A Motive For Murder (22 page)

The newscaster spied the cast. Headline-making
theories zigzagged through her brain before tumbling from her lips.
“Sir! Did you have that cast before you were taken into custody?
Have you been brutalized by the police?”

“Oh for chrissakes, Sally,” the detective nearest her
shouted. “Get the hell out of the way! We didn’t touch the guy. Now
beat it.” Lifting Glick up in the air, his two escorts bore him
over the tangle of camera and microphone wires. One of the
detectives hip-checked the newscaster solidly as they passed. She
bounced against a bystander and right back into the trio, catching
Glick’s plaster-encased foot in her stomach. She skidded sideways
from the impact, but recovered and started after them.

Suddenly new prey caught her attention and she froze
like a pointer spotting a duck. “Follow me!” she whispered at the
camera and viewers were swept along again, rushing past sleeping
junkies and unknown drunks being hustled up the precinct stairs.
“Reverend Hampton!” the newscaster called out. “Ben! Just for a
minute.”

The figure dominating the archway into the precinct
stopped and turned to the cameras with a graceful and effective
sweep. Ben Hampton smiled broadly, at home in all his cinematic
glory. Lights blazed and the cameraman scrambled to adjust the
lighting for this well-known media icon.

“He looks different,” T.S. said. “What happened to
his hair?”

Indeed, the Reverend Ben Hampton was a changed man.
In place of his electrified hairdo was a well-cropped buzz cut that
accentuated the kingly shape of his head. He had ditched his
trademark bright tie for a subdued navy one that complemented his
tasteful charcoal-gray suit. As he held out his hands for quiet,
the entire sidewalk fell silent as if awed by his personal
magnetism. When he spoke, his voice was softer than usual, more
authoritative and less strident. It swept his listeners along like
a mighty current, pulling them toward his conclusions.

“I am here voluntarily this evening,” he explained
into the camera. “I have put the unfortunate incident of my
misguided arrest behind me and have taken it upon myself to report
back to the police with additional information I may have on the
true murderer of Bobby Morgan—father, agent, Hollywood man
extraordinaire.”

“Are you kidding me?” T.S. asked the television out
loud. Talking to inanimate objects was another Hubbert trait.

Hampton bowed his head as if he were wilting under
the weight of many sorrows. “It is a sad day in this city’s history
when no one is safe from crime. When no one—not even those of us
fortunate enough to live in the crystal palaces of Lincoln
Center—can escape random death.”

He looked out at the cameras with blazing eyes. “I am
taking it upon myself to fight crime in this glorious city of ours
starting right here and right now. I will fight it in every way and
by every means humanly possible. Tomorrow, I urge you to look for a
column in
New York Newsday
outlining my twenty-point plan
for preventing crime. A column by the talented reporter, Margo
McGregor.” The newscaster’s microphone wavered. She wasn’t keen on
letting him plug a competitor on air. Sensing her displeasure, Ben
Hampton grabbed the microphone and began talking into it as he
paced the steps. “Join me in my fight against crime on all fronts!”
he exhorted. “We will fight crime from our homes and on the
streets.” He paused and flashed a bright smile. “My allies in this
fight are many. For example, I am proud to announce that the
Metropolitan Ballet has named me to their board and agreed to
increase its scholarships to minorities as a way to enable our
city’s children to leave the streets and take to the stage in the
search for normal lives, where dreams are reachable and crime
unthinkable.”

“What?” Auntie Lil shrieked, rising from the sofa. “I
never said he could be a board member.”

“What exactly did you say?” T.S. asked, alarmed.

“I can’t remember! I can’t think.” She sat down
abruptly.

Within minutes, T.S.’s phone began to ring.

“Don’t get it,” Auntie Lil warned.

“Don’t worry,” he replied.

“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.

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.