emanated an unmistakable odor. Ye gads. The man was drinking straight gin. No wonder he looked and acted like hell. "Your friend was killed two days ago," he began slowly, as if warming up to relate a fairy tale. "And since that time, two more murders have landed on my desk. Murders of people with names and families and addresses. And clues. Which is no small consideration."
"In other words, Emily's death has been put on the back burner," T.S. said.
"I didn't say that." Santos held up a hand as if to stop any protests on their part. "We've sent her fingerprints to Quantico, but nothing will come of it. Not unless she has a record, which is unlikely. I've called every shelter in New York and distributed a Wirephoto of her over police wires. No luck yet, but that's all I can do. Plus, I personally investigated an anonymous tip today. Someone called claiming to have her address."
"That was no anonymous tipster," Auntie Lil said indignantly. "That was me."
"You?" He stared at her closely. "You wasted two hours of my time."
"You went to the wrong address," Auntie Lil stated flatly.
The detective fumbled in his pocket and produced his notebook. "326 West Forty-Sixth Street," he read. "Apartment 6-B."
"That's right," T.S. confirmed.
"I went there," he said calmly, sounding more sober than before. "A young girl answered, late twenties. An actress. Said she'd been living there for over three years. There was no little old lady. The apartment looked completely normal. You people are mistaken."
"The place was totally ransacked!" Auntie Lil insisted. "Didn't you see?"
Detective Santos stared at her for a long moment. "How do you know?" he asked evenly.
"Know what?" Auntie Lil demanded.
"That it was ransacked?"
T.S. intervened. "We just heard, that's all. Never mind." He kicked Auntie Lil under the table, not anxious to be booked for breaking and entering by a drunken detective. "Are you sure that the young woman lived there?"
"Look. I talked to the resident. I talked to the super. There's no old lady living there at all. Just some babe with dyed blonde hair and an aerobically fit actress body."
Auntie Lil was angry; T.S. was mystified.
"What about The Eagle?" Auntie Lil demanded. "Have you found him?"
"The Eagle?" Santos shook his head like he thought she was crazy and looked to T.S. for confirmation.
"Don't you look at him like I'm insane," Auntie Lil ordered. "A man swears he saw The Eagle behind Emily that day. He's probably the one who poisoned her."
The detective sighed. "We don't know anything about an eagle. No one we interviewed mentioned an eagle." He was quiet, staring into his drink. "My guess is that you people were given the wrong apartment number. Sounds to me like you went there. I wouldn't want to know if you did." He shrugged. "Maybe it was burglarized, maybe it wasn't. If it was, the woman who lives there doesn't want me to know."
"Why wouldn't she?" T.S. asked.
"You must be joking." The detective took a healthy swig of gin. "It was probably drug-related. What's she going to do? Report ten grams of coke missing?" He laughed as if he'd said something funny, but neither T.S. nor Auntie Lil was amused. He fell silent, staring into the bottom of his drink.
"Can't you tell us anything?" Auntie Lil demanded after a moment of fruitless silence.
Santos jumped, as if he'd forgotten they were there. "I can tell you that if this case had ever mattered in the least, they would not have given it to me." He raised his large brown eyes to them and blinked sadly. "I am not at the bottom of the barrel, you understand. I still manage to stay sober during my shift. But I'm pretty damn close. Everyone knows that I'm a drunk, no one gives me any real work and the only reason I'm probably still on the force is that the lieutenant is too stupid to figure out yet what a loser I am." He shrugged. "And that's nothing but the facts, ma'am."
There was nothing more to say. They left the detective behind and snagged cabs that could take them home and away from the Westsider as quickly as possible.
T.S. was thoroughly depressed by the time he reached his apartment. Brenda and Eddie met him at the door and he was so distracted that he opened two cans of wet cat food and they snagged a bonus feast. But he was immediately cheered by two minor developments. Lenny Melk had called and tracked down the