who remembered each turn with uncanny accuracy, was through with the morgue and its insignificant employees. Greater things lay ahead.
"She was poisoned!" Auntie Lil hollered across the sidewalk in the direction of Lilah's waiting limousine. T.S. scurried after her, smiling thinly at a couple passing by, who stopped and looked at one another, then examined the plaque on the building's door with interest. Mystified, they continued their stroll, dodging Auntie Lil as she darted across the pavement and began to pound on the limo windows. This breach of etiquette did not faze the occupant in the least. The window rolled down slowly, revealing Lilah's expectant face. She held a nearly empty drink in her hand.
"I beg your pardon?" Lilah asked politely. "Did you say what I thought you said?"
"Indeed I did." This time, Auntie Lil did not wait for the chauffeur's help and simply climbed unceremoniously over Lilah to claim her spot in the back seat. She gave a triumphant gasp, produced a white handkerchief from the depths of her cavernous pocketbook and began to fan herself in great excitement.
"This is it," she told Lilah and a blatantly nosy Grady. "I can feel it. Fate has steered us to this puzzle, handed us this predicament. We have been charged with the egregious task of uncovering justice in her name." She pointed a finger straight at the roof of the car and smiled mirthlessly. "I'll find them. Just you wait and see."
T.S. was not sure he had ever seen that particular smile cross her face—but he was glad Auntie Lil was not his enemy. The smile glittered with a calm rage cooled to concrete by her absolute conviction that justice would be done. He pitied the poor murderer so foolish as to have poisoned an old lady in front of this old lady. In fact, he felt compelled to keep a careful eye on her as he snagged the seat next to Lilah.
"She was poisoned?" Lilah asked T.S. breathlessly, leaning so close that he could smell the warm scent of her gardenia perfume.
"That's what the doctor and Aunt Lil say. Me, I'm just along for the ride."
"Not anymore you're not," Auntie Lil promised. "And she was most definitely poisoned. We'll know more when you get us a peek at the autopsy report, Lilah dear."
Lilah nodded calmly. Obtaining an autopsy report was child's play for her. T.S. wondered jealously if the task entailed another call to the gnomish Dr. Millerton.
"I'm sure the police can handle it from here," T.S. tried telling Auntie Lil. He knew protests were useless but felt that decorum called for some sort of halt to arms.
Auntie Lil stared at him. "I'm sure the police won't care a whit."
He sighed. Once she had it in her head that she was locking horns with the New York Police Department, there was no stopping Auntie Lil. She had a point to prove and honor to avenge, thanks to a long-simmering feud between them that had started more than three decades ago when a young patrolman had had the nerve to cite her for running a red light in broad