A Motive For Murder Part 11

"Why don't you live with your father anymore?" Auntie Lil asked abruptly.

The girl looked up in surprise. "He told you that?" she said.

"No, we went to see him and I looked in your room. I could tell you had moved out. Where are you staying?"

"With a friend," she said. "And I'm not telling you who because then you'll tell my father and he'll come and get me and try to make me come home. He sent you, didn't he?"

"No, he did not. Why don't you want to go home?" Auntie Lil asked.

"Because my father lives at home," Julie said simply. "And I hate my father."

She slipped her dancer's bag up on one shoulder and stepped between them, walking away as naturally as if she had just bid them a loving farewell. Two cabs screeched to a halt on Ninth Avenue when they saw her and she hopped into one nimbly, zooming away without a backward glance. Her silhouette was framed in the back window of the cab and looked as regally unmovable as the bust of an ancient Egyptian queen.

CHAPTER NINE.

The next day Auntie Lil wasted no time in moving forward. The lawsuit had piqued her interest in Bobby Morgan's ex-wife, Nikki. And she knew a way to get to her. As Auntie Lil suspected, her lawyer, Hamilton Prescott, knew the partners of the firm representing Bobby Morgan's children. He arranged a meeting between Auntie Lil and Nikki Morgan for the next evening, but balked when told he could not attend.

"That is most unwise," he warned Auntie Lil. "I cannot allow it."

"I'm not going to talk about the lawsuit," she said. "Just her ex-husband."

"Her lawyers will be there," he warned her. "I can't let you go alone."

"I'll tape the entire conversation and bring Theodore," she promised. "But I cannot go in looking like I have litigation on my mind. I want to talk to her about everything but the lawsuit, don't you see?"

Prescott sighed. He knew there was no arguing with Auntie Lil. When she had her mind set, she was more immovable than a hound dog intent on sleep. "What about her lawyers?" he asked.

"Let me handle them," Auntie Lil said. "Don't worry. I will make no promises. I'll hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil."

Yes, the lawyer thought, and you'll end up making monkeys out of us all. "Good luck," he told her. "And tape it."

"I will," she said, though she had no intention of bringing a tape recorder. She knew that Nikki Morgan would be reluctant enough to talk as it was. The newspapers had carried few comments from her on Bobby Morgan's death.

T.S. needed little convincing to attend the meeting. "Sure," he said. "The evening is fine." He'd be done with his dance lesson by then.

But when he returned from his lesson with Herbert, he found a most surprising individual waiting for him in the lobby of his high-rise. Mahmoud the doorman had allowed the visitor to wait for T.S. and was maddeningly nonchalant about the fact. "But he is an injured man," Mahmoud explained with feigned peasantlike simplicity when T.S. complained. "How could I turn him away into the streets?"

T.S. glanced at the forlorn figure of Hans Glick slumped on an upholstered love seat near the elevators, his right foot encased in a heavy cast. Crutches were propped against the wall behind him. "Did I leave instructions to admit any visitors?" he asked the doorman, teeth gritted.

"But Mr. Hubbert," Mahmoud protested, spreading his arms wide. "You live such an exciting life. I am but a humble doorman. I cannot resist the impulse to partic.i.p.ate in your adventures. Please forgive me." His dazzling smile did little to lessen T.S.'s suspicion that Mahmoud lived to torment him. Still, there was nothing to be done.

"How do you do," he said, extending a hand to Hans Glick.

Glick struggled to stand. "You must forgive the intrusion," he said in his clipped accent. "I took the liberty of looking your address up in the phone book. I hope you do not mind."

Despite his apology, T.S. noticed, Glick did not hesitate to hobble after him into the elevators. "How can I help you?" T.S. asked as the elevator doors shut. He reminded himself to get an unlisted phone number and address as soon as possible.

"I must speak to you," Glick explained. "Businessman to businessman. I know your aunt relies on your good judgment. I have seen you with her often, and I have heard from my business colleagues that you are a most meticulous man. Like myself. That is why I have come to you and not to her."

"My aunt doesn't rely on anything except her own common sense," T.S. said firmly. Asking Glick inside was redundant, he realized. The man had no intention of going anywhere else.

Glick glanced about T.S.'s immaculate apartment with approval. Modern chrome furniture gleamed immaculately atop spotless white area rugs and a highly polished wooden floor. The built-in shelves, understated sculpture, and open s.p.a.ce appealed to his spartan sensibilities. "I see we are alike in our living tastes," he said.

But his look of approval turned to one of apprehension when Brenda and Eddie crept from their favorite hiding spot behind the couch. Tails switching, they slunk in unison toward the stranger, sniffing cautiously. Glick sat down on the couch abruptly, as if the weight of the cast had suddenly proved too much. He held the crutches in front of him and eyed the cats. "Why do they twitch their tails in that manner?" he asked faintly.

"Habit," T.S. replied. "Relax. They're big for house cats, I admit. But they are house cats."

Brenda and Eddie reached out their paws to scratch at the smooth surface of Glick's cast. Glick endured the contact with stoic dignity. "As I was saying," he said. "I have come to appeal to your good sense."

"In what way?" T.S. asked. He would not offer Glick a drink. The man's smooth exterior irritated him. T.S. had worked for decades with such men and had learned long ago not to trust them.

"Two things," Glick explained. "Your aunt seems convinced that I am to blame for this misunderstanding about the liability insurance."

"Oh?" T.S. asked. "If you are not to blame, who is?"

Glick frowned. "It appears one of my a.s.sistants failed to send in the quarterly premium, believing that the other policy would take effect sooner than it did." He paused. "I will have to fire her, of course."

"Why not just cut off her head?" T.S. suggested. "In the middle of Lincoln Center would be nice. We could invite all the board members and maybe Reverend Hampton could arrange for a few protesters." He wasn't usually so sarcastic, but Glick's attempt to blame some poor hapless subordinate offended his personnel manager soul.

"I beg your pardon?" Glick's eyes widened. Humor was not in his repertoire-particularly humor directed at him.

"Never mind," T.S. said, sighing wearily. The day's dance lesson had exacerbated his sore right knee and he hated reminders that he was growing inescapably old. "What else did you want to discuss?"

"You haven't asked about my foot," Glick said. "I presume you have heard how it happened?"

T.S. knew, of course, but was not eager to admit that he had been lurking in the wings and seen everything. "I heard," he offered.

Glick's expression was grim. "I was not interfering," he explained. "I was merely correcting a glaring error. Martinez had no right to threaten me. I may well sue him over his actions. They led directly to my injury."

"Good idea," T.S. said absentmindedly, gazing longingly at his liquor cabinet. There was a fresh bottle of Dewar's inside.

T.S.'s wandering eye escaped Glick. "That is not important, however. What is important is that I have had an epiphany." Glick held a hand in the air and pointed toward heaven.

"An epiphany?" T.S. asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Eddie's tail begin to switch more rapidly.

"Yes." Glick leaned forward breathlessly, staring intently at T.S. "As I was falling off the stage and into the orchestra pit, it suddenly occurred to me. I know how Morgan was killed." He let a dramatic silence fill the apartment, though it was marred by the scratching of Eddie's paw on Glick's cast. The cat had discovered that fine dust could be created by clawing the plaster and was busily making his mark on the unsuspecting guest.

"Tell me your theory," T.S. said, his Dewar's forgotten as a new thought intruded. He wished Auntie Lil was there to help him evaluate Glick's manner. Was he being too smooth? A little too enthusiastic? Had he seen them at the theater after all, up in the catwalk? Did he know they had already figured out how Morgan was killed? Was he trying to join their team, as it were, before he was suspected himself?

"Morgan was killed before the rope went around his neck," Glick explained triumphantly. He was not strangled during the performance. Otherwise someone backstage would have seen him. I would have seen it." He stared intently at T.S. "Very little escapes my attention," he added. "I have wondered ever since the murder why I did not see the killer myself. I was backstage watching everything. I felt it my duty to ensure a smooth production. My honor was on the line as a member of the board."

Yes, and you are const.i.tutionally incapable of letting well enough alone, T.S. thought.

"I was all over that stage area," Glick explained. "The entire first act. I didn't see anyone unusual at all. Where then had the killer hidden? Where had the struggle taken place? Who had done the killing?" Glick's eyes gleamed and T.. wondered if the hospital had given him pain pills for his broken foot. He seemed stimulated well beyond his usual Swiss reserve.

"Go on," T.S. said, hoping the man might reveal more.

"As I was falling off the stage, I realized that Morgan must have been killed in much the same way." Glick continued. "I believe the struggle occurred prior to the performance, or perhaps quite early on. In a deserted area of the stage far from witnesses. Then Morgan was tied to the rope to make it look as if he were strangled and pushed to create the momentum that sent him swinging across the stage." He finished triumphantly, eyes still gleaming, and waited for T.S.'s reaction.

Glick was correct, T.S. felt sure. Auntie Lil had reached the same conclusion. But he was not about to give away their theory. Instead, he forced himself to be enthusiastic. "I think you're right," he told Glick. "This is vital." He noticed Eddie's intense scratching for the first time and shooed him away from Glick. Eddie went sullenly, Brenda beside him, their ample rumps leisurely and defiantly strolling from the room. Once again their fun had been ruined.

"You must tell the police what you have told me," T.S. said. "Immediately."

That would get Glick out of his hair.

"Yes," Glick agreed. "I must tell them. Perhaps I can a.s.sist them in fles.h.i.+ng out this theory. Your aunt has been very stubborn in resisting my efforts to help her. The police may be more welcoming."

"Absolutely," T.S. agreed, bobbing his head so hard that he felt like one of those purple cows in the back window of cars. "Go to them at once and tell them all that you have told me here today."

T.S.'s enthusiastically biblical-sounding suggestion worked. It propelled Glick off the couch and onto his crutches. To T.S.'s intense relief, Glick made a beeline for the front door, stopping on his way out to ask a final question. "Is my theory consistent with yours?" he asked, once again in command.

"Our theory?" T.S. said, his laughter convincingly casual. "We don't have a theory. I'm just doing this to humor my aunt."

"Of course," Glick said, joining in the laughter. "You know how old ladies are. They have nothing else to do. We must do our best to keep them amused." He waited for T.S. to open the front door, then crutched his way to the elevator, his manner suddenly jaunty.

"Onward and upward, eh?" he called back to T.S. as the elevator arrived. "I'm sure the police will be delighted to be enlightened," he said as the doors closed on him.

Sure they will, T.S. thought to himself.

"Glick said what?" Auntie Lil asked as their cab approached Nikki Morgan's apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "How could he arrive at such a theory just from falling off the stage? I don't trust that man."

"Fortunately, we can let the police decide that for themselves." T.S. paid the driver and endured Auntie Lil's usual unsolicited advice about what const.i.tutes a proper tip. She was a notoriously generous tipper.

They approached the front door of Nikki Morgan's apartment building with awe. It was a magnificent ten-story stone structure on Riverside Drive overlooking a park that ran alongside the Hudson River. The neighborhood was a favorite of professional families who could not bring themselves to flee to the suburbs but nonetheless craved greenery along with their urban blight. Rents were astronomical, but the quiet more than paid for itself. Available apartments in the area were scarce.

"She's not doing too badly for herself," T.S. observed. "I bet she got a ton of alimony."

"I bet she earned it," Auntie Lil replied.

Nikki Morgan's attire at the funeral had been elegant and spa.r.s.e. Her sprawling and crowded apartment was at odds with this image, but since it was home to four children, its chaotic atmosphere was easily explained. Even when quiet, as it was that evening, the scattered toys and clothes of four young lives filled every corner. In the living room, wedged between a pile of hockey equipment and a stack of computer-game cartridges, sat a beefy man with red hair.

"This is Harry," Nikki explained. "One of my lawyers. He insists on being here. He's afraid you've come to twist my arm into a settlement. He's going to tell me what to say and I am going to ignore him. He's promised not to make a peep unless you mention the lawsuit." When she smiled, her austere face was transformed into one of singular beauty. T.S. wondered what she had ever seen in Bobby Morgan. Auntie Lil wondered the same. Nikki seemed remarkably friendly and willing to talk. Either she had remained silent to the press out of some particular quirk of her own or the nearly empty bottle of red wine that sat on a sideboard had only been recently opened.

"I don't want to talk about the lawsuit at all," Auntie Lil explained. She scooped a pile of freshly folded laundry off a chair and plopped it on top of a radiator with the practiced ease of one who wholeheartedly endorses the pile method of organization in her own life. "I think that's best kept between the lawyers. I only wanted to get a chance to meet you, to talk to you a bit about your husband. I believe you know about my role as the board's representative investigating your husband's murder."

"Ex-husband," Nikki reminded her as she perched on the edge of a small French antique chair that had miraculously escaped annihilation in the child-oriented household. T.S. chose a chair across from their hostess in hopes of seeing her smile once again.

"Ex-husband," Auntie Lil agreed. "We are not trying to solve the case per se. We leave that to the police. But we do want to aid them in their efforts and we do have access to so many more people..." Her voice trailed off as she sought the right approach. "So without interfering, we are pursuing our own path. Just to rea.s.sure ourselves that the board is doing everything humanly possible to find the killer."

"I see," their hostess said cheerfully. "You want to cover your b.u.t.ts. Perhaps some of you even have a conscience."

"Exactly," Auntie Lil conceded. "I suppose all of us are motivated by the desire to cover one end or the other. How is Mikey, by the way?"

"Mikey?" She looked surprised. "You know, you are the very first person to ask how my son is doing." She glanced around as if to a.s.sure herself that they were alone. "I sent them out to the movies. All four of them. It's not easy for Mikey to be living back at home. He's more of a stranger to his brothers and sister than anything else at this point. Bobby taking him to L.A. was the fastest way he could possibly have alienated him from his siblings. But there was nothing I could do. He's doing quite well right now, I think, though it's hard to say. Mikey has always shown emotion only on cue. Even as a baby, he rarely cried or smiled. He usually just watched everyone else as if trying to figure out exactly what was in any situation for him." Her bright smile faltered. "He's a lot like his father, actually."

"You sound as if you didn't approve of what your ex-husband did for your son's career," Auntie Lil said.

"Approve of it?" Nikki Morgan stared at Auntie Lil. "Don't you ever watch television?" she asked. She popped up suddenly and strode to the sideboard, where she poured herself a healthy gla.s.s of red wine. Drink?" she asked, but all three of her guests politely declined.

Auntie Lil looked apologetic. "I'm afraid I don't watch television."

"How wonderful!" Nikki looked at Auntie Lil with new admiration. "I try so hard to keep the kids from rotting their brains watching too much, but it's impossible. I'm surprised you missed the tabloid reports. Bobby and I broke up specifically because we disagreed on how he should handle Mikey's career. He wanted to milk him for every dollar while he could. I didn't see the point. We already had more money than we could possibly need. I thought Mikey deserved what was left of his childhood instead. But Bobby always wanted more money and more fame. I accused him of violating his parental duties. He accused me of trying to steal money from Mikey. Our fight over Mikey's career was the basis of our whole divorce."

"He sacrificed the marriage over money?" Auntie Lil asked.

"Not over money. Over fame," Nikki explained. "Bobby never stopped trying to make up for being b.u.mped out of the spotlight. When I first met him, it was about four years after his show had been canceled. He was only twenty and in despair. I thought I could help him. I loved him. I got him to go back to school, to study business. We started a family right away. I was very young when Mikey was born. I wanted to show Bobby that life held a lot more than the chance to be on the cover of TV Guide. At first I thought he agreed. But as the children grew older, I realized that I was nothing more than a broodmare to him and that he looked at our children as potential clients more than anything else."

"That's ghastly!" T.S. burst out. His own mother had been less than affectionate, but she had never gone so far as that.

Nikki shrugged. "At the time it was happening, it wasn't so horrible. I didn't see it. It took nine years of therapy for me to figure it out. I just thought he wanted the best for his kids. When he insisted on getting their teeth straightened right away, the dance lessons, the modeling schools, the speech training, I just thought he wanted to make sure they were well prepared for a capricious world. He really wanted to make sure they looked and acted like professionals on camera."

"Are your other children also in show business?" Auntie Lil asked politely.

Nikki shook her head firmly. "Not for lack of trying. They see what their brother gets-the money, the attention, the letters, the absurd spectacle of adults falling all over themselves to get near him-and they want it, too. But I'm not letting them get near it. Period. When they are out of college and away from the house, it will be their choice. Until then, the only camera any of them will get in front of is my Instamatic on their birthdays."

"That must be a very difficult policy to maintain," T.S. said.

Her eyes flashed with resolve. "It is, but I feel quite strongly about it. Bobby took Mikey's childhood away from him. I am not going to let it happen to the others."

"Surely that drives a wedge between Mikey and his brothers and sister," Auntie Lil said.

"I'm not sure we should discuss the-" the red-headed lawyer began.

"Oh, shut up, Harry. Who cares?" Nikki took a healthy gulp of wine. "It does divide them, but the damage is done. Can you imagine being a child and wors.h.i.+ping your father? Then one day he announces that he's moving to the other side of the country and taking someone with him-only that someone isn't you. It's your older brother, who is special enough to go with him. I spent the last two years trying to repair the fallout from that stunt. I'm almost there. They each have their own friends, school activities, something they do better than the others. I try to see them as individuals and I'm succeeding." She leaned against the sideboard as she spoke, her small chin pointed out defiantly as if daring anyone to disagree.

"Does Mikey have any friends?" Auntie Lil asked.

Nikki's smile was bitter. "Not many, if you mean friends his own age. He moves around too much for that. And it's hard to be sure who really likes him and who is just trying to use him. That's always what bothered me the most-the piranhas that swam around Bobby, hoping to feed: the producers, studio execs, rock stars, groupies, you name it. Bobby always acted like those people were the greatest, the warmest, the most loyal of friends. I knew they were slime." She stared out the window thoughtfully. "Children are quite resilient, you know. I'm amazed at how much faster they can bounce back from trouble than I can. So when Bobby called to say that Mikey was taking the role in The Nutcracker and that they would be in New York for a couple of months, I hoped that maybe it would give him enough time to make some friends here and to get to know his brothers and sister again."

"Is that why your ex-husband wanted Mikey to dance in The Nutcracker?" Auntie Lil asked. "Mikey was doing so well in the movies. Why take a step backward?"

Nikki's eyes were unnaturally bright as she stared at Auntie Lil. "I don't know why Bobby wanted Mikey to return to New York," she said softly. "Maybe Bobby wanted to be near our family. I like to think that's part of it. You have to know how my husband grew up to understand why he became who he was. Bobby's mother pushed him constantly as a child. She was frantic to get them out of Bensonhurst. It worked. She became a legendary stage mother. He took them out of Queens and into the Promised Land of Los Angeles. But Bobby never learned to love anyone just for who they were. He was always looking for what they could do for him. And he never thought anyone could love him back just for being himself, either. He kept wanting to know what I wanted of him." Her eyes filled with tears. "All I wanted was to love him and he wouldn't even allow me that."

The uncomfortable silence that followed was broken when Auntie Lil asked gently, "Is it working to have Mikey back in New York? Is he getting along with his brothers and sister?"

"It's working. Better than I ever hoped. He's becoming part of the family again. He even has a circle of friends from the Metro, some of the young boys who dance in The Nutcracker. There are times when he acts like a little boy instead of a star. Those times make me sad, though. I can't help thinking of what I've missed."

"I heard you agreed happily with the board's decision to replace Mikey in The Nutcracker. Why?" Auntie Lil asked. "Other than the obvious?"

Nikki Morgan answered slowly, as if she were realizing the truth of her thoughts for the first time as she spoke them. "Mikey is a child, not a machine. And he was never a good enough dancer to do that role. They were just using him to sell tickets. When Bobby died, I decided that no one was ever going to use Mikey again. No one. Especially me." She took another sip of red wine and rolled it around on her tongue, inhaling the flavor absently and staring into her gla.s.s as if secrets lingered there. "But he's still in the production."