A Motive for Murder (Hubbert & Lil Cozy Mystery Series Book 4)

by Gallagher Gray

  “What does this have to do with Morgan’s murder?” Auntie Lil asked.

  “I am coming to that,” Emili promised. “I want you to know that I was the one who told Ruth Beretsky about the tryout scores. And she was the one who called that columnist woman and told her the truth.”

  “Ruth Beretsky was Margo McGregor’s source for her article starting the whole Fatima Jones protest?”

  Emili nodded. “Ruth did not think that what had happened to Fatima was fair. And, of course, it was not. But if Lane Rogers finds out, Ruth will be off the board. Perhaps this is why she wishes to work with my company now. But I tell you all this so that you understand that I knew and had accepted all along what had happened. I held no grudge against this Bobby Morgan man. In fact, I want to help you find the killer so that we may all return to our normal lives.”

  “How can you help me?” Auntie Lil asked.

  “Rudy knows more than he told you the other night,” Emili said quickly, as if wanting to get the words out of her mouth before she changed her mind. “I knew it the moment he met you. Do you remember what he said?”

  Auntie Lil shook her head.

  “‘I know you,’” Emili repeated. “‘All of Mikey’s friends do.’” She shook her head as if thinking it over. “I thought it was a funny thing to say, as if he had been talking about you with his friends. Yet he had never mentioned you to me and he usually tells me every detail of his day. I knew then that he was hiding something from me. It made me unhappy, you must understand.” She smiled sadly. “He is growing up and becoming his own person, moving away from me, and I must learn to accept that. But this is different. This is murder, and if Rudy knows something about it, then he must tell you.”

  “And not the police?” Auntie Lil asked.

  Emili’s eyes flashed. “Never the police,” she said in a flat voice. “I am sure you understand why. I will have Rudy tell you what he knows firsthand. Now. It may not be important. But you must be the one to decide that.” Impulsively, she moved closer to Auntie Lil and grabbed her hands, holding them as if she was an old friends. “You are an honest woman. I can feel it clearly. You are not always discreet, but you are always yourself. That is a rare thing to find in anyone.”

  Auntie Lil nodded, unsure of how to treat the compliment. “Thank you,” she finally said. “But I am more interested in hearing what Rudy has to tell me about the murder.”

  Emili stood. “Yes. I will go get him now.”

  “But he’s in class,” Auntie Lil protested.

  “That will not stop me,” Emili promised. She strode from the room with a resolve that would have no trouble overruling any instructor the Metro might employ. She returned a few minutes later with a pale-looking Rudy in tow. “Sit,” she commanded her son. He moved obediently to a chair across from Auntie Lil and perched on the edge of it. He was wearing leotards and breathing heavily. His mother had probably plucked him from class in mid-jeté. “Tell her what you told me,” Emili ordered in a voice that would have made a KGB agent proud.

  Rudy looked mutely at Auntie Lil and then back at his mother, his eyes pleading.

  “Tell her,” Emili said firmly. Now.”

  “But Mikey will be mad,” Rudy protested. “And the other boys will call me a snitch.”

  “We do not have time for such nonsense,” Emili said crisply. “This is not a matter of protecting friends. It is not honorable to protect a person who would kill another like that. You must tell her the truth right now.”

  Rudy stared miserably at his feet. They were splayed to the side in an automatic and perfect first position.

  “Rudolph Erik Vladimir, you tell this woman what you told me last night,” Emili ordered for the last time in a voice that held every ounce of the discipline and strength that had brought her to where she was today. “You tell her this very instant or you shall have me to deal with from this day forward. Do you want that?”

  Rudy sighed. “Mikey had a big fight with his dad that afternoon.”

  “The afternoon before his father was killed?” Auntie Lil asked.

  Rudy nodded. “They were yelling and screaming at each other on the third floor. They thought that no one could hear them, but the door to the catwalk was open and their voices carried down onstage. I was onstage with the wooden soldiers and mice waiting to rehearse my part. Just the guys who were standing on stage left could hear them.”

  “What were they saying?” Auntie Lil asked.

  “Mikey screamed that he hated his father, that he wished he was dead, that he always took everything away from him, and it wasn’t fair.”

  “What did Mikey’s father say back?”

  “He yelled back that Mikey was nothing without him, that he had been the one behind his success and talent had nothing to do with it. Then he yelled that Mikey couldn’t even dance very well because he was too lazy. Mikey really got mad then. He said that he never wanted to be in The Nutcracker to begin with and he was only doing it because his dad made him. Then it sounded like he was going to cry.”

  “Mikey was going to cry?” Auntie Lil asked.

  Rudy nodded guiltily. “We kind of sneaked off the stage and went up the stairs to listen,” he admitted. “Me and a couple of other boys.”

  “What did you hear when you got closer?”

  “Mikey’s dad was trying to whisper, but Mikey was too mad to keep his voice down. He kept saying, ‘It’s not fair. You don’t care about her. You’ll just get rid of her like all the rest.’ Then Mikey’s dad started making fun of him, reminding him of how young he was and asking him how could he know what was fair and what wasn’t. He told Mikey that when he was a man he’d understand everything.”

  “Everything about what?” Auntie Lil asked.

  Rudy looked miserable.

  “Tell her,” Emili ordered.

  “I think Mikey’s dad stole his girlfriend.”

  Auntie Lil’s stomach sank. She was a long, long way from the age of fourteen, but she knew how emotional teenagers were. They felt everything a hundred times more than adults. If what Rudy was saying proved to be true, then Mikey Morgan probably had really hated his father at that instant—and been capable of murder.

  “Who was Mikey’s girlfriend?” Auntie Lil asked.

  Rudy shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell us. I guess he thought we would tease him,” he explained. “We’re his friends, but Mikey’s been around a lot more, you know? He thinks we’re babies about some things. We didn’t even know he had a girlfriend until we overheard the argument.”

  Auntie Lil was quiet, mulling over the information. She thought she knew who the girl had to be. “I have some very important questions for you, Rudy,” she said. “And you must tell me the truth.”

  Rudy nodded solemnly.

  “Why were you and your friends talking about me?” she asked. “Why did you say Mikey’s friends knew who I was?”

  “He said you were trying to find the killer but...” His voice trailed off.

  “But what?” Auntie Lil prompted.

  “I don’t think Mikey really wants you to find out who it is,” he whispered. “He said you were way off base and he sounded glad about it.”

  “When did he say that?” Auntie Lil asked.

  “Last week,” the young boy replied.

  “My next question is this: Did anyone else overhear what Mikey and his father were arguing about? Think carefully.”

  Rudy’s face scrunched up as he concentrated. “We were on the steps,” he finally said. “So I don’t really know. They had dropped their voices and I don’t think anyone else onstage could hear them anymore. But maybe someone on the third floor might have been able to hear. I didn’t see anyone.”

  “Was anyone on the catwalk?”

  Rudy thought hard. “I don’t think so. Sometimes parents go up there to watch their kids because Mr. Martinez never notices them when they’re on the catwalk. When he sees them watching backstage, he yells, so they sneak up there.”

  “But t
he door to the catwalk was open, so someone may have been there?”

  Rudy shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to see if there’s anyone on the catwalk when you’re standing right below it.”

  “My final question is the most serious,” Auntie Lil said. “Did you or any of your friends help Mikey hurt his father?”

  “No,” Rudy said, shaking his head emphatically. “I would never do anything like that.”

  “But would any of the other boys? Maybe some of them wanted to prove to Mikey that they really were his friends?”

  Rudy’s voice was less emphatic. “I don’t think so,” he said.

  Auntie Lil thought of the day she had seen a cluster of boys gathered around a rope near the spot on the stage where Mikey’s father had died. They had been pointing and laughing. “Are you sure that you are telling me the truth?” she asked again.

  “Rudy is telling you the truth,” Emili said firmly. “I would not allow my son to lie.”

  Auntie Lil sat alone in the dancers’ lounge, her spirits low. Emili Vladimir had returned to her studio, escorting Rudy back to class along the way, satisfied that her moral obligations had been fulfilled.

  Was Emili being genuine about her motives? Auntie Lil did not know. But she did believe what Rudy had to say.

  And if Rudy were telling the truth, then there was something so careless about this case that her soul hung heavy at the thought. Did no one think about the impact of their actions on others anymore? Was she just too old for the way the world had evolved? When had the search for self-fulfillment turned into a lifestyle of sanctioned selfishness? Mikey Morgan was a boy; he should never have had to face certain truths about his father, at least not quite so soon. And, in return, Bobby Morgan owed his son respect, if not his love. Meanwhile, Julie Perkins, despite her seeming maturity, was still a young girl. Bobby Morgan should have had more class.

  She rose, distressed and anxious to bring the matter to an end. It would be an easy matter to find out the truth now. Julie Perkins would tell her the truth, if not in words then in other ways. She walked slowly down the hallway, peering in windows until she found the young girl.

  Julie was in a room at the end of the hall, moving gracefully in tandem with three other girls. She was pale and skinny, perceptibly thinner than she had been last week. Her bony shoulders protruded from her now loose leotard. Paulette Puccinni stood careful watch nearby, clapping her hands while Jerry Vanderbilt filled the room with music. Rudy Vladimir waited with three other boys at the barre behind the ballerinas, awaiting his turn. Every person in the room was lost in effort, faces frozen in concentration, all thoughts focused on nothing but movement and music.

  Now would be a good time.

  Auntie Lil hurried down the hallway, passing no one. She reached the back stairwell and paused before going upstairs. The door to Raoul Martinez’s office was shut. She wondered what today had been like for the couple, if knowing that they had been prepared to go to jail to protect one another had made any difference to either of them. She doubted it; Raoul and Lisette thrived on hurting one another.

  The second-floor dressing rooms were empty. The benches were littered with discarded towels and bits of wrapping tape. Auntie Lil noticed that Lisette Martinez’s locker remained undisturbed from the night before. The lock still hung crookedly from its hinge.

  She found the locker for Julie Perkins near the end of the fourth row, well into the room. No one could see her from the doorway. She removed the screwdriver from her purse and inserted the tip between the small lock’s metal arch. Using the door as a fulcrum, she pried the lock until it snapped open.

  Julie’s locker was the mess she had expected of a teenage girl. Clothes were jammed into the upper compartment with no regard for whether they were clean or not. Auntie Lil went through them carefully: cotton leotards, leggings, and pastel T-shirts. None had pockets and the shelf beneath the heap of clothing was bare. A pair of jeans and a thin turtleneck sweater hung from one of the side hooks. She found a few dollars in one pants pocket and a subway token in another, but nothing more. Julie’s tapestry handbag dangled from the other hook. Auntie Lil undid the macramé handles and searched inside, taking each item out so she could examine it in the light.

  She discovered a makeup bag crammed full of powders, lipsticks, and three tubes of heavy mascara; loose change; a paperback romance novel, and a small photo album with only two photos inside it. One was of a pretty, slender woman posed against the backdrop of New York Harbor. The woman had long brown hair that fluttered in the wind and her thin features resembled Julie’s. She looked to be in her late thirties, but her face was tired and grim. She stared into the camera without smiling, her eyes vacant, as if focused on something far away. The other photo showed a younger, plumper version of the woman sitting on a lawn chair with a grill behind her and a tendril of smoke silhouetting her head. She was laughing and holding a fat pink baby immaculately dressed in a ruffly blue jumper and a matching hat that topped blond curls. In this photo, the woman’s eyes were bright and lively. The two photos showed two very different views of Julie Perkins’s mother—for Auntie Lil was sure that was who she must be. She knew she had left her family four years ago. Did she ever write to her daughter? The next few items in the purse confirmed that she did. A small stack of postcards bound with a rubber band had been carefully tucked into a zippered side pocket.

  Each postcard showed a different scene, most of them from towns along the coast of California or Oregon. Each message was brief and a slightly different version of the first one: “I’m thinking of you my darling, my precious girl—every day. One day you will understand. Don’t give up the dancing, you are too good to quit. Do it for yourself, if for no one else, my darling. Love, Mom.” Auntie Lil held the stack in her hand, thinking of her own long-dead mother, of a stiff cold woman whose rigid bearing had masked any emotion beneath it. And yet Auntie Lil had felt loved. Had Julie?

  The last object of importance in the purse was a small gold lighter crafted in an unusual flat oval shape. Auntie Lil turned it over in her palm. No engraved initials or dedication marred the surface, but that didn’t matter. She remembered it well. She had seen Julie Perkins use it to light a cigarette on the path outside the Metro’s theater a few days after Bobby Morgan had died—and she had seen it in Morgan’s hand in the photograph from the Los Angeles charity ball. Had he given it to Julie as a token of whatever emotion he’d felt for the girl? Had she stolen it when he wasn’t looking as a reminder that her lover was real? It was the kind of thing a young girl might do.

  Or—and the thought disturbed Auntie Lil because it should have occurred to her before—had Julie taken it after Bobby Morgan’s death as a souvenir of a different kind?

  She returned the purse and turned her attention to the bottom of the locker. Toe shoes were heaped on the floor, along with a pair of leather street flats. Auntie Lil examined the dance shoes. Two pair were white. She held them up to the light. One set was new, the canvas still stiff and in need of breaking in. Auntie Lil had seen the dancers struggle to soften new pairs before: they bent the sheath, slammed the shoes in doors, stomped on them, rubbed them with oils, even put them in plastic bags and pounded them with hammers until they achieved the preferred consistency. The other pair of white toe shoes was softer and worn at the ends. The ribbons that wrapped around the dancer’s ankles were soiled. The right shoe of this pair had shorter ribbons than the left, with ends that were ragged and torn.

  She examined the thin strips carefully. The ribbon clearly matched the scraps she had found on the floor of the third-floor storage room. Either Bobby Morgan had been strangled with a similar ribbon before he was strung up on the bigger rope, or someone had killed him in another manner and used such a ribbon as part of a revenge fantasy that Auntie Lil could only imagine. But who?

  There were dozens of white shoes in the company, of course. But this pair belonged to Julie Perkins. And Julie Perkins had been Bobby Morgan’s lover. Someone close to
Julie, if not Julie, had done the deed.

  Auntie Lil held the slipper in her hands and examined the outer covering more closely. Toe shoes were notoriously disposable; she doubted this pair would last another performance. It was not the pair Julie had worn during The Nutcracker. Those had been blue, Auntie Lil recalled. That meant these shoes could have been used during the murder of Bobby Morgan if he had been killed just before or after the curtain went up. But how could she be sure? She compared the shoes again and noticed that the toe of the right shoe was scuffed and torn, far more so than the left. She pulled her reading glasses from her purse and scrutinized the square, reinforced tip. Small, evenly spaced indentations marred the satin.

  Auntie Lil realized with sudden clarity—and equally sudden horror—that the indentations were teeth marks.

  Bobby Morgan’s teeth marks, she was sure. Who could have accomplished such a task? Had several boys held Morgan down while Mikey stuffed the shoe in his mouth, suffocating him? Or had a larger person been the murderer and the shoe been used only as a prop? It was such a stylized form of revenge; would it have been one that a boy would choose?

  “I had to put it back,” a deep voice said from the other side of the room.

  Auntie Lil dropped the shoes in surprise and looked up to find Andrew Perkins blocking the end of her row on the door side of the room. “I knew Julie needed those shoes the next day for rehearsal,” he explained. “She’d miss them if they were gone and figure out what I had done. So I had to put them back. I was going to take them as soon as they wore out and throw them away. I don’t like to leave loose ends lying around.” He stared at Auntie Lil, his gaze steady and determined. He looked exhausted. His lean frame had grown gaunter in only a week, puffy pouches hung beneath his eyes, and age lines had appeared from the sides of his nose in deep grooves to his mouth. His hair was unkempt and he needed a shave. His clothes looked as if he had slept in them. A nearly empty pack of cigarettes poked from his front shirt pocket and he held a lit one in his hand.