than that. And this straw bag might have passed… but not these." She pushed a purple job and the green suede to one side. "Dig in."
Herbert opened up the straw pocketbook and emptied out the contents in a small heap in front of him, revealing a small rayon wallet, now empty except for a photo of a chubby baby of indeterminate sex. The bag also contained three pencils, a nearly empty purple lipstick, a small compact of garish eyeshadow and a $10 coupon off weekly sessions at a nearby tanning salon. "Not hers," he decided, shaking his head.
Auntie Lil was quick enough to empty out two. But the brown bag held a prophylactic and was ruled out on that basis. The other, a black one, held an address book that inexplicably contained only male names. A matching wallet was crammed with photographs, though no money or credit cards. Most of the photographs were of beefy young men in macho poses. The inscriptions on these photos quickly eliminated the pocketbook as being Emily's, in Auntie Lil's opinion.
"You're sure?" T.S. asked. "After all, this one fellow's written: 'Thanks for an evening I'll never forget.' Maybe she took him to the theater."
"It has to be the one you're hoarding," Auntie Lil insisted. "Empty it before I burst."
T.S. did not answer. He was too busy staring at the clippings he'd pulled from the small black pocketbook.
"What is it?" Herbert asked.
"These clippings," T.S. began. He spread them out across the table top.
"What are they? Just a columnist for one of the local papers if I remember right," Auntie Lil replied. She held one up and examined it. "This one is about corruption in awarding liquor licenses in Manhattan."
"This one is about a schoolteacher who beats children with a paddle," T.S. added. "And this one exposes inferior test scores of Catholic high-school graduates."
"What's so special about that?" Herbert asked. "The author is an investigative reporter, correct?"
"Correct," T.S. replied. "But not just an investigative reporter. She's my favorite reporter. Margo McGregor. I was just trying to read her column today, but she's been away on vacation."
"Well, I doubt it's important," Auntie Lil decided, scraping the pile of possessions her way. "There's no way Emily could have had a connection to any of those stories. Perhaps she simply liked to cut and save interesting articles. If this is even her purse." She quickly sorted through the small stack of items. "A tasteful shade of mauve lipstick. Could be Emily's… Here's a small pocket Bible, so we're still in the running … and… bingo! This is her pocketbook. And this is the proof." She spread out an entire handful of theater ticket stubs that had been carefully bound together with a large paper clip. "She was saving them for her collection."
"Notice what's missing," T.S. pointed out. "No wallet, no identification, no address book."
"No way to know who she is or where she lives," Herbert summed up.
"Yes," Auntie Lil agreed. "He stole this to make it harder, if not impossible, for the police to find out who she was."
"That means we're right back where we started," Herbert said sadly.
"Not quite," T.S. broke in. They looked up at him expectantly. "We now know she liked Margo McGregor's writing."
Auntie Lil did not have time to be irritated. The bartender had finally roused herself from her pro wrestling stupor and was standing by their table. "Sorry to keep you waiting," she boomed in a nasal voice. "Most people around here don't exactly expect table service. Which is good since my feet are killing me." She stopped abruptly and stared at the pile of discarded pocketbooks, then looked from T.S. to Auntie Lil to Herbert Wong. A wad of gum worked itself from one cheek, across her tongue, and into the other cheek as she puzzled the situation out. Finally, she shrugged and addressed Auntie Lil. "Now that's a switch," the bartender admitted. "Usually, it's the little old ladies who get their pocketbooks snatched. Not the other way around."
"We didn't steal these," T.S. interrupted firmly. "We found them in the trash and are now trying to determine the owners." It didn't sound very convincing, not even to his own ears. Herbert even winced and T.S. resisted the temptation to ask if he could have done any better on such short notice.
"That so?" The bartender shifted on her aching feet and stifled a yawn. "Takes all kinds, I guess. Now, what d'ya want?" she demanded with a crack of her gum. Then, noticing their expensive