A Cast of Killers (4 page)

Now who was she kidding? Auntie Lil was at
least as old as all of them and probably older than most. Not that
T.S. felt it necessary to point that out. "They were famous
actresses?" he asked instead.

"Oh no, not famous. None of them were ever
famous. They were chorus girls, maybe, or B and C parts at best. An
understudy or two for the bigger parts, perhaps. I know a few were
Ziegfeld girls. But never, ever famous." Auntie Lil sighed.
"Really, I have to admire their dedication to their art."

Maybe. But T.S. mostly admired their
dedication to their eats. They held their spoons carefully above
their chili, pinkies extended into the air with archaic
correctness. But their hands were practically blurs as they quickly
and methodically consumed their meals between arguments.

"You might be right about them eating once a
day," he observed.

"That's the story for most everyone here,"
she agreed sadly.

"Lillian!" Father Stebbins' voice boomed in
hearty congratulations behind them. T.S. jumped and knocked a chili
spoon flying, splattering the weary linoleum with a new layer of
gunk. Grumpy Fran was right behind Father Stebbins, tailing him
like a faithful dog. She stared first at the spoon and then at
T.S.—clearly, he was as troublesome as she had first suspected.

"The chili was a success," Father Stebbins
thundered on. "I knew you could do it! Just a smashing success.
Why, look at those happy campers!" He threw his arms out in the
general direction of the dining room and they stared obediently at
the mechanically munching crowd. No one looked particularly
ecstatic.

"Theodore!" Auntie Lil suddenly clutched his
sleeve in fright and pointed across the room. "That woman's in
trouble." Another volunteer's scream followed her cry.

A frail old woman, dressed much like the
other old actresses, had been sitting at a table away from the main
group. She was struggling up from her chair and her face was blue.
Her mouth hung open in speechless agony. Her tablemates stared up
mutely in mystified astonishment. Her arm jerked suddenly and
upended her plate of chili. It clattered to the floor and slid
across the linoleum, leaving a trail of sticky brown goo.

"She's choking!" T.S. cried, sprinting across
the room to her, with Father Stebbins close behind.

Before they could reach her, the old woman
clutched at her heart and fell to the floor, losing consciousness.
Her body jerked slowly, picking up steam until she was shuddering
all over in spasms that came in waves. She gasped for breath
desperately, like a fish gaffed in the gills. She regained
consciousness briefly and turned her face to T.S. Their eyes locked
for a single, horrifying second. He saw complete terror trapped
beneath the milky blue of her irises just before she arched and
lapsed unconscious again, her body writhing uncontrollably as her
breath returned in rapid, agonized rasps.

"She's not choking," Auntie Lil said. "I
think she's having a heart attack."

"I'll call an ambulance," one of the young
volunteers shouted. He vaulted over the railing and disappeared
toward the back.

"Does anyone know CPR?" Father Stebbins
yelled, his head whipping wildly from side to side as he scanned
the stunned diners watching the drama. Adelle and the other little
old ladies had risen as one from their table—they stared, paralyzed
with fear.

"Emily!" one of them croaked, a tiny hand
fluttering to cover her mouth as if she had somehow been
impolite.

"I know CPR," T.S. remembered. God, it had
been years since he'd had those Red Cross classes. What to do?
Breathe in her mouth? Thump on her chest? She was so frail he'd
crack her ribs if he did it incorrectly, and probably puncture a
lung.

Her body had stilled with an ominous
suddenness, but he knelt beside her anyway and lifted one of her
hands. It was as thin and light as a young tree limb dried to a
fire-ready tinder. He felt for a pulse and could find none. Her
veins were as thin and spidery as ink tracings. He reached under
her neck, watching as her lips quivered, then froze. Her breath
smelled faintly of alcohol. Her eyelids ceased fluttering abruptly
and opened as her whole face grew still, eyes slowing to a stop
until she stared at T.S. in permanent surprise. Even as he groped
for the carotid arteries, hoping for a pulse, T.S. knew the woman
was dead. And that nothing would bring her back. He found his CPR
position anyway, and carefully pumped at her chest, stopped, then
tasted the bitter void of her mouth as he tried to breathe life
back into her body. There was no response. He tried for a minute
more before giving up.

"She's beyond CPR," he said out loud. Auntie
Lil dropped to her knees beside him and checked for herself. She
nodded in agreement and looked up at the crowd.

"I'm afraid she's dead," she announced with
just the right mixture of concern and impersonal calm. It was a
calm that T.S. knew she did not feel. Auntie Lil was not afraid of
much but, he suspected, death headed the list. She was too old not
to realize that it lay in wait for her and she shuddered
involuntarily whenever its dark breath passed close by. But she was
also a woman consumed by common sense and she knew that the last
thing they needed was a panicked crowd pressing in around them. So
she kept her voice authoritative and confident, taking over the
situation with a practiced air. This was fortunate, since Father
Stebbins was absorbed in comforting a sobbing Fran—whose aggressive
self-confidence had conveniently fled when confronted with the
chance to collapse in the handsome priest's arms.

"There's nothing that anyone can do," Auntie
Lil announced, rising to her feet and holding up both hands for
silence even though no one had said a word. "We've called an
ambulance. They should be here any moment. And I suspect the police
will arrive as well. Everyone else might as well finish
eating."

Now that was like Auntie Lil—few things took
precedence over eating in her book. When it came to a meal, death
could just take a back seat.

Not many other people shared this priority.
Some returned to uneasily eating, but others had different ideas.
Before either T.S. or Father Stebbins could stop them, a number of
diners quietly laid down their spoons and slipped out the door with
the elusive grace of shadows. The police were not popular with the
homeless. Some avoided the authorities for good reasons, others
simply out of habit.

"Do you think the police will want to talk to
them?" Auntie Lil asked anxiously as they watched a thin stream of
people trickle out.

"Are you kidding?" a young volunteer
answered. "An old lady, maybe homeless, dies in a soup kitchen?
This one's going in the bottom drawer. Poor old gal."

"I don't think the police will care," T.S.
told Auntie Lil, placing a reassuring arm on her elbow. Her mouth
started to tremble. It had just sunk in that the dead woman was
very close to her own age.

"After all," T.S. added more gently, patting
her hand, "people have heart attacks every day. It isn't like she
was murdered."

Two ambulance teams from different hospitals
arrived at the same time, providing the assembled diners with
diversionary entertainment. As a pair of burly paramedics argued at
the entrance to the narrow basement door over who would get the
job—bumping their big bellies to prevent the other from entering—a
tiny female emergency technician wiggled between them and raced
over to the dead woman. She knelt beside her and swiftly checked
her vital signs, then shook her head and looked back over her
shoulder. "Forget it, Bobby!" she hollered at one of the arguing
paramedics. "This one's gone, anyway."

"No, I'm not going to forget it," Bobby
yelled back. "I'm tired of this guy dogging my ass. It's starting
to get personal, know what I mean?" He poked a hammy finger in the
chest of the other ambulance attendant, who knocked it away
contemptuously and made a sound deep in his throat that effectively
combined the growl of a bear with the hiss of an angry snake. Just
the kind of guys you'd want to entrust with the lives of your loved
ones.

A low murmur rose in the room and Auntie Lil
looked up nervously at T.S., but all he could do was shrug. What
was he supposed to do about it? Neither paramedic seemed to feel it
inappropriate that they were arguing over a dead body in front of
four dozen witnesses and it seemed singularly foolish to get on
their bad sides. Who would administer to him in case he got beat up
breaking them up? It was not that T.S. was a coward. He was simply,
physically, very... prudent.

"I am not forgetting this one," burly Bobby
repeated slowly, emphasizing each distinctly uttered word with a
poke in the other paramedic's chest.

"Yes, you are going to forget it. Now break
it up and beat it." This command was issued by an unseen voice
thick with streetwise New York authority. The two men arguing at
the door instantly shut their mouths and stepped back silently to
let a pair of uniformed NYPD officers enter. The first cop, a
petite brunette in a tight uniform, sniffed the odor of Auntie
Lil's chili with distaste. The second one zeroed in on the dead
body immediately. He was older and his gray hair was cropped in a
defiantly out-of-date crew cut. He looked and swaggered like a
bad-tempered Marine on the lookout for a fight. His nametag read
"King" and he looked like he took it literally.

"Who's in charge here?" he demanded of the
room, thumping a large black stick against his palm in a manner
that managed to be both bored and threatening at the same time. The
assembled group looked up at one another but no one spoke.

"Who's in charge?" Officer King demanded
again, pushing the bill of his hat up with a sausage-like finger as
he surveyed the room.

This time the crowd turned as one to stare at
Father Stebbins. The priest jumped as if someone had goosed
him.

"Dear me, I suppose that I am." He stayed
well away from the body. "It's a terrible tragedy. Really, very
terrible. God has called her home and she has answered."

"Speaking of answers, what happened?" Officer
King demanded. His interest in calls was strictly limited to those
legally mandated to suspects.

Father Stebbins' hands were shaking and he
clutched at his rosary in confusion. "She was eating and, er, she
just keeled over. Terrible thing, of course. Though she did depart
here in God's house."

The patrolman eyed the priest. "Could you be
more specific?" he demanded.

Auntie Lil and the female paramedic decided
to butt in at the exact same time.

"She's dead," said the paramedic. "Probably a
stroke."

"She's had a heart attack," Auntie Lil
declared.

The cop turned his stare to Auntie Lil. Her
multicolored head scarf had come partially unwound in the confusion
and now trailed behind her like the wimple veil of a princess in a
fairy tale. A chili smudge formed a perfect half oval on one of her
large apple cheeks. None of this escaped him.

"You a doctor?" he asked Auntie Lil in what
was supposed to be a pleasant voice, but instead caused several
people to cough in nervous anticipation.

"No, but I—"

"Then get over there with the other old
ladies." The cop cocked his head toward Adelle's table and pointed
the way with his baton.

Uh, oh. There could be big trouble now. T.S.
gripped Auntie Lil's elbow firmly and spirited her to a far corner
before she started a riot. "Don't say another word," he warned and
she abruptly shut her mouth. But the look she shot Officer King was
venomous enough to inspire T.S. to step out of its path.

The first cop was on her radio and the static
crackled in the silence of the dining room. Officer King knelt by
the dead body and talked quietly to the female paramedic. He nodded
his head, then rose and addressed the crowd. "What's her name?" he
asked.

No one answered.

"Nobody knows the deceased?" he asked again,
loudly. "What's her name?"

Still no one replied, but several pairs of
eyes slid over to Adelle's silent table. Officer King, sensing this
movement, turned and directly addressed the group of old actresses.
"Did any of you ladies happen to know the deceased?" he asked with
exaggerated politeness.

"Her name was Emily," one tiny woman finally
answered in a tentative voice, her napkin twisted tightly in her
hands.

"Emily." The cop nodded thoughtfully. "Well,
that clears it all up. Was she related, perhaps, to Cher? Or how
about Madonna?" His unexpected sarcasm welled in the room like a
bad smell.

"Her stage name was Emily something or other.
We don't know her real name," Adelle finally answered. Her stage
voice richened with indignant anger. "And you needn't be so bloody
rude," she added. A British accent crept in on "bloody" but fled
before the end of the sentence. Adelle was trying on attitudes like
clothes, enjoying her brief moment in the spotlight.

Officer King sighed and shook his head,
making it clear that few jobs were as annoying as being a patrolman
on the streets of the Big Apple. "Okay. Show's over," he said
abruptly, wagging his baton toward the door. "Beat it. There's
nothing anyone can do. The wagon's on the way."

The wagon? Mental images of gravediggers
collecting dead plague victims and stacking them like firewood on
tops of carts flashed unwillingly through T.S.'s mind. Auntie Lil
stiffened with the tightly coiled anticipation of a hyper bird dog
and T.S. was forced to grip her elbow even more firmly. Now was not
the time for a voicing of opinion.

"Some of us must remain to wash up," Father
Stebbins protested, his hand absently patting one shoulder of
Fran's—who remained apparently surgically attached to his side. Her
sobbings had stopped magically with the entrance of the police, but
she had not, T.S. noticed, stepped away from Father Stebbins.