Auntie Lil tried to remain calm, but her voice quavered when she spoke. “I think your daughter has already figured out what happened,” she said. “That’s why she moved out, isn’t it? The day after the funeral she realized that you had killed Bobby Morgan—and why.”
“My daughter will never be able to understand why I killed Bobby Morgan,” Perkins explained with a voice as emotionless as if he were describing a boring vacation. “No one can understand what it was like for me to live on the same planet as that man. He had to go.”
“I can imagine what it was like,” Auntie Lil disagreed. She had to keep talking, she needed to buy time. “Always having him there, competing with you. Always winning.” If she could keep him occupied, someone would come along. It was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. Classes would break soon. Her eyes slid to the wall, searching for a clock.
“He didn’t always win,” Perkins said sharply. “I was the one that carried the show in the early days. He was an amateur. I had the experience. I got twice as much mail as him the first year.”
“But not later,” Auntie Lil said. “Not after that.”
“I grew older,” Perkins said angrily. “That’s what happens when you’re a child star. I expected it to happen. I welcomed it when it happened. I was ready to move on.”
She opened the clasp on her pocketbook under the cover of her other hand. If she could keep eye contact with him, perhaps she could slip her hand inside. The screwdriver was still there—and its shaft was long. She might be able to fend him off with a weapon long enough to keep him at bay until someone came along. “I don’t believe you,” she said, locking her eyes on his. “I think you lived for that attention. I think you never got over being fired from the show. I think you’ve always blamed Bobby Morgan for it and hated him because of it. I think you’ve been waiting to murder him for twenty years.”
“That’s a lie,” Perkins said quickly, his eyes blazing. “I have far more important things in my life. Bobby Morgan was a loser. He was a bloodsucker. He couldn’t earn a living on his own. He had to earn it off his own kid’s back. At least I was good at something when I grew up. I could make money. All he could do was spend it.”
“But you lost your job,” Auntie Lil pointed out. Her hand slipped inside the purse, but she was having trouble finding the screwdriver among the cluttered contents. Her fingers touched a pocket calculator, a small nylon wallet, and a roll of mints. Where was the screwdriver?
“I left my job willingly,” Andrew Perkins corrected her. “The big money was gone. The eighties were over.”
“You were fired,” Auntie Lil said flatly. Her fingers brushed against hard metal and she closed her hand on the screwdriver handle. “I have sources. My nephew told me you were fired.”
“Your nephew is a liar,” Perkins said angrily. “The world is full of liars. Liars like Bobby Morgan.” Suddenly he laughed, his head thrown back in delight. Auntie Lil took the opportunity to pull the screwdriver from her purse. She held it behind her back, out of sight.
“He always had to be center stage,” Perkins said, his shoulders shaking as if he had just heard a hilarious joke. “He was center stage all right. Did you see him? I’d have given anything to have been in the audience to see it instead of backstage.” He laughed again. “He made a hell of a grand exit.”
Auntie Lil stepped back toward the far end of her row. Four minutes to go before the hour. She would never be able to stall him long enough. He blocked one end of the row, but if she took him by surprise, she might be able to run toward the door on the far side of the room and get through it before he could react.
No, it was impossible. She was too old.
But if she was running fast enough and he was preoccupied enough, she might reach it in time to frighten him away with her weapon and get into the hall. He would have to be following her for it to work. She had to try it. She had no other choice.
“You find it funny that Bobby Morgan’s dead body was displayed like that for an entire theater of children to see?” Auntie Lil asked, her mouth a grim line of disapproval.
“I find it hilarious,” Perkins admitted, nodding his head happily. “Bobby Morgan, L.A. swinger. Swinging for the very last time.”
“I would say you didn’t kill him soon enough, then,” Auntie Lil pointed out. “You should have stopped Bobby Morgan from being a swinger before he met your daughter.” She took another step back toward the far end of the room, closer to the back passageway that led to the first row of lockers.
Perkins’s face flushed. “That isn’t true,” he said. “I stopped him before he could do anything.”
“Really?” Auntie Lil asked, forcing herself to smirk, though she hated the words coming out of her mouth. “Do you really believe that? Nikki Morgan told me that your daughter had been staying out all night. Who do you think she was staying with? What do you think she was doing? Do you really believe Bobby Morgan would leave her alone? She’s a beautiful young woman. And your daughter. He was doing it to get back at you, you know. He was using your daughter just to show you he could.”
“Bobby Morgan was a joke,” Perkins yelled. “Julie was too smart not to see it. She would never have had anything to do with him.” He darted toward Auntie Lil, but stopped abruptly. She would have to taunt him further until he gave chase. If he stayed at his end of the row, he’d be able to simply turn back toward the door and cut her off. She had to bait him further.
“Don’t kid yourself,” she said quietly. “Bobby Morgan loved young girls. He probably came back to New York City just to get his hands on Julie. Let me guess. You met him at the Los Angeles charity ball for the first time in years. You mentioned you had a daughter now, one dancing with the Metro. You were eager to let him know that he wasn’t the only one who had a star for a child. But he had to one-up you again, didn’t he? He had to go on and on about how much money he was making off his son’s career. And then he had to take it one step further. Because he never could let well enough alone. He came here to start an affair with Lisette Martinez, but once here, he met Julie and Lisette was history. Julie may even have been the one to initiate their affair. He was famous and successful. Everything she wanted in a man.” Auntie Lil did not really believe this, but she had to goad him.
“Shut up,” Perkins said, taking another step forward. “Julie wouldn’t have looked at him twice. He’s the one who pursued her. I heard the phone ringing every evening while he begged her to see him. I could hear her tone of voice. I saw the flowers, read the unsigned notes. He did it all. He drew her into it. If I had known it was him, I would have killed him earlier. I thought it was Mikey instead. I thought it was cute.” His voice faltered. “I would have killed him the first night if I’d known.”
“If you’d known that he was going to take your little girl away from you forever, you mean?” Auntie Lil said. “If you’d known about him before he did all those things to Julie that you can’t seem to forget? If you’d known enough to plan the murder better, to hide it from your daughter? Because now she will never forgive you for what you’ve done.”
This time her taunts were enough.
“My daughter is glad he’s dead and she will never tell anyone that I did it,” Perkins shouted. “And once you’re dead, no one else will ever know it was me.” He darted toward her angrily, his arms outstretched. She turned on her heels, dropped her heavy purse in his way, and ran around the far end of her row of lockers, dashing back toward the front of the room. Perkins followed, his long legs quickly making up the space between them. She could hear his footsteps against the tile floor, the sharp tap of his businessman’s shoes as he drew closer. Her body was too old to sustain the chase, and she was tired and beat-up from the day before. She faltered, her will slipping, then forced herself to move faster. She pushed her body to the limit, reaching the doorway just as she heard several doors slam on the floor below. Three o’clock, she thought, it was three o’clock. Classes were letting out now. Help was near.
“Help me!” she screamed, but the sounds of lingering music floating up from the first-floor space masked her cry. The accompanists were still winding down and Jerry Vanderbilt was thumping away at his usual deafening level of sound. Could anyone hear her cries? She whirled around and jabbed at Perkins with the screwdriver, hoping to slow him down. It caught him on the wrist, sinking into the flesh no more than a quarter of an inch. It was enough to draw blood. He cursed and grabbed at his wrist, screaming. Auntie Lil turned toward the first-floor stairs, but he stepped forward and blocked her way, his wrist clamped to his mouth as he sucked on his wound.
“You must be kidding,” he said almost calmly, droplets of blood trickling from his lips. “By the time anyone gets up here, you’ll be dead. And I will be long gone.”
He began to move toward her again. She had no choice but to flee toward the far end of the hall and the stairs to the third-floor storage spaces. She threw the screwdriver at him, but it bounced harmlessly off his chest and clattered to the floor, rolling in front of him down the passageway. In his haste, he stepped on the handle and the round barrel turned beneath one foot, sending him off balance. He scrambled to regain his footing. Auntie Lil took the time to dash down the hall and run up the stairs to the third floor. Surely someone would be there, a technical person perhaps. Someone who could intimidate Perkins into giving up.
The third floor was empty. “Help me!” Auntie Lil screamed as she moved down the hall, trying each doorway she passed. She could hear Perkins’s footsteps clattering up the stairs. He was angrier and moving faster now. “Someone help me!” she shouted, her voice echoing across the empty space.
“What’s going on?” she heard a deep voice yell from the far end of the hallway near the abandoned storage room. She fled toward the sound as if it were a beacon of light in the darkness.
“Help me,” she shouted again as she ran. Perkins was running rapidly down the hall toward her, his bloody wrist forgotten as he sprinted to make up his lost time. She reached the end of the long hallway and turned the corner. No one was there. Where was the voice coming from? She tried the empty storage room. Perhaps she could lock herself inside. The door would not budge. Perkins rounded the corner and started toward her. She backed up, hands reaching out behind her. There was no place to go but through the smaller door at the end of the shorter hall and onto the catwalk. Flinging open the door, she ran out onto the swinging metal ramp, slamming the door behind her, yet knowing it would not stop him for long. The catwalk was heavy steel, but it swayed as she ran down the center of its length, searching for escape. Did the metal ladder she had climbed the night before reach up this high or was she trapped? The walls were bare except for thick stage ropes. She would never be able to climb down them without falling.
“Help me!” she screamed over the edge of the catwalk just as the door opened. Perkins spotted her and smiled.
Where was the man that belonged to the voice she had heard in the hall, she thought frantically. He had to be here somewhere. “Help me!” she screamed again.
Ricky Lee Harris poked his head out from a storage area built into the sidewall of the stage one story below. He peered up at the catwalk but was standing directly beneath it and could not get a clear view. “What’s going on up there?” he shouted.
Perkins stopped at the other end of the walk when he heard the lighting director’s voice. He froze, peering over the side to his right, wondering if he could be seen.
Auntie Lil had almost reached the far end of the catwalk. She ignored the swaying movement beneath her feet that her frantic scrambling produced. “It was Andrew Perkins!” she screamed. “He’s the one who killed Bobby Morgan. He’s got me trapped up here on the catwalk. He’s trying to kill me!” If she was going to die, she decided, she was going to make sure everyone knew who had killed her.
“Now, Miss Hubbert,” Perkins said loudly in a soothing voice, “You’re overexcited. Don’t be silly. You shouldn’t be out here. It’s dangerous. You might slip and fall. Let me help you off.” He leaned over the edge of the catwalk and smiled down at a puzzled Ricky Lee Harris. “It’s okay, Rick. She’s just a little excited. I found her going through my daughter’s locker, and when I got angry, she flipped out on me. I can handle it.”
“Don’t believe him!” Auntie Lil screamed angrily, alarmed when Perkins took several more steps toward her. She began to rock the catwalk, holding on to the metal sides as she shifted her weight from left to right. As it swung more wildly she caught glimpses of Ricky Lee’s quizzical face staring up at the catwalk, his eyes unfocused and bleary. He was going to believe Perkins, she realized with despair. He was probably so drunk he didn’t even know if what he was hearing was real. She would have to get help from someone else.
“Help me!” she screamed over the edge of the catwalk in the loudest voice she had ever summoned from her considerable lungs. “Help me! Help me! Please help me!” She took off her shoes and threw them to the stage below. There were people moving about on the stage. Someone had to notice. “Help me!” she screamed over and over.
Her cries had no effect on Perkins. He advanced on her faster, holding on to the metal railings, stumbling slightly from side to side as the catwalk rocked beneath her vigorous movements. It was harder for him to keep his balance because he was moving; if she kept rocking it, she might slow him down. She could hear voices beneath her. Someone shouted up at them.
“Help!” she screamed back, not hearing what had been said, unable to focus on anything but keeping Perkins off balance.
Perkins was only a few yards away when she threw herself against the sides of the catwalk, desperate to slow him down. He stumbled and lost his footing, teetered against the metal railings, cursed, and then regained his foothold.
“What the hell?” Ricky Lee Harris shouted a story below. “What are you doing on that ladder? Get off. It’s dangerous.”
Who was he talking to? “Help me!” Auntie Lil screamed again. “He’s trying to kill me! For God sakes, help me!”
“Get off of there!” Ricky Lee bellowed again. Why was he shouting at her? She began to panic. Not only wouldn’t he help her, he was shouting at her and making it harder to think.
But Ricky Lee Harris wasn’t shouting at Auntie Lil. He was yelling across the stage at the lithe figure of the young dancer climbing steadily up the metal ladder embedded into the back brick wall of the stage. Rudy Vladimir had heard Auntie Lil’s cries from below and believed her. He climbed rapidly, his strong young body surmounting the rungs with the ease of a practiced sailor. He passed the second-story level and shouted at Harris, “Get help! She’s telling the truth.”
But Auntie Lil was trapped on top of the catwalk without a view of below. She had no way of knowing Rudy was on his way to her. She rocked the catwalk furiously, feeling tears coming, angry at herself for not holding on to her calm. She would not die in this manner, tumbling to the stage below, disposed of by a man who thought only of himself.
“Stay away from me!” she screamed as Perkins moved even closer. Just a few feet of swaying catwalk now separated them.
Rudy scrambled up the remaining rungs. The ladder didn’t reach all the way to the catwalk. He couldn’t catch hold of the railing or reach the pathway. Besides, it was swaying too much to chance a jump. He spotted the clump of heavy ropes hanging down from the rafters. Grabbing the nearest cord, he shimmied up the remaining distance until he was above the catwalk, flush against the wall behind Auntie Lil. He leaped lightly onto its surface and stepped in front of her, pushing her down on the floor to protect her from Perkins. He faced her assailant.
Andrew Perkins froze in surprise as, with one beautiful, soaring, and perfect leap, Rudy launched himself from the swaying surface of the catwalk. He flew through the air, his right foot held straight out in front of him as unyielding as a steel pillar. The weight of his entire body was focused on that single, muscled leg and it slammed into Andrew Perkins’s groin with the force of a locomotive. Perkins crumpled t
o the ground, his face a mute mask of agony as he writhed on the narrow steel ramp. Rudy reached for Auntie Lil and helped her to her feet.
Perkins tried to sit up, his body rocking violently as the full impact of the blow sank in. He rolled to the right and attempted to scramble toward them in his rage. His body teetered and he rolled toward the edge of the catwalk, part of his upper body slipping between the two thick wire ropes that served as the railings. His torso disappeared over the edge and he arched desperately, trying to grab the lower railing to pull himself back up. But his sudden movement only tipped the catwalk even more steeply. The lower half of his body slid almost gracefully from the steel floor, slithering over the side until one foot caught on the lower railing. The catwalk danced under this uncertain weight and Rudy grabbed Auntie Lil to steady her.
They heard the scream as Andrew Perkins’s foot pulled clear and he began to fall. It sounded as if it went on for moments: a deep, agonized scream that faded in sound as he tumbled three stories to the stage below. It rang in their ears, echoing and echoing in its madness. There was a thump—and the theater fell silent.
Rudy pulled Auntie Lil to him and patted her head. His arms were so strong and reassuring that she began to cry, overcome at a single overwhelming thought: another boy had, too soon, been forced to become a man.
A Motive for Murder (Hubbert & Lil Cozy Mystery Series Book 4) Page 28