A Motive For Murder Part 2

"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 detemining 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 circ.u.mstances."

"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 ent.i.tled 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 d.a.m.n 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 a.s.sist you," Glick added.

"No, you will not," Auntie Lil corrected him. "How can we expect to appear impartial if one of the suspects a.s.sists 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 a.s.sent 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 pet.i.te 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 b.u.t.ton 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 understand, 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 notebook 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 ident.i.ty. 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. .h.i.t 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.

"Believe me, some of them are."

"Where is the child's mother?" Auntie Lil asked. "Why has no one heard of her?"

"That's an interesting story," Margo admitted. She checked her watch and began to speak even faster. "The mother and father divorced a few years ago, apparently over the future of their oldest son and biggest a.s.set- Mikey. It seems that Mom was not keen on nonstop exploitation of Mikey and was worried about the effect of all the attention on his younger brothers and sister. But Dad was adamant on cashing in while the cashing in was good. So they split. There were a few other reasons, too, I understand."

"A few other very female reasons?" Auntie Lil guessed.

Margo rolled her eyes. "Some women go for the ponytail-and-gold-jewelry look. Me? I like wrinkled Irish faces and scraggly beards."

"Why did you run the story on Fatima Jones when you did?" Auntie Lil asked. "So close to opening night?"

"I didn't know about it until then," Margo explained. "When my source came to me, they let me know that Ben Hampton knew about it. I knew the good Reverend would make a big deal out of it. I also knew that it would be a real coup for me if I could get my column out first, making it look like Hampton had responded to my story. It doesn't hurt to look like you have a lot of influence, even if you don't." She smiled modestly, although she was fully aware of the very real clout she wielded. "So now it's your turn," she told Auntie Lil. "What do you know that you're not telling me?"

Auntie Lil described the murder and the way the body had swung first behind the set windows and then in front. "I am convinced that he was killed earlier in the show, perhaps strangled manually by the extra rope attached to the Christmas tree's counterbalance. The killer made a noose out of this rope, figuring that once the tree started to descend, he could cut the counterbalance free and the rapid fall of the tree would jerk Morgan's body onto the stage. It worked, but not well enough for the killer. I think he or she was waiting in the wings and, during the confusion of the Christmas-tree lights exploding, grabbed the hanging body and gave it a good shove to send it center stage."

Margo stared at Auntie Lil. "That's a pretty dramatic gesture," she said. "Not to mention extremely risky if you want to stay anonymous."

Auntie Lil nodded. "I know. Someone wanted this to be a very public murder."

"What else?" Margo demanded.

Auntie Lil shrugged apologetically. She was not about to let Margo know about the tufts of cotton worked into the rope fibers. "Just that anyone could have found their way backstage. There are at least four fire-door exits opening on to separate sides and back alleys and none of them are locked during a performance. Any one of the fifty or so protesters could have slipped inside and done it. Or anybody backstage. Or a tourist pa.s.sing by, for that matter."

"h.e.l.l of a New York City souvenir," Margo remarked. "You'll give me more when you get it?"

Auntie Lil nodded. "And you'll call me with the same?"

"Agreed." The tiny columnist rose, her five-foot frame giving off a power that exceeded her physical limitations. "Be careful," she warned Auntie Lil. "You remember what happened last time?"

Yes, Auntie Lil still remembered the sharp point of a knife twisted cruelly in her side the last time she and Margo had found themselves on the same case. "I'll be careful," she promised.

Auntie Lil left the coffee bar knowing a lot more about Bobby Morgan but very little about the possible ident.i.ty of Margo McGregor's source.

But what was it the columnist had said about having to run the story because she knew that Ben Hampton had been alerted as well? If someone had leaked the news to the Reverend Hampton, it didn't guarantee that the informer was black, but it did indicate that the possibility was worth pursuing. Besides, using the chalkboard at the emergency board meeting earlier that day had reminded her of someone easily overlooked. She remembered the placid face of the maintenance man and the timing of his entrance at the acrimonious vote meeting. Had he been listening at the door?

Lincoln Center was no more than a four-dollar cab ride away. She decided to ask him for herself.

Auntie Lil camped out at the service entrance to the State Theater and shanghaied the man she had discovered was named Calvin Swanson. He was in a hurry to get home after a long day. But the maintenance man did not seem surprised to see her. "Evening," he said, tipping his hat back on his head.

"I'm Lillian Hubbert. I'm on the Metro's board of directors. May I talk to you privately?" she asked without preamble, figuring correctly that he was a man who wasted neither words nor actions.

"About what?" he said carefully, his eyes searching Amsterdam Avenue for a bus he could take home to the Bronx.

"Look, I'll treat you to a cab ride home if you'll just agree to talk to me for a few minutes about Fatima Jones and the vote to replace her in The Nutcracker."

"Fatima?" He sang her name like he was at a gospel meeting. "What do I know about that girl except that she's a fine dancer?"

"Oh, come on, Calvin," Auntie Lil insisted as she managed to block a frantic executive with her hip and flagged a pa.s.sing cab to a screeching halt with a well-practiced wave. Calvin opened the door with supreme satisfaction and a polite nod to the apoplectic businessman. Auntie Lil climbed inside first and waited for Calvin to give his address to the irate driver. Cabbies liked to stop for little old ladies in New York City; they did not like to stop for large black men. The driver, highly suspicious of his pa.s.sengers, slammed the plastic divider between the front and back seats shut in defiance, leaving Auntie Lil and Calvin to exchange a knowing glance.

"Nice change to be taking a cab," Calvin said.

"I bet," Auntie Lil agreed dryly.

Calvin decided he liked the old lady's att.i.tude. "Miss Hubbert, I can't help you. I have merely watched the girl practice. What could I tell you about Fatima Jones that you don't already know? Just because we're both black doesn't mean we're related."

"I know that." Auntie Lil paused. "Someone leaked the details of the board's vote to oust her to the press. I think it might have been you." She stared at Calvin's face carefully as she spoke, hoping to read new information there.

His face remained blank and he shook his head. "Not me. I do admit I heard what you were talking about that day." He shrugged apologetically. "Could hardly help it. If you don't mind my saying so, you do talk very loud."

Auntie Lil nodded. She was famous for her booming voice.

"I may even have listened in a bit at the door afterward and I can't say I agreed with the decision," Calvin added. "But I wasn't surprised. And I certainly didn't call the press."

"But surely you know something," Auntie Lil asked. "You work throughout the building every day. People may not notice you because you're so familiar. They might have talked while you were around."

"They might have," he agreed. "But just because they don't know how to keep their mouths shut doesn't mean I don't."

"Please, Mr. Swanson," Auntie Lil pleaded. "I worked hard to stop them from taking that role away from Fatima and now I'm working hard to find a killer. The two events may be related. Don't you know anything that might help?"

"Like what?" Calvin settled back for the unexpected luxury of pa.s.sing over the Harlem River by car. Even the sluggish murkiness of the river below them seemed to sparkle in the reflection of the arriving sunset.

"Have you seen anyone talking to the press?" Auntie Lil asked. "Did you notice any board members leaving the meeting and running right for the pay phone?" She knew this last scenario was absurd, since no one would be so obvious. Of course, she had wanted to be that obvious, but Theodore had stopped her.

"By the press, you mean that columnist who broke the story?" Calvin asked. "Or do you mean any press at all?"

"Anything!" Auntie Lil declared in desperation.

Calvin rubbed his hands on his well-worn jeans. "I guess if I were you," he finally said. "I would talk to that lady who runs the rehearsals."