A Motive for Murder

by Gallagher Gray

  When a call came early the next morning announcing an emergency meeting of the Metropolitan Ballet Board that afternoon, she readily agreed to be there. Perhaps she could pick up more information on Bobby Morgan’s death.

  The conference room was strangely quiet when she arrived. Board members sat glum and silent, exhausted after battling their way through the phalanx of reporters and film crews camped out in front. Lane Rogers did not even bother to glare at Auntie Lil. She simply sat at the head of the long conference table gazing down at her notes. Her face was drawn and white. Either dozens of new wrinkles had appeared around her reddened eyes over–night or she’d been too upset to follow her usual makeup regime.

  “Let’s get started,” Lane said abruptly. “Someone lock the door.” Ruth Beretsky scurried to do her bidding.

  “Lock the door?” Lilah asked. “Are we in danger?”

  “In danger of being overheard,” Lane answered ominously. Many of the assembled group turned to stare at Auntie Lil, correctly interpreting the accusation for what it was.

  “I did not inform the press about the Fatima Jones decision,” Auntie Lil said firmly. “And I most certainly did not murder Bobby Morgan.”

  “Indeed,” Hans Glick added. “The matter of Fatima Jones seems to me to be a moot point. Have you seen the newspaper today?” He held up a handful of lurid headlines. “We have gone overnight from being a respected institution to being a ‘hotbed of intrigue’ as one despicable rag called us.” His outrage was genuine. Any event out of Glick’s control enraged him. “We must do something to regain our respectability.”

  “We can try to repair the damage,” Lilah pointed out. “But if the murderer turns out to be someone in the organization, then we will be right back where we started.”

  “Someone in the organization?” Raoul Martinez bellowed. “We are artists, not murderers! Are you implying one of my dancers is at fault?”

  “It was someone backstage,” Lilah answered calmly. “I should think that is obvious.”

  “Anyone had access to backstage,” Martinez countered. “The outer doors are not locked during performances and the security is laughable. I have been saying for months that too many unauthorized individuals are being allowed where they don’t belong.”

  “You have been trying for months to have board members banned from backstage,” Lane corrected him. Her eyes slid involuntarily to Hans Glick. “I can understand your desire to keep interference to a minimum, but we do, after all, guide the Metropolitan Ballet.”

  “So what we are saying is that the murderer is most probably a member of the company or the crew,” Auntie Lil said brightly. “Or a member of the board.” Every face turned to her in horror.

  “It certainly seems logical to me,” she continued. “Of course, I am a bit more experienced than the rest of you in such matters. You think none of us are capable of murder because we live in nice homes and have money in the bank.” She folded her hands neatly in front of her. “My dears, we are each and every one of us capable of murder.”

  Silence greeted her. Hans Glick was, of course, the one to break it. “I will tell you what we should do,” he said. “We must hire a private investigator for a great deal of money to get to the bottom of this. We will leak our hiring of him to the press and it will seem as if we are very serious about determining who the culprit is, regardless of their possible position.”

  “I thought we were very serious about determining who the culprit is,” Lilah said dryly. Glick looked away.

  Auntie Lil stood and walked to the chalkboard Glick was so fond of using, unable to resist the impulse. “Nonsense,” she said. “We are not paying anyone anything. I intend to solve this mystery for free.” She drew a large question mark in the middle of the board and a large dollar sign beside it. She tapped the question mark. “Who is best qualified to determine the killer? That’s obvious. I am. I have done it before, I am part of the organization, and…”—she drew a heavy circle around the question mark— “…I am happily devoid of any preconceptions as to the guilt or innocence of anyone I meet, believe me. However, our responsibility for controlling this mess must not stop with helping to solve this murder.” She tapped the dollar sign before dramatically erasing it as if it were an obscenity. “Some of you may believe that the matter of Fatima Jones will go away, but I can promise you it will not.” She locked eyes with Lane Rogers. “For one thing, the two matters could very well be related.” Auntie Lil walked back to the table in the shocked silence that followed this remark. “Until that is determined, I think it would be wise to correct the error of our ways as soon as possible. Fatima Jones should be given the role she deserves. As Mikey Morgan will surely not wish to continue dancing now that his father has died onstage, as it were, he should not be a problem—if he was the problem in the first place.”

  “But think of the crowds,” Hans Glick pleaded. “Granted this publicity is regrettable, but we sold out for the entire run this morning. People will be expecting him to perform. If we replace him, we may find ourselves with a flood of refund requests.”

  “If you are suggesting that we keep Mikey Morgan in the role so that thrill-seeking ghouls can sit there and stare at him, you are very much mistaken,” Lilah said quietly. “I will not allow it. It is unseemly, it is inappropriate, and it will not go over very well in civilized circles. I can guarantee you that I will resign from the board. I will withdraw my funding. And I will make sure my friends do the same.”

  Auntie Lil was astonished. Ultimatums were not in Lilah’s repertoire. Yet she sounded as if she meant every word she said.

  “I mean it,” Lilah added firmly, meeting Auntie Lil’s eyes. “Children should be children and this young man is not going to continue dancing given the circumstances.”

  “Rudy Vladimir will step into the Drosselmeyer and Prince roles,” Martinez said quickly, visions of his salary being cut in half flashing through his mind. Lilah was one board member who believed that artists should be paid enough to live well. “That leaves the way open for Fatima Jones to dance Clara. I can move Julie Perkins to a lesser role. She injured her foot last night anyway. That can be my excuse.”

  “What about our legal exposure?” Lane Rogers brought up. “We have a contract with Mikey Morgan.”

  Glick cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Actually, the contract is not yet been signed. There were some problems.” He blinked and one corner of his mouth twitched. “I had not yet reached an understanding with the young man’s father as to the exact percentage of the gate that he would be entitled to.”

  “What?” Lane asked sharply. “We don’t give dancers a percentage of the receipts. This is not a rock concert. Who authorized you to pursue such an arrangement?”

  “I am the board member in charge of business affairs,” he said with dignity. “It is certainly within the realm of my authority.”

  “You better be damn glad you didn’t sign that contract,” Lane snapped back, a hint of her Yonkers accent returning.

  Auntie Lil was in a hurry to find the killer and in no mood for a political debate. “Good. It’s settled,” she said, heading off a power struggle. “Fatima takes over as Clara. Rudy will dance the roles of Drosselmeyer and the Prince. And I will be the board’s official representative in the matter of Bobby Morgan’s death.”

  “And I will assist you,” Glick added.

  “No, you will not,” Auntie Lil corrected him. “How can we expect to appear impartial if one of the suspects assists in the investigation?”

  “See here,” Glick protested. “Why am I a suspect and you are not?”

  “Because I was sitting right up front in full view of three thousand people when Bobby Morgan was killed,” Auntie Lil explained logically. “I am sure there are many witnesses in this very room who saw me.”

  A murmur of assent rose from the back of the room. It was true: Auntie Lil had been pretty hard to miss in that purple getup she’d had on.

  “I protest,” Lane said firmly. “
You have no right to such power.”

  “Oh, let her,” a woman suggested from the back of the room. “It will get her out of our hair.”

  Ruth Beretsky cleared her throat and the entire board turned to stare. She shrank from the scrutiny but gathered her courage to speak. “I don’t see why we can’t accept Miss Hubbert’s offer,” she said. “She isn’t asking for money. She has experience. And a man is dead, after all. I think it’s rather generous of her to offer, myself....” Her voice trailed off as the full impact of Lane’s glare sank in, but Ruth still managed to hold her chin defiantly high and refused to reverse her opinion.

  “Let’s vote so we can go home,” someone suggested. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “I’ll not have her interfering,” Lane began, but was overruled by other voices calling for a vote.

  Before Lane knew what had happened, the vote had been taken. Auntie Lil’s plan was approved and the meeting was adjourned.

  “Wait!” Lane cried out as board members streamed for the door, eager to get back to their murderless lives. “What about the leak? Someone here is a spy. Someone is talking to the press. I demand we find out who it is!”

  Her words were in vain. The board members had scattered. Not even Ruth Beretsky stayed behind to agree.

  Despite her seeming indifference, Auntie Lil was just as eager as Lane Rogers to determine Margo McGregor’s source for her newspaper column on Fatima Jones. After all, she thought it might relate to Bobby Morgan’s murder. So she took the direct approach. She arrived at the Manhattan offices of New York Newsday and refused to leave the waiting room until the newspaper located Margo. Jimmy Breslin spent a few minutes hovering behind a potted palm while he evaluated Auntie Lil as potential fodder for his own Runyonesque column, but when she seized the opportunity to take a catnap and began to snore, he slunk away in disappointment.

  The harried receptionist finally located Margo in a third-floor snack area. “Why didn’t you return my calls last month?” the petite columnist asked as she hurried out to greet Auntie Lil. “First your nephew calls me and leaves a dozen urgent messages and then I don’t even get a call back from either one of you?”

  Margo McGregor was pint-sized but she carried a lot of weight in city press circles. It was rumored that the mayor sent her a dozen roses each week just to stay on her good side. His strategy was hopelessly old-fashioned and seldom worked, but the poor man kept trying. Roses did not dissuade Margo McGregor. Not even a Scud missile would cause her to miss a beat. She was a human wolverine. Her deceptively friendly face twinkled out at readers complete with button nose, friendly eyes, and an innocuous schoolgirl flip to her short brown hair. But she was one of the most sarcastic—and skilled—investigative reporters on any of New York City’s dailies. She had brought down much bigger organizations than the Metropolitan Ballet and would not hesitate to use her wit and wiles against the pope himself if she felt he deserved public exposure for a betrayal of ethics or trust.

  “Let’s go somewhere for coffee,” Auntie Lil suggested, certain that the single best place in the world to be overheard was probably a newspaper waiting room.

  “Sure. What’s on your mind?” Margo did not hurry Auntie Lil. She knew from experience that the best way to get information from a source was to let them take their time and work out their fears at their own pace.

  “I’ll tell you when we’re alone,” Auntie Lil promised as they made their way into the hordes of busy strangers clogging Forty-second Street.

  “No problem,” Margo agreed. She wholeheartedly supported Auntie Lil’s paranoia.

  “I did have T.S. call you about the Fatima Jones matter last month,” Auntie Lil admitted once they had settled in a crowded coffee bar near Times Square. The seats were metal and uncomfortable because, as usual, groups of younger people already occupied the few plush, living-room-style arrangements dotting the room. Manhattan had lately sprouted numerous such coffee bars, ostensibly as havens for the hurried and weary. In reality, more tempers were irked than soothed by the jockeying for good seats that went on in these Java joints.

  “So what happened?” Margo asked. “He never called me back. Why the change of mind?”

  “I chickened out once the vote was taken. My nephew convinced me that it would be better to let it go, that it might harm the Metropolitan more than I intended.”

  “It probably will,” Margo agreed. “But from what I under–stand, it will not be your fault. You voted against it.”

  “You’re well-informed. And I need to know who told you about the vote,” Auntie Lil said. “Your source may well be connected to the murder of Bobby Morgan last night.”

  “I wondered,” the columnist admitted, pulling a small note–book from her backpack. “Tell me what you know about the murder.”

  Auntie Lil shook her head firmly. “You tell me who your inside source is first.”

  Margo gazed at Auntie Lil from above the rim of her coffee cup, her eyes an innocent blue. “Miss Hubbert, you know that there is no way that I am going to give you the name of my source. That is my livelihood. All I have is my word when it comes to building trust with people. I wouldn’t give the name to the Supreme Court itself and I am certainly not giving it to you.”

  Auntie Lil considered herself more important than the Supreme Court, but knew better than to argue. She had a more roundabout method in mind. She sighed heavily, as if the burdens of the world were just too much for her. Taking a handkerchief from the depths of her enormous pocketbook, she patted her brow daintily. “It’s very distressing, this entire matter. I am merely attempting to help the Metro board out of a tight spot and do the right thing.”

  Margo McGregor was not in the least bit fooled. She had seen Auntie Lil in action. “What’s the deal?” she demanded. “What’s the trade?”

  Auntie Lil stuffed her hankie out of sight and pulled out her own notebook. Pen poised above a clean page, she began firing questions. “Can you tell me some facts that weren’t in the paper about the Fatima Jones incident? Could you help me out without divulging your source? Do you know who on the board approached the Morgans about Mikey dancing or was it really the other way around? Tell me what you know and I will tell you what I know about the death of Bobby Morgan.”

  Margo thought it over while she sipped her coffee. Auntie Lil was content with her latte, a concoction of coffee and steamed milk. She had long ago discovered that the only difference between a latte and a cappuccino was a lot of hot air. Quite naturally, she avoided the hot air. “Well?” she finally asked, impatient as always.

  Margo shook her head. “I am a fool to do this,” she admitted. “But just in case you come up with something good, here goes. But I get to hear it first if you uncover anything about the murder, no matter who is involved. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Margo flipped back to some well-worn pages near the front of her notebook. Auntie Lil tried without success to read the writing upside down in hopes of finding a clue to her source’s identity. Margo, well aware of Auntie Lil’s tricks, pulled the notes closer to her chest and smiled. “Bobby Morgan approached the board,” she told Auntie Lil sweetly. “Hans Glick, to be specific. It was Morgan’s idea to put his son in the role and he said it was because his son was at that awkward stage between child star and adolescent. He thought legitimate stage credits and a little seasoning would help his son make the transition more smoothly. Also, he was adamant about no Fatima Jones being in the show from the very beginning, but no one seems to know how he knew about her in the first place.” She looked up at Auntie Lil. “What you have to remember about Bobby Morgan is that he had his own agenda here. He was a student himself at the Metro thirty years ago and didn’t do very well. When he was plucked from the student ranks to audition for a new sitcom back in the sixties, he was one of two Metro students to get a part. The other had stage experience as well. Bobby Morgan left dancing behind to try to become a child star. For a while he succeeded. His sitcom ran for a good eight
years and he was a big television star in his own right during the late sixties and early seventies. Until he turned eighteen.”

  “What happened then?” Auntie Lil asked.

  “Talk about an awkward age. He was hit with everything most adolescents go through at age twelve. Height gain. Pimples. A month’s worth of bad hair days at a stretch. Mood swings, all that stuff. Delayed adolescence had helped prolong his appeal for many years, but when it hit, his career was over. He wasn’t cute anymore and the show had gone stale. Both his looks and the show disappeared, almost overnight. I don’t know what happened to him in the years in between, but by the time he arrived back on the scene a few years ago, this time as manager to his son, there were a lot of people who felt that the father was using the son to settle some old scores.”

  “So Bobby Morgan was also a child star?” Auntie Lil said. “Like father, like son?”

  Margo nodded. “In a manner of speaking. He was nowhere near as successful as Mikey has been, but that’s in part because he didn’t make the move into film and he didn’t have a good manager when he was Mikey’s age. I understand his parents blew most of his earnings and he didn’t have much left by the time his show was canceled. He’s been living pretty well off his son’s earnings for the last couple of years. Twenty percent of twelve million a year is not too shoddy.”

  “And he sent Mikey to the Metro Ballet School to follow in his footsteps?”

  Margo nodded. “A lot of stage parents do that, at least at first. Ballet teaches a child grace and stage presence. They also learn to work like dogs and the constant rejection of auditions is good for them. Toughens them up.”

  “Sounds like they’re breeding pit bulls,” Auntie Lil said.