A Motive For Murder (29 page)

“Is that it?” she suddenly demanded. “You only wanted
to ask me more questions about that infernal murder?”

“That’s it,” T.S. admitted, resisting the urge to
apologize. He had not misrepresented himself. It was her fault for
misreading his intentions.

“Have it your way,” she announced, standing up and
assuming her regal carriage. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
She strode from the room in a billow of brightly colored cloth,
leaving behind the sweet stench of floral perfume.

T.S. was struck with a sudden pang. There was
something oddly sad about her parting shot. He had been boorish.
And he had led her on a bit. How could he have stooped so low?

He dashed out the door to apologize and nearly
collided with an agitated Andrew Perkins. The man did not even
recognize T.S. He simply mumbled an apology and continued past.

T.S. did not hesitate. He followed Perkins
automatically, keeping him in sight as they both hurried down the
hall. Perkins pushed through the exit doors. T.S. waited a few
seconds before following. Perkins paused for a moment in the
sunlight, looked around, and immediately relaxed. He leaned against
the corner of the theater and began to smoke a cigarette as he
watched the street carefully. T.S. casually removed the bloody
handkerchief from his pocket and placed it back over his nose. It
wasn’t bad for an impromptu disguise.

After a few minutes a cab came roaring up the inner
roadway that provided an easy drop-off point for patrons attending
Lincoln Center shows. The taxi glided to a halt and the back door
opened. T.S. caught a glimpse of a slender arm as someone beckoned
Andrew Perkins inside. Perkins ground out his cigarette and hurried
to obey. He folded his lanky frame inside the cab and slammed the
door shut just as the enthusiastic driver gunned the engine. As the
taxi shot past, T.S. darted toward the driveway, shamelessly
stooping for a better view. Despite the handkerchief still over his
nose, he had a clear look at the woman’s face and was absolutely
positive. Dark glasses and a scarf could not hide all of her
features, nor the trademark haircut he had seen at Morgan’s
funeral.

Andrew Perkins had just hopped into the backseat of a
cab with Nikki Morgan.

“You’re what?” Herbert asked, straining to hear
Auntie Lil over the backdrop of street noise. “I never thought I’d
say this, but I can’t hear you.”

“I’m whispering!” she explained. “I’m in the lobby of
a warehouse on Twentieth Street. I’m going home with Emili
Vladimir for dinner. In case anything happens to me, I wanted
someone to know.”

Herbert Wong was no fool. He was well aware that his
time spent with Auntie Lil had been severely curtailed in recent
weeks by his dance interests. She would never admit that she missed
him. It was not her way. But he knew what this phone call really
meant. “I have let you look into this too much on your own,” he
told her. “Wait for me now. I will go with you.”

“No,” Auntie Lil said. “There isn’t time. She’ll be
downstairs in a minute. I’m only going to Brighton Beach. I’ll be
fine. I just wanted someone to know.”

“Lillian,” Herbert said in a businesslike tone, “I do
not approve. Your voice tells me that you may be in danger. You
must call me tonight when you get home and let me know that you are
okay. Starting tomorrow, I will stick to you like paste.”

“Glue,” Auntie Lil said. “Stick to me like glue.”

“Glue,” Herbert conceded. Had he detected a note of
relief in her voice? That pleased him. Auntie Lil was so capable
that one seldom had the opportunity to be of assistance. Of course,
when she finally did need his help, it was usually a pretty lively
affair. “Do not forget to phone,” he warned her. “Or I will come
over and check on your safety for myself.”

“I won’t,” Auntie Lil promised, ringing off just as
Emili Vladimir emerged from the building’s elevator. Her imperious
manner had disappeared, along with her black leotard. She was
wearing jeans and a carefully ironed man’s shirt. Her face had
relaxed, softening her features, and her wide smile was framed
beautifully by the dark waves of her unbound hair. She was, Auntie
Lil realized, a stunning woman. “I hope you’re hungry,” Emili
warned her.

“I’m always hungry,” Auntie Lil admitted.

“Good. I made stuffed cabbage last night and it’s
always better reheated. I’m starved myself. I usually forget to eat
all day when I’m creating.” Emili stepped back nimbly to avoid
Auntie Lil’s huge pocketbook as she tried to get a cab. Auntie
Lil’s cab-hailing methods were spectacular and had been known to
harm innocent bystanders. They also worked. As a taxi screeched to
a halt, Emili climbed inside with a sigh. “This is a luxury. I
can’t afford to take a taxi on my own.”

“It does beat the subway,” Auntie Lil agreed.

Auntie Lil had not been to Brighton Beach since the
days when she had visited a favorite fit model who had recently
given birth to twins (and given up her career as a perfect size
eight). The Brooklyn neighborhood had changed in the ensuing years
from a comfortable middle-class enclave into a neighborhood in
flux, caught between the old world and the new. The main avenue was
lined with four-to-ten-story brick buildings in various states of
repair. In each case, the ground floor was given over to small
businesses, ranging from grocery stores to shoe-repair shops to dry
cleaners and apparel shops. A few blocks over, a grimy waterfront
served as home for a community of noisy seagulls and the homeless,
who had made themselves comfortable amidst the industrial
decay.

What set Brighton Beach apart from other New York
City neighborhoods was that most of the store signs appeared in the
ornate Cyrillic letters of the Russian alphabet as well as in
English. The area was referred to as “Little Odessa” by many
people, including a number of detectives assigned to its precinct.
Beginning in the seventies, wave after wave of Russian, Polish,
Balkan, and Czechoslovakian immigrants had fled their homelands
under relaxed travel laws and settled down in Brighton Beach to
pursue the American dream. Most were hardworking, newly Godfearing,
and relatively honest. Some were not. Auntie Lil knew that a branch
of Russia’s largest organized crime organization controlled illegal
gambling, loan sharking, prostitution, and extortion in the area.
Behind the windows thick with Polish sausage and Russian caviar
lurked illegal betting parlors, currency smuggling operations, and
access to a dark underworld.

All Auntie Lil could think of as she passed through
the bustling streets was whether Emili Vladimir belonged in the
hardworking category or in the dark underworld. It would be easy to
find a hired killer in Brighton Beach. And the price would be a
bargain compared with many other sections of New York. But why
would Emili kill Bobby Morgan? Unless she had been the woman that
Ruth Beretsky had spotted him with. And even then, what had been
her motive? Did it somehow involve a seat on the board?

“Right here,” Emili told the driver as the taxi
pulled up in front of a two-story brownstone that was nestled
between larger buildings. A black wrought-iron fence rimmed a
concrete yard barely big enough to house a pair of garbage cans and
one lawn chair. Someone had placed tubs of begonias in each corner
of the fence, lending the yard a festive air.

“Are you the gardener?” Auntie Lil asked.

“My upstairs neighbor,” Emili explained. She waved to
a stout woman staring out of a second-story window before leading
Auntie Lil inside.

The Vladimirs’ apartment consisted of four narrow
rooms that opened off opposite sides of a central hallway. The
small kitchen was jammed with ceramic canisters, storage jars, and
rows of spice bottles. The outdated appliances were spotlessly
maintained and looked at home with the flowered linoleum and lace
panel curtains. The lingering odor of a recently cooked meal made
Auntie Lil’s stomach grumble.

“Let me put this in the oven right away,” Emili said,
removing a foil-covered pan from the refrigerator. “Rudy will be
home soon and he only has an hour before he has to turn around and
go back for curtain.”

“He comes all the way home to eat dinner for an
hour?” Auntie Lil asked.

Emili nodded. “It’s one of the few times we get to
spend together.”

They toured the rest of the apartment, Auntie Lil
admiring the overstuffed furniture with heavy brocade upholstery in
the living room. Lace doilies covered the chair arms and the walls
were decorated with colorful impressionistic paintings of the
Russian countryside. She read the signature. “Are you the artist?”
Auntie Lil asked, admiring a scene that showed a hay wagon stopped
beside a mountain lake.

“My father,” Emili explained. “He was a passionate
painter, an aberration in our otherwise dance-mad family.”

It was obvious which bedroom was Rudy’s and which
belonged to Emili. Rudy’s was crammed with sweatpants, athletic and
flat dance shoes, posters of popular sports figures, cassette
tapes, and schoolbooks. Emili’s was a feminine lair, crowded with
satin pillows, lace, lingerie, perfume bottles, tiny pairs of
delicate shoes, and a large canopied oak bed.

The wall on the other side of the bed intrigued
Auntie Lil. She stared at the portrait of a handsome man dressed in
formal eveningwear posed against a red velvet curtain. He had an
elongated face, high cheekbones, a narrow nose, and thin lips. His
dark eyes were wide and almond-shaped, giving him a slightly Asian
look. His hair was light brown and carefully brushed back from his
forehead.

A small maple table—a genuine antique to Auntie Lil’s
practiced eye—had been placed in front of the painting. Its surface
was filled with votive candles in red glass cups. Emili strode to
the table and lit the candles, cupping each glass jar until the
flame had stabilized. She knelt in front of the table and stared up
at the portrait. Auntie Lil waited in the doorway until she had
finished praying and used the time to scrutinize the man in the
painting. Was this a self-portrait of Emili’s father? Was it her
husband? If so, he didn’t look much like Rudy. Rudy was rounder,
less ethereal looking, and much more robust. If this man resembled
anyone Auntie Lil knew at all, he looked like Andrew Perkins, the
young ballerina’s father. She studied the man’s face more closely.
How very odd. Was there a connection?

Emili finished her silent ceremony. She rose and
stroked the portrait with graceful fingers. “This is what I wanted
you to see,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” Auntie Lil admitted.

“This is my husband,” Emili explained. “Rudy’s
father. He was a great dancer, a star of the Kirov Ballet. An
untouchable. Or so everyone thought. He’s been gone now for fifteen
years. They killed him.”

“Who killed him?” Auntie Lil asked, bewildered.

Emili shrugged. “Them. The Soviet authorities.
Perhaps some organization I never knew existed. It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that Erik is gone and I am the cause.”

“How could that be?” Auntie Lil asked.

Emili sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the
portrait. “Do you know how I first came to the States?” she
asked.

Auntie Lil shook her head. “Only that you
defected.”

Emili nodded. “Six years after Baryshnikov defected.
And the same way. The authorities had finally relaxed enough to
allow us to travel again. Or rather, they needed the money a world
tour would bring in. I was with the Kirov doing a production of
The Dying Swan
in Toronto. One morning I woke up and walked
away from it all. It was easy. First I took a bus to the border. I
went into a bar and an American woman there sold me her driver’s
license for fifty dollars. When you’re from Russia, you learn how
to spot people who will agree to such things. I crossed the border
by bus into New York State that night and no one even bothered to
look at the license. I just waved it and they let me through. It
was a very crowded bus. I took another bus from Buffalo here to New
York City and presented myself to a branch of the U.S. Embassy at
Rockefeller Center. No one but my husband knew I was going to do
it. I wasn’t even sure myself.”

“Why did you do it?” Auntie Lil asked.

“I was pregnant with Rudy. Only two months. No one in
the company knew. I wasn’t going to raise my child in Russia.”
Emili laughed bitterly. “If it had been today, it wouldn’t have
been so important to get out. Things have changed so much. Now
there is no more U.S.S.R. There is not even an enemy to blame for
my husband’s death. All of that has disappeared, along with my
Erik.”

“But why would they kill him?”

“He couldn’t get out fast enough and joining me was
something they could hold over him to try to make him talk. But he
didn’t know enough to please them. Many of our friends were on
their dissident lists. They probably threatened Erik or offered to
let him join me if he would only turn in some of our friends. He
would never have agreed to that. Maybe that is why he died.”

“How could that have been your fault?” Auntie Lil
asked.

Emili stared down at her hands. “They picked him up
while he was waiting near the border at Urkutsk for a signal from
me. As soon as he heard I had defected, he was going to cross over.
But they fooled us. They kept the news very quiet. They were
embarrassed about it happening again. Then a friend of mine
betrayed me. A man who was in the company with me. I called him
from New York and he promised to call Erik and tell him I had been
granted asylum. It was a backup plan to make sure Erik got the
news. Instead, the government representative traveling with us on
tour got to my friend first. They’d been watching him from the
moment I disappeared and knew that I had called. My friend told
them where Erik was waiting. They convinced him to phone Erik and
say that I had been detained, that all plans were off. So Erik did
not cross over the border. They came to get him the next day. For
questioning only, they told the manager of the Urkutsk hotel. No
one ever saw him again.”