frenzy: their tails switched back and forth, perfectly synchronized, and Brenda let out a ladylike meow.
"This morning, I am a morning person," Auntie Lil replied calmly. "How did the photos turn out? Can you see her face clearly?"
"I'll say. Our little photo exhibit made quite a stir last night. Who says culture is dead in NYC?" He slammed the refrigerator door and felt a little better. There was just enough fresh orange juice left for a single glass.
"Is that orange juice?" Auntie Lil asked with great interest. "If so, I'll take a glass."
"No, you won't." He was being rude, but he didn't care. She knew better than to wake him up. She'd just have to take her lumps.
"If you're going to be so grouchy, why don't you just go back to bed?" She stopped her scolding long enough to discover the package of photos lying on the coffee table next to his precisely aligned rows of The New Yorker and Cat Fancy. She thumbed through the stack of images with approval. "Say, these are very good, Theodore. You did a wonderful job." She looked at him from over the reading glasses she seldom wore because of her vanity. "I've been thinking about this. Our first step is to find out who she was. Then we can find out why she was killed."
"What do you want me to do?" He held up the photos and flipped through them. It would be good to dive into the puzzle and keep his mind off his personal confusion about Lilah.
"I'm going to start canvassing the neighborhood," she told him. "Show the photos around and find out where she lived. Someone has to know, even if she was very, very private. There's nothing else to go on. We need to question Adelle and her friends again, then try to track down the funny old man who saw Emily's pocketbook get stolen the day she died. We know so little about her."
"We know she was an understudy in the original Our Town," T.S. pointed out. "And that her stage name was Emily Toujours. I could go to the Lincoln Center library and check out the Playbill."
"All right. Of course, we don't know for sure she really was the understudy… and that name likely came after the show. But, I suppose we have no other choice. And it will keep you out of my way."
T.S. was slightly offended that she had not grasped the brilliance of his suggestion.
"You go this morning and then we'll meet back at the soup kitchen in the afternoon and compare notes," she decided.
"Do you really think the police will let the kitchen open up today?" T.S. asked incredulously. "After all, now it looks like someone was poisoned there."
"We don't know that for sure." Auntie Lil's chin jutted out when she was feeling her most stubborn and at the moment it looked like a Grand Canyon cliff. "They'll try to blame it on my chili, but I'm having none of that. Besides, no one died yesterday and people are as hungry as ever. They have to let us open."
T.S. shook his head. "I'd be surprised. But I'll meet you there at one.”
It felt good to have a mission again. T.S. whistled a Broadway tune as he dressed carefully in slacks, a new plaid shirt he'd prudently purchased on sale and his first sweater of the new fall season. It was the perfect library outfit—a sort of relaxed and quietly intellectual look. He selected a pair of Hush Puppies from his customized shoe rack, and chose socks that were whimsically embroidered with the logo from a Broadway show about tap dancing. He loved Broadway and all there was to do about Broadway. And now he even had a legitimate excuse to hang out at the Performing Arts Library. Why, it was even better than going into the office. In fact, he downright pitied those poor men and women still chained to their desks, marching into work like suited-up zombies each day, squabbling over petty office politics disputes, making minor decisions about unimportant matters, sitting behind their desks and accepting obsequious homage from underlings out to protect their own interests… well, he'd better stop thinking about it or he might start to miss it, after all.
By the time T.S. had emerged from the subway near Lincoln Center, Auntie Lil was hard at work just twenty blocks due south, the photos of Emily carefully stowed in her enormous handbag. She began with the handful of people