A Motive For Murder (2 page)

He stood with a barely perceptible click of his heels
and marched briskly to a wheeled chalkboard that stood near a
window overlooking Lincoln Center. Auntie Lil gazed wistfully out
at the twinkling lights of the early winter evening and wished that
she was sipping drinks in the
Rainbow Room,
waiting for
Herbert Wong to join her for a tango.

Glick dragged the portable chalkboard to the head of
the long conference table, frowning at the squeak emitted by its
wheels. The slightest deviation from perfection, as defined by
himself, could distract Glick to the point of incoherence. He chose
a fat wedge of chalk and held it above the chalkboard, but paused
in his impending lecture to pick up the telephone. He knew the
extension by memory. “Send someone to the Conference Room
immediately,” he demanded. “Tell him to bring a can of WD-40 and a
Phillips head screwdriver. I will tell him how to fix the problem
once he arrives.”

He placed the phone back in the cradle and wiped his
hands clean with a handkerchief before addressing the waiting board
members. He began by drawing a huge dollar sign in the center of
the board. “This is our objective,” he announced crisply, “and
these are our options.” He drew thick chalk lines to the right and
left of the dollar sign, labeling one side “A” and the other “B.”
Under the letter A, he drew a tall box then sketched in small
squares arranged in rows within its parameters.

“What is that, please?” Artistic Director Martinez
thundered, looking confused.

Glick was offended. “That is obviously a New York
City apartment house.”

“Why?” Martinez demanded loudly.

Glick ignored him and continued. “If we let Fatima
Jones dance in the role of Clara, we will gain some publicity due
to her unusual background,” he said. “But the demographics are not
as profitable as Option B.” He drew the stick figure of a young boy
under the B heading then added several rows of dollar signs at the
boy’s feet. “Mikey Morgan is a box-office star. His movies brought
in more than two hundred eighty-seven million dollars to his studio
last year. His fan club numbers over eight hundred thousand young
people in the U.S. alone.”

“The only drawback being that he can’t dance,” Auntie
Lil interjected.

Several of the more silent board members looked
aghast, as if she had violated an unspoken code of conduct. Auntie
Lil hoped fervently that she had.

Raoul Martinez was thoughtful. “It is true that he is
not inordinately talented,” the artistic director conceded. “But he
is coachable. When he was a student here, I spotted his
promise.”

“How odd,” Lilah Cheswick remarked, her well-bred
Connecticut smile never faltering. “Just last week I read an
amusing interview with Mikey Morgan that appeared in the Sunday
Times
magazine. He related several stories of being
suspended and eventually thrown out of the Metro’s school.‘Thrown
out on my butt by this aging old greaser in tights.’ I believe were
the exact words he used. He seemed to find it amusing from his
current perch as a box-office star. I wonder why he wants to dance
the role at all. I don’t feel comfortable with his stated
motives.”

Martinez shrugged dramatically. “I am an excellent
teacher. I have confidence he can dance the role.”

“Don’t forget that another young man’s career is at
stake here,” Auntie Lil said. “If we vote no on Fatima Jones and
Mikey Morgan steps into the role of the Prince, then what will
become of Rudy Vladimir? He won the role of the Prince fairly.”

“Rudy can easily dance a lesser role,” Martinez
offered.

“Of course he can easily dance a lesser role,” Auntie
Lil said, irritated. “He could easily dance all the roles, for that
matter. At fourteen years of age, he makes the rest of your company
look like a tired troupe of vaudeville hoofers.”

“Really, Miss Hubbert, I hardly believe you are
qualified to comment,” Martinez retorted in a voice that had tamed
many an unpredictable dancer. On Auntie Lil, it didn’t even make a
dent.

“I cannot believe that we are considering bumping
these two young dancers from the show,” she said. “It is
outrageous.”

“We do not ‘bump’ our dancers,” Martinez said grimly.
“And we are not putting on a ‘show’ in some barn like those cheap
Mickey Mouse and Judy Garland movies.”

“Maybe you had Mickey Mouse down in Mexico, but here
in America it was Mickey Rooney,” Auntie Lil pointed out.

“I am from
Spain,”
the artistic director
explained grimly. “My family is of impeccable Hibernian
descent.”

Auntie Lil sniffed skeptically.

Lane Rogers attempted to regain control. “The ideal
choice, of course, would be to have both Mikey Morgan and Fatima
Jones. Unfortunately, that is not possible.”

“You mean that, unfortunately, we are being extorted
by the young man’s manager father to get rid of Fatima,” Auntie Lil
said. “And we demean ourselves by giving in.”

“Now, now,” Hans Glick argued smoothly. “It is not
extortion but a legitimate concern. If Fatima Jones were to dance,
much of the publicity would be focused on her, taking away from the
attention paid to his son. It is his duty as the boy’s manager to
ensure his client’s career. We must not forget the young lady’s
background.” He tapped his crudely drawn tenement building with the
piece of chalk. “It will attract attention. The press love such
stories these days.”

Auntie Lil lost her temper. She stood and propped her
sturdy frame on the table, leaning forward until her purple scarf
fluttered in Lane Rogers’s face. A white curl escaped from beneath
her matching hat and dangled between her large dark eyes. Her
strong German face flushed a dangerous red as her wide mouth
struggled to hold back intemperate words. “Will you stop referring
euphemistically to ‘her background,’” she demanded of Glick. “It is
a bit ridiculous for you to deny that your real problem is that
Fatima Jones is rather obviously black.”

In the silence that followed, the door to the
conference room opened and a maintenance man the color of motor oil
strode into the room. He held a spray can of WD-40 in one hand and
a yellow cloth in the other. He was middle-aged and well built, his
shoulders straining at his gray uniform. The silence that greeted
his arrival did not throw him off at all. He simply looked at the
group and calmly asked, “Someone called about a problem?”

Auntie Lil sat abruptly and watched as Hans Glick
described exactly where and how the maintenance man should minister
to the squeaking chalkboard. Oblivious to this interference, the
maintenance man efficiently banished the squeak, tightened a few
bolts, and marched quietly from the room.

“He heard you,” Lane Rogers hissed as the door closed
behind him. She glared at Auntie Lil.

“So you see,” Glick continued quickly, “it’s rather
obvious, isn’t it? If Mikey Morgan will not dance on the same stage
with Fatima Jones, he must dance with some other lucky young lady.”
He drew a circle of chalk around the stick figure of the boy then
pointed proudly to the nonsensical chart, as if he had just
deciphered the hieroglyphic secrets of a lost pharaoh’s tomb.

“Call a vote,” Lane said firmly. “So we can go on to
other business. Mikey Morgan is a very talented young man and
deserves this chance. I intend to vote yes.”

“If you vote Fatima Jones out, the press will eat us
alive,” Auntie Lil warned. “They’re sure to find out.”

“However would they find out?” Lane asked, her gaze
warning the assembled crowd. “Board business is confidential—or
else.”

Following this veiled threat, the vote was quick and
overwhelming. Fatima Jones was out. Child star Mikey Morgan was
in. And Rudy Vladimir was not even mentioned.
Nutcracker
rehearsals would begin the next day. Only Lilah Cheswick and, at
the very last minute, the unpredictable Artistic Director Martinez
joined Auntie Lil in voting to retain Fatima Jones.

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves,” Auntie Lil
said as the votes were recounted for the record. “Compromising the
careers of talented young dancers to satisfy the greedy needs of a
power-hungry stage father.”

It was an insult worthy of Dickens, but Lane Rogers
easily ignored it. “That’s settled,” she said crisply, consulting
the agenda meticulously typed by the cooperative Ruth Beretsky. She
decided on the next item of importance. “Let’s move on to the
pending business of our opening night benefit,” she said. “Let me
begin by saying that I cannot agree with Miss Hubbert that it would
‘be fun’ to make it a casino night.”

 “Where
were
you?” Auntie Lil demanded
when she spotted T.S. waiting for her in the hallway after the
meeting.

“I could hardly burst into the meeting unannounced,”
T.S. protested, firmly removing her grip from his arm. “I am not a
board member.”

“Why are you alone? Where is Margo McGregor?”

“They couldn’t find her,” T.S. explained. “She’s out
on assignment somewhere. I left a message telling her to get in
touch. What happened?”

Auntie Lil nodded toward the other end of the
hallway, where board members stood clustered around a
satisfied-looking Bobby Morgan. They were listening as he painted a
Hollywood-star saturated premiere of
The Nutcracker
starring
his son. “See that man?” she asked.

“He’s hard to miss,” T.S. admitted.

Bobby Morgan stood out in distinct contrast to the
grimly thin New York socialites surrounding him. He was in his
mid-thirties and of average height, but had the look of a man who
has recently packed on excess weight and whose self-image and skin
have not quite caught up to the change. Not even a deep golden tan
could disguise the pallor of too many overindulgent late nights. He
wore expensive designer clothing, no socks, and a pair of loafers
that T.S. knew had cost him close to a grand. He had a thick mane
of brown hair slightly grayed at the temples that was pulled back
off his face into the requisite small ponytail currently in vogue
with aging creative types. His features were oddly delicate given
the chubbiness of his face, particularly his narrow, ruler-straight
nose. He was gesticulating grandly as he entertained the rapt
crowd. His remarks were punctuated by the occasional metallic
glimmers the overhead lights sent spiraling from his abundant
jewelry.

“Let me take a wild guess,” T.S. ventured. “He’s from
Los Angeles.”

“He’s the father of some child star named Mikey
Morgan,” Auntie Lil explained.

“Never heard of him,” T.S admitted.

“That’s to your credit, dear.” Auntie Lil patted his
hand. “A few days ago, the Metro’s artistic director got a call
from him. His name is Bobby Morgan. He offered his son as the lead
in our upcoming production of
The Nutcracker.
But he made
one stipulation: Fatima Jones could not dance opposite his
son.”

“Why?” T.S. asked. “Fatima is terrific. Even I can
tell that and I don’t know a leaper from a leper.”

“She is terrific, but because she’s black, Morgan was
afraid the publicity over her participation would take attention
away from his son. He acts as his son’s agent and manager, so what
he says goes.”

“That sounds incredibly selfish,” T.S. said. “Why
does the kid want to do the part anyway if he’s a Hollywood
hotshot?”

Auntie Lil shrugged. “Lilah asked the same thing.
Morgan says it’s because his son needs some legitimate stage
credits and that he wants to prove to his old teachers at the Metro
that he can do it. The boy was a student here a few years ago
before the father took him to California. Not a very good one,
either.”

“And the board agreed?” T.S. asked.

“Almost unanimously,” Auntie Lil said grimly. “Thanks
to that human slug Lane Rogers.”

On cue, Lane sailed past with Ruth Beretsky dutifully
trailing after her. She paused at the edge of the group
surrounding Morgan and waited to be recognized. When this tactic
did not work, she extended a hand through the crowd, skillfully
pushing aside less hefty members and planting herself firmly in
Morgan’s line of vision.

“Hello, Bobby,” she thundered. “It’s so very lovely
to see you again. We’re delighted to have your son with us this
season. Of course, you’ll join me at the head table during the
benefit dinner?” She laughed girlishly and T.S. realized, with some
horror, that she was attempting to be coquettish.

Morgan’s smile was automatic and completely plastic.
“Of course, Mrs. Rogers. I’d be delighted.” He took her limp hand
and held it as if it were a sock he had just found on the
floor.

“That’s Miss,” she corrected him. “Please call me
Lane.”

“Call me nauseated,” T.S. muttered as Morgan beamed
brightly back at her.

“This is disgusting,” Auntie Lil decided. “Sucking up
to people because they have poolside drinks near other people who
star in bad television shows. What ever happened to culture? I’m
going to blow the lid right off this disgraceful decision when I
see Margo.”

“Maybe not,” T.S. said firmly. “I think we need to
discuss this in private.” He steered her down the hallway toward
the elevators. “Where’s Lilah?” he remembered, peering into the
conference room.

“She had to leave early for another board meeting,”
Auntie Lil explained. “She has quite a few, you know.”

An anxious twinge took root in the base of his
stomach. Was it his imagination or had Lilah been attending
constant meetings for the past few months? He wondered if she ...
but then, no. She would tell him if there was someone else. And yet
... would she? T.S. knew little about women, despite his fifty-five
years. He should have worked less and played more, but what could
he do now? He could only try to make up for lost time.

“Theodore?” Auntie Lil asked. “What in the world are
you gooning about?”