A Motive for Murder Read online

  By the time the taxi reached her apartment building in Flushing, she had left a message on T.S.’s answering machine, rung up Lilah Cheswick without success, checked on whether her dry cleaning was ready for pickup, and ordered her groceries for the next week. If the driver had not known a clever shortcut, she would also have called an old friend in Tacoma.

  “Better be careful, ma’am,” the driver warned as he pulled up to her building. “It looks like someone is waiting in the shadows there beside your front door. Want me to walk you inside?” Her customarily generous tip had ensured his gallantry.

  Auntie Lil peered out into the darkness. A small figure stepped into view. “It’s just a child,” she told the driver.

  “The kids around here can get pretty rough,” he warned.

  “I know him,” she said. “But thank you for your concern.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked the figure as she opened the door to get out.

  Mikey Morgan darted from his spot near the stoop and crouched by her taxi door, looking to the left and right as if he were being followed. “You told me to come and see you if I ever needed help,” he said. His eyes were wide with fear and he was breathing heavily. Either he was a better actor than his movies indicated or he really was in danger. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go so I came here.”

  “What about home?” Auntie Lil asked. “Does your mother know you’re gone?”

  “She’s out,” Mikey explained. “Anyway, I can’t stay there. Last night I saw a man outside my window, looking up at me. He knew where I lived. He was in the shadows of a street lamp in the park outside. And today, at the theater, someone was following me in the hallways. I know they were. I took the stairs upstairs and heard footsteps behind me. But the footsteps stopped when mine did. If you make me go home, I’ll just run away. I have no place else to go.”

  “Are you being followed now?” Auntie Lil asked.

  “I don’t know.” He looked around again. “Maybe.”

  “We must go to the police at once,” Auntie Lil said firmly. “Get inside in the taxi.”

  No,” Mikey shouted. He rubbed his mouth with his hands then stuck them in his jeans pockets and hunched his shoulders in misery. “You can’t go to the cops. I won’t let you. I’ll run away,” he threatened again.

  Auntie Lil made a quick decision. She pulled him inside the taxi. “Just come with me,” she said. “I’ll take you somewhere safe. You may have been followed here. Driver, can you take us to Manhattan?”

  The driver flipped on the meter again, visions of another gigantic tip dancing in his head. “Lady, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “ What do you mean he doesn’t live here?” Auntie Lil asked, her voice rising in disbelief. “Are you daft? He’s my nephew. I know where he lives. I just left him a message on the answering machine. Do you mean that he’s not home yet?”

  “No.” Mahmoud shook his head vigorously. “I mean, he does not live here. Not anymore. He is gone. You are mistaken.”

  “Mahmoud, that is preposterous. Let me upstairs immediately.” Auntie Lil smacked her pocketbook against the front desk in exasperation. Mikey stood beside her, one eye on the door.

  “Mr. Hubbert does not live here,” Mahmoud insisted firmly. “I will say no more.” He crossed his arms across his chest and planted his feet wide as if daring Auntie Lil to push past him.

  “We shall just see about that,” Auntie Lil warned. She marched past Mahmoud, Mikey Morgan in tow, and took a seat on the bench near the elevator. Mikey sat beside her meekly, slouching so that he was hidden behind her stout frame.

  Mikey had insisted again during the cab ride that he was being followed by a man but had not yet gotten a clear look at him. Auntie Lil had believed him enough to take him to the place she considered safer than her own: T.S.’s apartment. She knew T.S. was out to dinner with Lilah, but he had to come home sometime, never mind what his obviously disturbed doorman said. Perhaps Mahmoud had taken to drink. She remembered her tour of the Arab countries well. Though they swore it was against their religion, she had observed many of her hosts weaving suspiciously following the frequent banquets given in her honor to celebrate her large purchases of fabric from them.

  Half an hour later T.S. arrived home. He strode through the doorway—still glowing with the pleasure of his dinner with Lilah—and called out a cheery hello to Mahmoud. The doorman ducked his head guiltily and stared at his shoes, certain that his Christmas tip was in danger again.

  T.S. spotted Auntie Lil and Mikey and stopped short in surprise. “Why didn’t you wait for me upstairs?” he asked, his eyes scrutinizing her companion without comment. Nothing Auntie Lil did would surprise him.

  “I would have, but he insisted you no longer lived here!” She pointed an accusatory finger at Mahmoud.

  The doorman scurried over, ready to defend his honor. “I told her again and again that you did not live here, but she refused to believe me!” He cowered as fearfully as an ill-treated dog awaiting the lash of his master’s whip.

  T.S. stared at him in complete exasperation. He had no recourse. He’d never have the nerve to cut his Christmas tip. Mahmoud was simply the price he paid for his beloved apartment. He settled for being magnanimous and made no reply.

  “Aunt Lil, may I escort you upstairs?” T.S. said with exaggerated politeness, offering her his arm.

  The politeness did not last long. “What in the world is going on?” T.S. demanded as soon as the three of them were alone in the elevator. “What is he doing here?”

  “I’ll explain in a minute,” Auntie Lil said, checking the elevator control panel for a microphone.

  Mikey had yet to say a word. But his demeanor changed dramatically once they were inside T.S.’s apartment. He took off his blue-jean jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch, causing T.S. to wince. Then his eyes spotted the large-screen television against one wall—it had been T.S.’s one extravagant retirement purchase—and his eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “Cool!” he said. “Mom won’t let me get one even though I could afford a thousand of them.” He switched on the set and began rapidly changing channels with the remote control, a habit that T.S. loathed in others and forgave only in himself. Brenda and Eddie ventured out from behind the couch, eyed the teenager suspiciously, and slunk back out of view.

  “Explain,” T.S. said tersely to Auntie Lil.

  She explained the situation as briefly as she could.

  “So why are you here?” he demanded.

  “I can’t keep him at my house,” she insisted. “He may have been followed. And I’m getting old, you know. I don’t know if I could keep up with a teenager.”

  T.S. stared at her in amazement. “Don’t hand me that line,” he warned. “You aren’t too old for tracking down killers or rumbaing twice a week or hiking through the Alps,” he said. “I cannot believe you expect me to swallow that excuse.”

  “Please, Theodore,” Auntie Lil pleaded. “Just for a few days. We’re getting close. I can feel it.”

  Mikey had plopped down on the couch and propped his feet up on the glass coffee table, destroying the precise alignment of T.S.’s magazines in the process. “Got anything to drink?” he yelled out.

  “You hear that?” T.S. said, dropping his voice to a whisper. “He thinks I’m his butler.”

  “I’ll make it up to you,” Auntie Lil promised. “Why don’t we have a drink and talk it over?”

  “Don’t try to soften me up by getting me drunk,” T.S. warned. “If I wanted teenagers in my house, I’d have decorated it in early rumpus room.”

  “Can we order in Chinese or something?” Mikey asked, flipping the channel and lingering on a local cable show that featured a transvestite chef dressed in tacky suburban clothes who specialized in Southern favorites and wore his wig askew while reciting recipes in a thick drawl. “I’m starving.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Auntie Lil said brightly. “We can discuss things over a snack.”

&nbs
p; “Food?” T.S. said. “I just got back from dinner. And it’s after eleven o’clock. We order in Chinese and we may as well lie down on the couch right now and wait for the heartburn to begin.” He sighed, knowing defeat was near. “Does his mother even know where he is?” he finally demanded, seeking refuge in assuming the outrage of a responsible adult.

  “She doesn’t care,” Mikey announced, flipping channels to a highly improbable wrestling match between two gaudily clad thugs. “She likes my brothers and sister better than me.”

  “Your mother,” Auntie Lil said. “Of course. We must call her and let her know you’re okay.”

  “She’s probably not even there,” Mikey insisted. “I think she has a new boyfriend or something.”

  “We are most certainly calling her immediately,” T.S. informed him. He marched over to the phone on the table next to his couch and made a great show of calling information for Nikki Morgan’s number, then carefully dialed each digit with great indignation. He was so startled when Nikki actually answered the phone—and so caught up in his zeal to appear in command—that he forgot to introduce himself.

  “Mrs. Morgan,” T.S. began. “I have your son. He’s right here beside me and if you want to—”

  Suddenly Mikey reached over and pressed the disconnect button. “No!” the boy shouted. “Don’t tell her where I am. I don’t want her to know. If you tell her, I’ll run away!” He jumped up from the couch and grabbed his jacket as if preparing to flee.

  “It’s okay,” Auntie Lil said quickly, leading the young boy back to the couch. “We won’t tell her where you are. We’ll just say that you’re safe with us.”

  “No!” Mikey said. “I’ll run away. I will!”

  Auntie Lil was silent for a moment. “We’ll work something out,” she finally announced. “In the meantime you watch television and we’ll order you in some nice Chinese food to eat.” She stared at T.S. pointedly and gestured for him to follow her into the small kitchenette.

  “Are you crazy?” T.S. whispered furiously. “Do you know what I just said to his mother? Let me recap for you: ‘I have your son. He’s right here beside me and if you want to—’ Do you know what that sounds like?” He stared at her for emphasis. “You and I may know that I was going to say ‘and if you want to talk to him,’ but the police are most definitely going to assume that I’m a kidnapper. Think about it—I sounded just like a kidnapper, Aunt Lil. One that didn’t get a chance to ask for ransom. We can’t just let him stay here. This is serious.”

  “You make such a big deal out of everything,” Auntie Lil complained.

  “One of us is going to call his mother,” T.S. insisted. “Either you or me. Your choice. And, by the way, I saw her meeting Andrew Perkins earlier tonight.” He described what he had seen.

  “I’ll go visit her myself,” Auntie Lil decided. “Right now. She’ll have to let me in if I have news of her son. I’ll ask her why she was with Perkins.”

  “You will not,” T.S. said flatly. “It may be dangerous.”

  “Theodore, her other children will be right there in the apartment with me,” Auntie Lil said. “What can she do?”

  “Force you to baby-sit?” he suggested.

  “I’m hungry!” Mikey shouted at them from the living room.

  T.S.’s expression was eloquent. Auntie Lil ignored it anyway. “You stay here with him,” she said. “Just let him stay here for twenty-four hours. That’s all I ask. I’ll phone you when I’m through talking to his mother.”

  T.S. was silent, wrestling with his conscience. Finally he spoke. “The only reason I am agreeing to this,” he told Auntie Lil slowly, “is because I don’t think Nikki Morgan had anything to do with her ex-husband’s death. I had dinner with Lilah tonight and she told me something that makes me think Hans Glick may be involved. I wasn’t supposed to say anything until she was sure, but maybe you should know about it now before you go rushing off to accuse Nikki Morgan of anything.”

  “What did she find out?” Auntie Lil whispered furiously.

  T.S. put a finger to his lips and glanced back toward the living room, then led Auntie Lil down the hallway toward his bedroom. He closed the door carefully, then leaned against it and told her what he knew. Lilah was very active in fundraising for a number of charities. When she received the report on the Metropolitan’s charity ball held in Los Angeles last spring, she had grown suspicious about some of the expenses listed and the small percentage of profit the Metro had cleared. For the past week she’d had her own accountants looking into the matter, examining the books from the event and double-checking listed expenses with the purported vendors.

  “It’s all a lie,” T.S. told Auntie Lil. “Glick listed last-minute first-class airline tickets for Raoul and Lisette Martinez, when they really flew coach and booked weeks in advance. That’s a discrepancy of thousands of dollars when you’re talking about an East to West Coast flight. Plus, he overbilled the flowers by three thousand, the food by nearly twenty, padded the list of waiters to justify paying out more salaries, and made payments to two decorating firms, including one that doesn’t even exist. He’s stealing money from the Metro!”

  “Raoul and Lisette Martinez attended the L.A. benefit?” Auntie Lil asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  T.S. was exasperated. “That’s not my point. Of course they attended. He’s the artistic director. She’s the star. Did you hear what I said about Glick?”

  “She lied to me,” Auntie Lil said. “Remember when we asked her about Bobby Morgan while she was taking a break on the steps? She said she just met him this season. She had to have met him at the L.A. party. Ruth Beretsky said he was there and flirting with all the women. She would have been the first one he was attracted to. Like you said, she’s the star.”

  T.S. was annoyed. “So Glick doesn’t even count?”

  “Of course he counts, Theodore,” Auntie Lil said fondly, patting his arm in a patronizing gesture. “I thought something was making him behave strangely. But all of his actions have been consistent. Consistent with an embezzler who has something to hide, but consistent nonetheless. Lisette Martinez is another story. So friendly. So helpful. So big a liar...” Her voice trailed off as she considered various ways to deal with this new bit of information. “I know,” she decided. “Tomorrow morning, you call Margo McGregor. Ask her to pull any photos her paper may have taken at the charity ball. I know they covered it. Get the outtakes and everything. Wire photos, too. I want to be sure before I confront Lisette.”

  “What are we looking for?” T.S. asked.

  “Photos of Lisette and Bobby Morgan together,” Auntie Lil explained. “If she lied to me, maybe she’s the woman Ruth saw with Morgan. Maybe she’s the reason why he suddenly pulled his son from Hollywood and flew back to New York to dance in a minor production of The Nutcracker. It’s never made sense to me that he would do that.”

  “And maybe she’s the reason he was killed,” T.S. added.

  Scrambling sounds in the hallway alerted them that someone was near. T.S. opened the door to find Brenda and Eddie tumbling around Mikey Morgan’s feet.

  “I was just looking for the bathroom,” the boy explained. “Are we gonna order in food or not?”

  Auntie Lil’s gaze was steady. “Theodore will order you something now.”

  It was just after midnight and Riverside Drive was deserted. The huge trees lining the park cast eerie shadows underneath the infrequent streetlights. Had Mikey really seen a man lurking beneath his windows or was his already overactive imagination simply reacting to his father’s death? Auntie Lil hopped from the taxi and examined the street beneath the Morgans’ apartment. It was brightly illuminated. It would be hard to mistake a tree for a man. But it would be easy for a man to hide on the edge of the light, blending in with the sudden darkness.

  Auntie Lil pressed the bell firmly and Nikki Morgan immediately answered, as if she had been waiting by the door.

  “Who is it?” she asked, the fear in her voice
apparent even through the intercom’s static.

  “Lillian Hubbert. Mikey is perfectly safe. I want to talk to you about it.”

  Nikki buzzed Auntie Lil upstairs without comment and met her at the elevator door wearing a bathrobe. She had been home for some time, Auntie Lil was sure.

  “Where is Mikey?” Nikki asked at once. “Is he okay? I was just about to call the police. I don’t want any more publicity and Mikey left me a note saying not to tell anyone he left, but the note doesn’t make any sense.” She clutched the top of her bathrobe anxiously around the base of her throat. “I should have called the police hours ago, but you never know with Mikey. I thought maybe he’d just gone to the movies or Rollerblading at some rink with friends or some other normal activity like he’s always saying he doesn’t get to do.”

  “He’s very safe,” Auntie Lil said, interrupting her slightly tipsy speech before she could begin more apologies. “But I promised Mikey I would tell no one where he is.”

  “I’m his mother,” Nikki protested. “How dare you make such a promise?”

  “I’m sorry,” Auntie Lil apologized, following Nikki into the Morgans’ apartment. Her voice lowered. “He seems to feel he’s in danger and said he would run away if I told anyone where he was, even you.”

  “What kind of danger?” Nikki led Auntie Lil past a row of closed bedroom doors and into the living room. It was as chaotic as ever. She unceremoniously dumped a pile of schoolbooks on the rug to make room for Auntie Lil to sit on the sofa. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of notebook paper to hand to Auntie Lil. “This makes no sense,” she said. “Read this.”

  Auntie Lil examined the note. “See you later,” it read in a childish scrawl. “I’m lying low for a few days. Don’t call the police. —Mikey.”