through a friend that they've put the word out at St. Barnabas that the police need to speak to whoever sat near Emily that day."
There was a skeptical silence. "I'll see who's available to recheck the building," he finally promised. "But only because there weren't any new murders waiting on my desk this morning."
"This afternoon," Auntie Lil corrected.
He rang off before she tortured him any more.
Returning from 1515 Broadway, T.S. detoured past St. Barnabas in an attempt to find the funny old man who had first spotted The Eagle. Franklin had not yet been able to find him, but was sure he'd turn up sooner or later. There was a long line waiting for the soup kitchen to open, but no demented old characters with half of their hair shaved away. While he was there searching for familiar faces, Fran walked past him and hurried down the basement steps without giving him even a second glance. She was seriously preoccupied with some problem. And T.S. wanted to know what it was.
He followed her partway down the steps. She unlocked the gate and stepped through, forgetting to lock it again. Before she could unlock the basement door, Father Stebbins opened it for her, greeting her with a wide smile. To T.S.'s complete amazement, Fran brushed past the priest without comment. Father Stebbins stared at her with a worried look on his face, but she marched past him into the kitchen area without so much as a hello.
Now that was something, T.S. thought. But what?
Father Stebbins noticed T.S. standing at the gate. "The kitchen doesn't open until three o'clock," he told him kindly.
Not only had Father Stebbins not recognized him, he'd thought he was a soup kitchen client. So much for T.S.'s theory about the impact of the right attire. On the other hand, he decided, he should be grateful for the anonymity. He slipped back up the stairs while Father Stebbins relocked the gate. The old actresses were not in line yet. They were probably roaming the streets, gathering useless information on innocent people. Well, so long as they were happy doing their jobs, no one was getting hurt.
He cut across Forty-Sixth Street to get another look at Emily's building. If Herbert's team was on the job, he didn't see them. But he saw something even more interesting. T.S. spotted a silver limousine approaching the front of the building from the west and hurried to get a better look. He stepped into the doorway across the street and watched as it glided to a stop in front of Emily's building. A tall blonde with lots of hard angles but not much meat on her hopped out of the back seat and ran a few doors down to the corner store, leaving the car door open. A small, round head covered with thin strands of black hair and decorated with two tiny ears emerged from the back seat. It was attached to the tan of an expensive cashmere coat. Lance Worthington marched up the front steps of Emily's building and leaned firmly on a buzzer. T.S. could not see which one. The producer leaned on the buzzer again and turned away impatiently. Halfway down the steps, the front door opened and Leteisha Swann stuck her gawky neck and heavily painted face out the door as she called after Lance Worthington. The look of irritation that crossed his face was clearly apparent, even from T.S.'s viewpoint across the street. The producer shook his head gruffly and climbed into the limo. Undaunted, Leteisha Swann followed him to the car. The door was shut firmly in her face. She glared through the back windows, tossed her hair behind her head—a move that nearly dislodged her cheap wig—then turned on her spike heels and sauntered down the block toward Ninth Avenue.
So, Lance Worthington had not been waiting for Leteisha Swann. Who else in the building could it be?
"Got a quarter?" T.S.'s concentration was interrupted by a bedraggled old woman, who stood before him grinning a gap-toothed smile and extending a dirty palm. She looked like someone right out of Oliver!
T.S. fumbled in his pocket for a dollar bill and tossed it her way, returning to his scrutiny of the silver car.
"Thank you, governor. Most kind of you," the old hag cackled in a Cockney accent. "Care for a quick tickle in return?"
T.S. was shocked. He turned to her and prepared to launch into a lecture, but the old bag lady surprised him by bursting into a