A Motive for Murder

by Gallagher Gray

  “How do they know my number?” he asked as the fourth frantic message from a board member was recorded for posterity on his answering machine.

  “I put you down in case of emergency. I guess Lane Rogers considers this an emergency,” she said glumly.

  By midnight, his entire supply of answering-machine tape had been used and still no word yet from Lane Rogers or, worse for T.S., from Lilah Cheswick.

  “Lane’s probably waiting in a car outside my apartment,” Auntie Lil said. “Hoping to run me down.”

  “Anything’s possible,” T.S. said as he finally unplugged the telephone.

  “I don’t know if I can sleep,” Auntie Lil admitted, staring at the now blank television screen.

  “Then spend the time thinking of what you’re going to do to get out of this mess,” T.S. suggested as he swept out of the living room intent on sleep. There were some problems she’d have to solve on her own.

  10

  T.S. watched Auntie Lil use most of a tub of cream cheese on a single half of bagel. “You can’t be serious,” he said. “They’ll lynch you if they see you.”

  “Unfortunate choice of words, Theodore. I must go. I want to talk to the boy. And I haven’t time to deal with this Reverend Hampton mess. They’ll have to figure it out on their own.” She scraped the last of his sour cherry jam from the jar and eyed it with disapproval. “Can’t you buy bigger jars?” she asked.

  He removed the sticky spoon she had dropped on the bare surface of his treasured oak dining table and carefully sponged the spot clean. He put down yet another place mat, which she promptly ignored. There was no point in chastising her. She simply did not notice.

  “What can Mikey Morgan tell you?” T.S. asked.

  “That’s what I want to find out. But I better go in disguise. The board will be out to tan my hide.” She thought for a moment. “Do you still have that fedora I gave you in 1969?”

  “Still in the original box,” he said grimly. “As if you didn’t remind me of it constantly.”

  “Perfect. And I’ll need to borrow your black jacket. I’m sorry but I must insist you sit this round out. We would simply be too conspicuous together.”

  If Auntie Lil’s aim was to avoid being conspicuous, she failed miserably. Her idea of a disguise was to look like an elderly and chubby Marlene Dietrich. She tucked her wiry white hair up under T.S.’s black fedora and smoothed out its brilliant scarlet band. She wore her black crepe trousers from the day before with one of his oversized white T-shirts and his black tuxedo jacket. The odd thing was, she looked wonderful.

  Even odder, hardly anyone gave her a second glance when she boarded the crosstown bus that would take her to Lincoln Center for a matinee of The Nutcracker. Of course, this was New York City—and most of the riders’ attention went to a well-dressed man at the rear of the bus who was eating sunflower seeds, mumbling to himself and wearing a pair of boxer shorts upside down on his head.

  To Auntie Lil’s chagrin, the Metro’s rear fire-exit doors had been locked, against all regulations she knew. She hovered near a tree for cover and scouted around for errant board members. She had neither the energy nor inclination to tangle with anyone over the Reverend Hampton. Fortunately, the maintenance man, Calvin Swanson, appeared before any board members did.

  “Pssst!” Auntie Lil hissed from her spot behind a tree. She stepped out into the sunlight and adjusted the brim of the hat low over her eyes.

  “Why are you dressed up like that, Miss Hubbert?” Calvin said. “You look real sharp, but seems to me that’s evening wear you got on.”

  She placed a finger to her lips. “Avoiding the board,” she explained.

  “Can’t blame you.” He raised his eyebrows. “They got another one of them emergency meetings scheduled for today. I had to clean the room. There’s an agenda printed on the chalkboard. You’re on it.”

  “Me?” Auntie Lil asked. “What did it say?”

  Calvin shrugged. “Just your name. ‘Lillian Hubbert,’ it said, right at the top under a heading called ‘New Business.’”

  “Oh, dear,” she said absently. “They believe I’m responsible for Reverend Hampton thinking he’s on the board.” She didn’t add that she was responsible.

  “Yeah,” Calvin said, drawing the word out into four syllables. “I saw him on television last night. I was a bit surprised myself. Didn’t think the board had the gumption to let a man like that sit among them. I must say I’ve gained some new respect for the board. And what about that Swiss fellow? Think he did it? He sure did look guilty, didn’t he? Ducking his head and all.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he contemplated the possibility that Hans Glick would be sent up the river for life. “I’d like to see him try and get along with a warden, the way he keeps trying to tell folks what to do.”

  One of the exit doors opened and a pair of nervous parents scurried out to take their seats in front for the matinee. Auntie Lil stared at the door, then at Calvin. Calvin shook his head.

  “Please, Calvin,” she said.

  “I’ve got orders to keep them locked,” he explained. “From the top. That chairman lady.”

  “She’s breaking the law,” Auntie Lil explained. “Those are fire doors. They are supposed to be kept unlocked at all times. You could get in trouble if anything should happen.”

  Calvin shrugged and produced a huge ring of keys from his pocket. “Sorry, Miss Hubbert. Can’t help you. But I do need to unlock that door, come to think of it. Seems I can’t find my mop.” He fiddled with the lock and tried a couple of keys until he found the right one. The door opened with a metallic bang and he propped it ajar with a pail of soapy water he was carrying. He poked his head inside then stared across the courtyard. “Must have left my mop in the main building. Guess it will take me a good ten minutes to get the dang thing.” He headed off slowly without looking back.

  Auntie Lil was no idiot. The moment Calvin was far enough out of sight to be able to claim a clear conscience, she slipped inside the theater and hid behind the first flat of scenery she saw.

  It was quiet backstage. The show would begin in half an hour. She could hear the distant murmur of voices and an occasional thump, but the area was so immense that most of the action was taking place much closer to the stage. She stepped cautiously from her hiding place and inched along the wall to stage right. She wanted to see the spot where Bobby Morgan had been cut down.

  A group of dancers beat her to it. As she drew near, she saw a circle of figures bent over the spot where Bobby Morgan’s body had lain. The dancers were already in costume, making it impossible for her to tell who they might be. She detected five toy soldiers, several mice, and a number of young boys in nineteenth-century garb. One of the mice was using his tail as an impromptu noose and demonstrating an apparent theory on a willing toy soldier. Auntie Lil watched this charade then realized with sickening clarity that one of the toy soldiers might be Mikey Morgan. How could he reenact his own father’s murder? One of the boys spoke, eliciting laughter, and as he pointed overhead, others followed his gaze and stared up at the catwalk. Several heads nodded in agreement.

  Their meeting was interrupted, however, by the stout figure of Paulette Puccinni. She wore a peacock-blue caftan embroidered with hot-pink flowers. As she shooed them away from the spot and into place on various sides of the stage, Auntie Lil stepped behind the oversized grandfather clock used in the show to watch the dancers take their places.

  Young Rudy Vladimir padded by on soundless feet, his innate grace obvious even when he was merely walking. He was dressed as Drosselmeyer and wore a large top hat. A big black cloak flapped behind his slender figure. He scurried across the passageway and waited quietly in the wings, stage left. A burly man clad in blue jeans and a plaid shirt walked past Rudy, stopped, leaned forward to check out Rudy’s face, then walked on. The man had black hair that was thinning on top and a permanent scowl. He was wearing headphones and held a clipboard in one hand so he could check off items on a list as he
walked. He headed directly toward Auntie Lil’s hiding place but stopped abruptly to open a fuse box in the wall. He examined the fuses carefully, made a few check marks on his list and continued on his rounds. When he was a few feet in front of her, Auntie Lil stepped from her hiding place and called out to him.

  “Yoo-hoo. Young man.”

  If a woman well into her eighties dressed as a man surprised him, the crew member did not show it. He squinted and stepped closer to get her in better focus. He was either nearsighted, drunk, or quite possibly both. “Who are you?” he asked. He looked down at his list. “You’re not in the show.”

  “I’m on the board,” she explained.

  “No board members backstage,” he said firmly in a voice that was just slurred enough around the edges to confirm that he had been drinking. “New rule. Who can blame them?”

  “I just want a quick word with you,” she explained, tilting the fedora back so he could see her face. “You’re part of the technical crew, aren’t you?”

  “I’m Ricky Lee Harris, the lighting director,” he said slowly.

  “Were you working the night Bobby Morgan was killed?”

  He stared for a moment without speaking, as if waiting for a signal to be sent from his brain to his mouth. “Yes,” he finally said. “I work every opening night. Most nights, in fact. And most matinees, too. I need the overtime. What’s it to you?”

  “I wondered if you noticed anything unusual that night,” she asked, wondering if Ricky Lee Harris was all there. Perhaps his lights had fallen on his head once too often.

  “Unusual like how?” he demanded, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. “I went over this with the cops, you know.”

  Auntie Lil glanced up at the rafters. “Unusual like someone up on the catwalk where they don’t belong.”

  “Hey,” he said, holding up a palm and backing away. “I was the only one up on the catwalk, okay? Me, myself, and I. Are you saying that makes me the killer?” His tone grew instantly belligerent as he changed moods with the mercurial swiftness of the drunk.

  “Not at all,” Auntie Lil replied sharply. She had no patience with people who could not control their liquor intake. “I just need the benefit of your eyes. You were here. I was not. Did you see anyone unusual near the catwalk, even just on the third floor near its entrance perhaps?”

  He shook his head but opened his mouth at the same time, froze for a second, then snapped it shut.

  “You did,” Auntie Lil stated matter-of-factly. “You saw something, didn’t you?”

  The man stared at Auntie Lil as if debating whether to try to fool her or not. “Maybe,” he finally admitted.

  “Please tell me,” Auntie Lil said evenly. “You may be in danger if the killer believes you know something. It might be better if you tell.”

  Harris shifted the clipboard and slipped his right hand into a rear pocket. Rocking back and forth on his heels, he studied Auntie Lil. “No one saw me,” he said quietly. “I saw someone, but I can guarantee you they didn’t see me. I was hidden behind that side curtain over there.” He nodded toward a series of short curtainways stored at stage right. “I saw a guy who was sort of out of place.”

  “What did he look like?” Auntie Lil asked.

  “I couldn’t tell,” Harris replied. “It was just a guy in a cape.”

  “Why didn’t you step forward earlier?”

  He laughed and the sound was bitter. “They’d think I was hallucinating. Puccinni’s out to get me. Says I drink on the job. You think I’m stupid enough to come forward and say that I saw some tall dude in a big black cape all wrapped around him so I couldn’t see his face?”

  “A cape?” Auntie Lil asked. “Maybe it was Mikey Morgan playing Drosselmeyer?”

  Harris shrugged. “Could have been,” he acknowledged. Except his cue is on the opposite side of the stage. Hard to say.”

  Auntie Lil nodded. “Did you notice anything else unusual about him?”

  He chewed on the end of his pencil. “He wasn’t wearing the right kind of shoes. They were shiny and black. Dress shoes. That’s all.”

  “What size?” Auntie Lil asked.

  He stared at her like she was daft. “Do I look like a shoe salesman to you?” he asked, before turning and walking away.

  She was disappointed he couldn’t tell her more, but her thoughts were distracted by the scene unfolding onstage. In the final moments before curtain, Fatima Jones was practicing the timing of a difficult passage. It was the first time that Auntie Lil had seen the young ballerina dance outside the confines of a rehearsal room. The girl was impossibly lithe and as delicate as a gazelle, an impression enhanced by her creamy tan color. Her arms flowed through the air as if made of fluid, not flesh, and her long neck curved up to cradle an oval head. Her features were delicate and uniformly slender, from her thin curving nose to an exquisite mouth and perfect almond-shaped eyes. As she moved about the stage she seemed to float from spot to spot, propelled by long legs unfettered by gravity. As she executed a series of graceful jumps, a pair of young dancers scurried across the set, anxious to take their places in time for curtain. Fatima missed crashing into them by inches and drew back angrily, her eyes flashing fire. Her body rose in height as her long neck appeared to grow even longer, like a snake advancing on its prey. Her nostrils flared as she advanced on the two boys and her dark eyes pinned them in a haughty glare. Before she could scold them, they dashed away in fear.

  Fatima Jones had more than the physical requirements for a prima ballerina. She also had the attitude.

  Auntie Lil’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of applause. The orchestra was taking its place. Should she wait around and see the first act from backstage, trying to find out more about when Bobby Morgan could have been killed? Or should she take the information she had learned from Ricky Lee Harris and call it a day?

  Her decision was made for her. A tall blond man hurried toward her and gripped her elbow. “How nice to see you again,” Andrew Perkins said between clenched teeth. “But I believe we are both trespassing.”

  “Get your hands off me,” Auntie Lil whispered, shaking her arm free as she pried his fingers from her flesh.

  “You’re strong for an old lady,” he said, rubbing his hand where she had dug into it. “Don’t get excited. It’s just that I saw Martinez heading this way. I assume you know him and are as eager to avoid him as I am.”

  Being discovered by Martinez was a good reason to hurry. Auntie Lil slipped silently along the back wall toward the exit, followed by Perkins. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  He hesitated as if he were about to lie, but changed his mind. “Looking for my daughter,” he said. “Julie hasn’t been home in over a week.”

  “I know,” Auntie Lil said as they emerged into the bright light of the afternoon sun. “Want to tell me why?”

  “No,” Perkins said, turning on his heels and hurrying down the pathway to Ninth Avenue.

  She was about to follow when the unmistakable hulking figure of Lane Rogers turned the corner and headed down the walkway toward her. A smaller figure shouted at Lane from behind, and when she turned to see who it was, Auntie Lil took the opportunity to slip into the familiar bower of bushes so prized by Ben Hampton. She waited in the cool darkness, protected from anyone’s sight by thick overhanging leaves, as Lane Rogers and Ruth Beretsky walked past.

  “But you can’t have a meeting about getting rid of her without inviting her,” Ruth was saying. “It isn’t fair. You don’t even know if she promised him the seat.”

  “What do you know?” Lane said angrily. “Just shut up and do what I tell you.”

  “I know plenty,” the smaller woman cried, stopping to glare at her companion. “I know a lot more than you think.”

  “What does that mean?” Lane asked calmly.

  “I heard you talking to Bobby Morgan,” Ruth said angrily

  “That was nothing,” Lane reassured her. “I didn’t mean it.”

  �
��Yes, you did,” Ruth hissed back. Her voice caught in her throat—she was close to tears. “You meant every word.”

  “Oh, Ruth,” Lane said, putting an arm protectively around her friend’s shoulders. “You make too much of the little things. Sometimes we say stuff we don’t really mean. Come on. We’re going to be late for the meeting.” They hurried down the pathway, leaving Auntie Lil to contemplate just exactly what had been said to whom.

  “Why do you want to talk to Mikey?” Nikki Morgan asked. She was dressed in a black linen dress and wore a matching hat decorated with tiny red roses. She looked quite Italian and very beautiful. More than one man passing by slowed to admire her.

  “I’ve talked to some people who were backstage the night that your ex-husband was murdered,” Auntie Lil explained. “They may have seen an extra person. Perhaps someone who didn’t belong. I want to ask Mikey what he remembers.”

  Nikki checked her wristwatch before squinting through the sunlight at the door of the theater. “He’ll be out in about five minutes. He meets me away from the crowd so no one will know who he is. But I have to pick up the other kids from the YMCA in half an hour after their swim lessons. It’s about five blocks down Broadway.” She tapped a delicate foot against the pavement, her high heels making a firm tap, tap, tap as she thought things over. “I’ll let you talk to him for the half hour it takes me to get the other kids dry and dressed. Then we’ll meet back here. You can take him to a coffee shop or something. Buy him an ice-cream soda.”

  “Ice-cream soda?” asked Auntie Lil. “That sounds like a normal kid to me.”

  Nikki Morgan looked at Auntie Lil from over her sunglasses. “Don’t be too sure. You’ll find that he eats only brand-name ice cream and real whipped cream. And he knows the difference.”

  Auntie Lil was in agreement with Mikey Morgan on the subject of real whipped cream. Perhaps that was why she felt so instantly at home nestled with him in a booth at Rumpelmeyer’s, the ridiculously overpriced cafe on Central Park South. It was famous for its ice-cream treats and solicitous nature toward the children of rich tourists. At that particular moment, late on a Saturday afternoon, the joint was quite literally jumping as screaming children crawled over leather-back chairs, raced through the dining room, careened around scowling waiters, and knocked seven-dollar-a-scoop ice cream into their parents’ laps.