A Motive For Murder (14 page)

“I thought it might be best to stay,” Prescott
explained. “What the Reverend has to tell you impacts on his
defense. I’d like to hear it again. If you don’t mind, of
course.”

“No. I don’t mind at all,” Auntie Lil said, turning
to her host. “Mattie Jones told me you had evidence you didn’t want
to share with the police?”

Ben Hampton laughed with a snorting glee that sounded
like a buffalo sneezing. “It’s not that I didn’t try to explain it
to them,” he said. “It’s that the police don’t believe me. You see,
what I have to tell them sounds like excuses because they have
already made up their minds about me. But I know what the truth is,
and the truth is that I did not kill that boy’s father. But I might
have seen who did.”

“Can you explain?” Auntie Lil sipped her Bloody Mary.
It was perfect. She sighed in contentment. Her drink was strong,
her life interesting and her health remarkably good. What more
could anyone ask?

“I can, but first I want your word that you will
agree to stand by me when I hold a press conference later today
about the injustice of my arrest.” Hampton settled back in his arm
chair and folded his elegant hands over his ample tummy, waiting
for her reply.

“I can’t possibly do that,” Auntie Lil said firmly.
“I do not believe that this condition was part of our original
deal.”

 “Miss Jones may have failed to mention it,”
Hampton said smoothly, “since she is not as experienced as I am in
these things. But your presence as a member of the Metro’s board
would add credibility and help erase part of the stain of shame the
board created when it refused to let that most talented young lady,
Fatima Jones, dance.” He gazed confidently at Auntie Lil.

But Auntie Lil was not a pushover and she
particularly disliked last-minute surprises. Especially when she
had just spent $125,000 of her own money on bail and a legal
retainer in keeping up her end of the bargain. “Mr. Hampton,” she
said quietly, “you must forgive me. I am an old lady and certainly
I am not as experienced as you at using the media to my advantage.
But I do hope you will acknowledge a few facts before you insist on
this last-minute condition.”

Hamilton Prescott squirmed uneasily in his leather
chair. Unlike Ben Hampton, he knew Auntie Lil.

“Number one,” she said, “I put a great deal of my own
money on the line on the proviso that you would talk to me. But I
did not agree to put up either my name or my face. Number two, as a
board member of the Metropolitan Ballet, I can neither endorse your
innocence nor proclaim your guilt at this time. Especially since I
have been asked by the board to look into the murder in an official
capacity. Number three, I underwrite over five hundred thousand
dollars’ worth of minority scholarships in this city each year and
I will not be made to feel guilty about my contributions to racial
equality. I am perfectly satisfied with my soul. It is yours I have
come to evaluate.”

The Reverend’s eyes grew wider during this speech,
but his expression did not change. When she was done, he threw his
head back and roared with laughter. He wiped his eyes and took a
sip of brandy, shaking his head. “I can see I will put nothing over
on you,” he admitted. “I may as well not try.”

“You would be wise to make me your ally,” Auntie Lil
agreed, “if I choose to make you mine. I can help you gain much
badly needed legitimacy if what you are interested in is a
long-term career in city government.”

The Reverend cocked his head and scrutinized her.
“You’re offering me a spot on the Metropolitan’s board?” he
guessed.

Auntie Lil shook her head. “That is not within my
power. But certainly, if I so choose, I can propose your candidacy
in the future. This would underscore our intention to address the
concerns of minority artists within the company. That is, if I
leave today convinced that you are a man of your word and a man of
honor.”

The Reverend tapped the floor with a foot as he
considered how best to proceed. “Okay. I’ll keep my end of the
original bargain.”

“How delightful,” Auntie Lil murmured, sipping her
drink.

“The police believe I murdered Bobby Morgan for
several reasons,” Hampton explained. “As near as I can tell from
the not-so-subtle hints of the detectives who questioned me, the
rear doors to backstage are left unlocked during performances
because of fire regulations. Both doors lead into an alley not
twenty feet away from where I was standing with my protesters. The
protest dispersed about an hour after the performance started, once
the media had left.”

Of course,
Auntie Lil thought.
Why bother
protesting if it didn’t translate into a couple inches on the front
page?

Hampton continued. “Most of my people left right
away. They have families, jobs that start early in the morning,
children who need their homework supervised, mouths to feed, long
subway rides. You understand?”

“Certainly,” she said. “The working class. I was a
member of it myself for sixty years, my good man. I inherited this
money only last year.”

“I apologize,” the Reverend offered. “I assumed you
had been born into wealth.”

Hamilton Prescott—who
had
been born into
wealth and wondered why these two felt it necessary to apologize
about it—wiggled uneasily. But he was also transfixed by the
colorful character before him and the tabloid nature of Hampton’s
personality. Just the same, he wanted them to hurry up and get to
the point so he could go home and scan the local television
stations to see if he had made it onto the early-evening news.

“And then your followers dispersed quickly?” Auntie
Lil reminded Hampton.

“Yes.” He nodded his massive head. “In the confusion
of the crowd, I was separated from my usual companions and
body–guards. I have four of them because of death threats. All part
of the price I pay.”

It wasn’t anyone’s fault but the Reverend’s that his
mug was plastered on half the newspapers in the Tri-state area
every week. But Auntie Lil kept this opinion to herself.

“My people are very honest. When the police came to
them afterward, asking about my whereabouts, they admitted that I
had not been with them between nine and nine-thirty. I would not
expect them to tell anything but the truth.”

“Where were you?” Auntie Lil demanded.

The Reverend hesitated, opened his mouth, shut it,
stopped dangling his leg, and adjusted both pants cuffs.

“Come on,” Auntie Lil said. “Let’s have it.”

“I met a young lady,” the Reverend explained with as
much dignity as he could muster. “We took a stroll there in the
park at the rear of the Lincoln Center complex.”

Auntie Lil had not been a New Yorker for eighty-four
years with her eyes closed. She immediately pegged this feeble
excuse for what it was: a cover story to account for the fact that
the Reverend Ben Hampton had nipped over to Tenth Avenue and
engaged a young lady of the evening for some recreation.

“You told the police that?” she asked.

“Of course not. It would only be misconstrued.”

You bet your white clerical collar it would be
misconstrued,
she thought to herself.
The media would love
it.

“Thus they find it hard to believe that I would
simply be enjoying a stroll through the complex for the half hour
in which this man was killed.”

“There’s more,” Hamilton Prescott interrupted. “Go
ahead and tell her. She’s been accused of worse. She’ll
understand.”

Reverend Hampton looked impressed. This little old
lady accused of murder? Perhaps she did know how it felt. “They
discovered my fingerprints on the back fire-exit doors,” he
explained. “They took that as a sign that I had entered and exited
through those doors in order to kill Bobby Morgan.”

“Why were your fingerprints on the doors?” Auntie Lil
demanded. She asked obvious questions without apology.

“I admit that I did enter and exit through those
doors,” the Reverend explained. “But that was earlier. Around seven
o’clock. Some parents of the children were leaving backstage and I
caught hold of each open door and just peeked inside, getting the
lay of the land.”

“In other words, you were considering storming the
stage with your troupe of protesters and wanted to know how easy
the access would be?” Auntie Lil guessed.

“Precisely. But I grasped at once that such a scheme
presented too many problems.”

“You’d be caught long before you got to the stage?”
Auntie Lil said.

The Reverend nodded. “Or not be noticed at all. The
back–stage area was filled with people. Instead, I went with the
traditional march in front of the entrance doors.”

“Lucky for me,” Auntie Lil said dryly. “I might not
have ended up on the front page of two tabloids otherwise, my mouth
hanging open as if I were a murderer caught red-handed at the
scene.”

The Reverend was nonplussed. “An unfortunate pose, I
do admit. But the press is just doing its job.”

Auntie Lil exchanged a skeptical glance with her
lawyer and took another healthy gulp of Bloody Mary.

“So they have a time frame, and your fingerprints on
an entrance and exit route,” Auntie Lil said. “What about means and
a motive?”

“The motive is obviously my anger at seeing Fatima
Jones bounced from her leading role. Since Morgan was ultimately
responsible.”

“How did you know about that, by the way?” Auntie Lil
asked.

The Reverend shook his head slowly, a grin breaking
out. “Now, Miss Hubbert, you know I can’t reveal my sources.”

“Why not?” she demanded. “This is not Watergate.”

“Miss Hubbert, I have a network of injustice fighters
all over this city. They can be found in every agency, all levels
of government, and most of the important organizations. Their
access to information depends on their anonymity. I can’t
com–promise that freedom.”

“So the motive was revenge,” Auntie Lil said. “What
about the means? How are you linked to the rope?”

“I’m strong enough to have done it,” he explained.
“And I know a lot about ropes.”

“Know a lot about ropes?” she asked. “What in
heaven’s name does that mean?”

“I supervise several Boy Scout troops up in Harlem
and often teach the knot-tying classes myself.”

“Surely you jest,” she said. “What kind of skill is
that to teach a young urban man these days? In preparation for
what? Shimmying down roofs and breaking into high-rises?”

“Miss Hubbert,” he informed her with dignity. “What
else are we going to do with these boys? We can’t take many nature
hikes in the heart of Manhattan. Campfires are a bad idea when
you’re surrounded by tenements. We teach them traditional crafts to
distract them from the temptations of the street. They enjoy it. We
let the boys dream.”

“Hmmph,” she said, unconvinced that teaching young
men how to make slipknots was the best use of their talent. “Still
seems like a mighty thin thread to hang an accusation on, if you
will excuse the pun.”

“You must understand that I am a man of some
notoriety,” Hampton said. He patted his chest modestly. “The police
have been searching for a way to discredit me for decades. This is
the perfect opportunity. Even if they can’t make the charges stick,
the accusations alone will hurt my credibility. I was about to
announce my candidacy for City Council. This will hurt me in some
people’s eyes. I am looking to expand my constituency beyond the
traditional confines of my people.”

“Well, in that case I should think that you would get
a more traditional haircut and start dressing like a senator and
stop backing people on causes that don’t matter and concentrate on
ones that do.” Auntie Lil knocked back the rest of her Bloody Mary
and plunked the glass down on the coffee table, as always
blissfully unaware that not everyone appreciated her blunt approach
to giving advice.

The Reverend looked startled.

“And another thing,” Auntie Lil said, with no
intention of stopping. “You need to agitate a little more
selectively. Didn’t you ever hear the story about the boy who cried
wolf? And try some issues that involve more than minorities,
perhaps ones that affect all poor people. God knows New York City
has plenty of poor people.”

Hamilton Prescott turned to the fire to hide his
smile.

“Is that all?” the Reverend asked with pulpitlike
patience.

“No,” Auntie Lil said. “You need to shout less now
that people know who you are. People expect it from you. They don’t
even hear what you are saying anymore. Try being reasonable, a
little more low-key. You’ll be that much more interesting, seem as
if you have matured. And appeal to a lot more people. People want
to believe in someone,” Auntie Lil explained. “You must give them a
reason to believe, not frighten them into believing.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the Reverend promised with
a smile.

“Good,” Auntie Lil said. “Now that I’m done lecturing
you, what more can you tell me?”

“I think I saw the killer,” the Reverend
admitted.

Auntie Lil leaned forward.

“I was returning from my stroll with the, uh, young
lady,” the Reverend explained. “She had taken leave of my company
for a prior engagement and I was alone. I was walking along the
sidewalk that borders the circular bandstand area at the rear of
Lincoln Center.”

“I know the spot,” Auntie Lil said. It was heavily
manicured with bushes and trees in order to soundproof the
bandstand area from the many theaters in the complex.

“I had just concealed myself in the bushes,” Hampton
explained. “Nature called, you see, and the public facilities were
not convenient. As I turned my back to the walk, I heard footsteps
behind me. Someone was running down the alleyway in a hurry. The
footsteps sounded like a machine gun almost, just tap, tap, tap,
tap down that brick path right by where I was standing. I couldn’t
turn around until I finished my business, but I was curious. I
popped my head out and I could see a man at the far end of the
alleyway where it reaches the main sidewalk. He took a left there
and headed toward Broadway.”