A Motive For Murder (24 page)

It reminded Auntie Lil of something: like father,
like son. “Did your dad have many girlfriends?” she asked. “Did you
meet any of them?”

Mikey wiggled his eyebrows theatrically. On the movie
screen, it was cute. In person, it bordered on the obnoxious. “Dad
was a stud. He had tons of girlfriends.”

“How lovely for your mother,” Auntie Lil
murmured.

“They were divorced,” he explained patiently, as if
she were particularly dim-witted. “Guys are supposed to be studs,”
he added. “Besides, Dad said Mom was seeing someone new anyway.
Except I can’t figure out who it is.”

Auntie Lil mumbled something under her breath and
Mikey looked at her with interest. “What did you say?” he
asked.

“Nothing,” she replied. What she had said was that
she hoped Nikki Morgan was dating a marine so he could help whip
Mikey into shape.

“You don’t like kids, do you?” Mikey asked as he
scraped the last of the crushed pineapple from one end of his
dish.

“No,” Auntie Lil admitted. “I don’t like children.
Not that you seem like much of one to me.”

“I’m very mature for my age,” he explained
matter-of-factly. “Most adults love me. Why don’t you?”

“I don’t like your attitude,” Auntie Lil replied.
“You strike me as being a bit on the flippant side. Considering
your father has been killed.”

He sat back and stared at Auntie Lil. “Everyone
thinks I should be boohooing,” he said angrily. “I’m not going to
cry unless I really feel like it.” Auntie Lil shrugged, which only
made him madder. “Why should I cry just because he got himself
killed?” Mikey demanded. “It was his own fault. He was screwing
people right and left, everyone told me so. He was a shark, they
would say, like it was such a great thing. I was the one who made
all the money, but he was the one who got all the credit and he was
the one who got to spend it. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t even like him
very much.” He thumped the backs of his heels against the seat with
vicious energy and several people turned to stare.

“You didn’t like your own father?” Auntie Lil asked
quietly. “Are you sure that’s true?”

“I know what I like and don’t like,” Mikey said
belligerently. “Dad didn’t care about me. He just thought I could
make him rich. He never spent any time with me. He was always
running off to dinner with some producer or taking some bimbo out
for lunch or attending some reception where he knew there would be
lots of girls with their boobs hanging out of their dresses. He was
always out having fun while I had to sit alone in some dumb hotel
room watching movies on television. He wouldn’t even let me go home
and visit Mom and the others last Christmas. Said I had to stay and
finish this stupid, stupid movie in Toronto. I hated him.”

“No wonder,” Auntie Lil said quietly.

“He just wanted to come to New York for some dumb old
woman,” Mikey said suddenly. “He acted like it was for my own good,
but I heard him talking to her every night.” His voice rose as he
mocked his father, his eyes rolling up in his head as if he were in
the throes of ecstatic love. “Don’t worry, beautiful. I’ll be there
soon! We’ll have hours together. He’ll be too busy. He’ll never
notice. I have the perfect cover.” Mikey finished his imitation and
pushed his empty dish away grumpily. “He was a real jerk.”

Auntie Lil stared at the young boy. His lower lip was
pulled in tightly and his face was rigid. He was determined that no
emotions escape. “Mikey,” she said. “If you are ever in trouble,
you can come to me for help.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked sullenly.

Auntie Lil shrugged. “If you ever want to talk to me
about anything, or if you find yourself in trouble, just call me or
come by my apartment. I’ll help you if I can.” She wrote her phone
number and address down on a napkin and slid it across the table
toward him. It was insurance against all the things she was sure he
had not told her.

He stared at the napkin for a moment, then crumpled
it up and stuffed it in a back pocket At least he hadn’t thrown it
on the floor—or blown his nose with it, as she had first
feared.

Auntie Lil reached across the table and took his
hands in hers, ignoring his attempts to pull away. “Mikey,” she
said, “your mother loves you very much. And she is angry and sorry
for what happened to you over these past few years. She missed you
while you were gone and now she’s happy that you’re back with the
family where you belong. Why don’t you let her help you right now?
If you feel bad, she can make you feel better.”

He tugged his hand away but could not stop the flush
spreading up his face. “Of course I’ll let her make me feel
better,” he said in a mocking tone. His voice dropped, growing
serious. “She is my mother, you know. I’d do anything for her.”

It had been a maddening week of missed phone calls
for T.S. and Lilah. When he returned her call about the Metro-board
mess, he got her answering machine. When she returned his return
call, he had just stepped out with Auntie Lil. In his opinion,
modern technology only meant modern frustration.

Thus, when Monday rolled around, T.S. made the
decision to stay put. “I’m not going anywhere today,” he told
Auntie Lil. “I’m tired of traipsing all over Manhattan. I want to
stay home with my cats and, yes, turn my brain to jelly watching
television. Maybe I’ll order in a deli sandwich for lunch. I may
even put on a torn T-shirt and watch some more football.”

“Nonsense, Theodore. You’re just waiting for Lilah to
call.” Auntie Lil’s disapproval seemed to snake through the
telephone wires. “Really, Theodore—sitting around mooning and
waiting for a phone call like some lovesick teenager. I thought you
were more in control of your life.”

“You’re joking, aren’t you?” T.S. replied. “What in
the world makes you think I’m in control of my life?” He replaced
the receiver firmly and turned his attention to the first soap
opera of the day.

With T.S. unwilling and Herbert suspiciously missing
in action, Auntie Lil was forced to tackle the day’s agenda on her
own. She had slept little the night before, wondering just what the
board had discussed about her. Surely they would have called if she
had been voted off the board. Or would they? And if she had been
voted off, who had decided that she was responsible for the
Reverend Hampton misunderstanding? Okay, maybe she was responsible,
but she still wanted to know who the tattletale had been. She
contemplated the possibilities as she drank her four cups of black
coffee and nibbled on an Entenmann’s cherry cheese strudel. The
strudel was not as good as her mother used to bake—her mother’s had
tasted straight out of Vienna—but it was good enough that she
polished off an entire pound of it in a single morning.

She would have to confront Lane Rogers on her own.
There was no other way around it. That was how you dealt with slugs
anyway, she reasoned. You dragged them into the sunlight and
watched them writhe. Lane would hate public exposure of her sneaky
tactics. Auntie Lil would go right to where she worked and demand a
conference and do her best to embarrass Lane into being up-front
for once. Auntie Lil hated people who ruled through innuendo. Why
had she fought Lane on her terms until now? It was time, Auntie Lil
decided, to take a direct approach.

Lane worked in the corporate communications
department of Bartlett Brothers International, a global investment
bank. As the official arbitrator of corporate identity, her job was
to ensure that the company’s logo and adopted colors appeared on
every scrap of paper, coffee cup, T-shirt, trinket, and publication
offered under the Bartlett Brothers name. It was the perfect job
for Lane. It had little real importance to the bottom line, yet
yielded her frequent opportunities to meddle in other people’s
plans. She had no real power except the power to compromise someone
else’s deadline. And she could squelch creativity at every turn,
imposing a drab universe—so comforting to her—on anyone foolish
enough to request official approval of a project. She also
frequently sat in on meetings to review the design and copy of
corporate brochures. Her favorite trick was to say nothing during
the meeting—her enigmatic smile, she felt, was her best
attribute—but shortly afterward, she would fire off a lengthy memo
pointing out exactly where and why the writing or graphics were
inadequate and why the writer or designer must be replaced. To say
she was hated was an overstatement. She was not important enough to
hate. She was, instead, loathed by all Bartiett Brothers employees
with spines and pitied by all those with better things to do with
their lives.

The opinions of Lane’s coworkers mattered little to
Auntie Lil, however. The time had come to express
her
opinion about Lane. When she entered the gilded and mirrored tower
in midtown that housed the posh offices of Bartiett Brothers, her
resolve had built to the point where not even a tank could have
stopped her. She steamrolled the lobby receptionist, shanghaied the
elevator guard, talked her way past a dim-witted secretary on the
public-relations floor, and confused Lane’s personal secretary so
thoroughly (“Did you say you were related?”) that she gained
entrance into a private conference room within seven minutes of
setting foot in the front door. Lane was meeting with a junior
copywriter who had made the colossal mistake of asking her to
approve a two-page circular they hoped to provide the firm’s
wealthiest clients with each week. Auntie Lil burst into the room
wearing a lavender pant suit and matching hat just as the
copywriter sputtered, “But how can you say that? You haven’t even
read it yet!”

Lane’s mouth shut abruptly when she recognized Auntie
Lil.

“Surprise,” Auntie Lil said gaily.

Lane’s face reddened and her co-worker stared.
“Who in the world was this old woman?”
he clearly wanted to
know.
“Lane’s mother? Lane’s lover? Lane’s boss?”

The young copywriter took a chance with the old
stranger. “She says the copy isn’t corporate enough, not subdued
enough,” he whined. “But she hasn’t even read it yet.” He thrust
the pages toward Auntie Lil.

“The copy is just fine,” Auntie Lil said absently,
pushing the manuscript back across the table. “What lovely
headlines. Now run along and write something else.”

“Thanks!” the kid said, rising from the chair and
fleeing with this mysterious approval in hand before his luck
changed.

“Terrorizing babies now?” Auntie Lil asked.

“What do you want?” Lane demanded, but her voice was
curiously weak. She was wearing a bright red A-line dress from an
expensive department store. Auntie Lil knew the manufacturer well.
The dresses went for four times their actual value to people
attracted by labels and too stupid to recognize poor workmanship. A
matching scarf had been tightly wound into submission and was
anchored at Lane’s neck with a large gold pin. Her hair was still
anchored in a severe bun and no offending tendrils dared escape
during office hours. Despite her careful grooming, however, her
inner spite still sat upon her face with a heavy dourness. Her eyes
were puffy and red.

“What do you want?” Lane demanded again. “Tell me
before I call a security guard.”

“Why did you hold a meeting yesterday and not inform
me?” Auntie Lil asked.

“That is board business and it is inappropriate to
discuss it while I am under the employ of someone else.”

“You tell me right now,” Auntie Lil said, “or I will
pick up the phone and call my nice banker at Sterling &
Sterling, the one who is best friends with your chairman. I can
have you selling hot dogs on a street corner by the end of the
week.”

“How dare you?” Lane said, rising to her feet.

“How dare I?” Auntie Lil retorted. “Let me tell you
something. I have sat back and let you rule that board like a
petty demagogue for far too long. You have successfully blocked any
attempt at bringing the Metro into the twentieth century thus far
and Lord knows what you’ll do when faced with the twenty-first. But
you have made it personal by going behind my back and I do not
intend to roll over and play dead while you interfere with my life.
You tried your best to block my appointment as the board’s official
representative into Bobby Morgan’s death. I want to know why. I
want to know what you are hiding. And you called a meeting
yesterday with my name on the agenda. You tell me why right
now.”

“This is
my
office,” Lane said angrily.

“This is my life,” Auntie Lil replied.

“It’s your fault, promising that awful Reverend a
seat on the board.”

 “I did no such thing. Whoever said that is
misinformed.”

“
He
said that,” Lane shot back. 

That made things a bit more difficult. “He
misunderstood me,” Auntie Lil said smoothly. “I don’t consider it a
very big deal. Simply tell him he is mistaken.”

“Apparently no one else considers it a big deal
either,” Lane said bitterly. She stared out the window. “The board
refused to remove you.”

“Isn’t loyalty wonderful?” Auntie Lil said.

Lane glanced at her sharply. “You don’t know a thing
about loyalty,” she said.

“I think I do,” Auntie Lil replied. “More than you
will ever know. Now tell me why you’re blocking my inquiries into
Bobby Morgan’s death.”

“I believe the dead should be left to rest in peace,”
she said piously, folding her hands together and shifting her gaze
to the door of the conference room as if praying for an
interruption.

“Nonsense,” Auntie Lil said. “That man is not resting
in peace. He was strung up like a prize turkey and put on display.
Humiliated in front of an enormous audience. Quite a fate for a
former actor, don’t you think?”