A Motive For Murder Part 7

"But he'll talk to me?" Auntie Lil was skeptical.

"He says he will."

That made the decision easy. She had plenty of money. But only one opportunity to talk to the Reverend Ben Hampton.

It took nearly twenty-four hours to get Ben Hampton released from custody. Not even Auntie Lil's high-priced lawyer, Hamilton Prescott, could make the wheels turn faster. At first Prescott had been reluctant to take on the high-profile case, but when Auntie Lil appealed to his sense of fair play-and promised to find another lawyer should the case come to trial-he agreed to oversee obtaining Hampton's release on bail.

Given his initial resistance, Auntie Lil was bemused to see her reticent lawyer beaming in front of television cameras the next day, his hand on Ben Hampton's elbow as he steered him through the courtroom's hallways to freedom. The phone call she had been expecting came two hours later.

"Miss Hubbert?" Mattie Jones said in her flawless voice. "We can send someone to pick you up now if you're ready to talk to Ben."

"I'm ready," Auntie Lil told her. Theodore would be angry she had left him out of the loop, but it served him right. Once again he had disappeared for half a day-as had Herbert-and she was irritated at being excluded from their plans.

She was wearing a bright red pants suit for the meeting with Hampton. The color had been chosen carefully. Red made her feel powerful and she would need considerable self-confidence to match wits with the Reverend Ben Hampton.

It did not surprise her that the Reverend had a chauffered limousine at his beck and call. Nor did it surprise her when the car drew up in front of a magnificent restored mansion in the section of Harlem known as Sugar Hill. At the turn of the century, the street had been home to New York City's finest houses, stately homes that fell into disrepair decades later. The real-estate boom in the seventies had brought many back to life when affluent blacks repaired them to their former grandeur. Ben Hampton's was one of the finest examples of Victorian architecture she had ever seen. She pa.s.sed through an elaborate wrought-iron gate and up wide wooden stairs to a ma.s.sive oak door inset with a huge fan-shaped wedge of stained gla.s.s. Perhaps his church actually owned the home, she thought to herself. This was almost too much for a man who claimed to be of the cloth.

A neatly dressed teenage girl ushered Auntie Lil into a high-ceilinged parlor with red velvet drapes exactly the color of her suit. Ben Hampton sat in a leather armchair pulled up next to a small fire. To her surprise, Hamilton Prescott sat beside him. The men-so different in race, temperament, and dress-were sharing a smoke and gla.s.ses of brandy. The show of brotherhood was touching but not touching enough to stop Auntie Lil from pointedly glaring at the cigars. Both men obediently ground out their stogies and rose to their feet.

"My thanks for your financial support," Reverend Hampton said smoothly, with a formal bow. He extended a huge hand and grasped hers firmly. He was so physically immense that she wondered if he had been a prizefighter or football player in his youth. Up close, his shock of pure white hair looked even more startling. It rose straight from his scalp like a patch of albino lawn left too long in the sun.

"I trust Mr. Prescott has been of service to you?" Auntie Lil said, casting an amused glance at her straitlaced lawyer. Prescott paused with the brandy gla.s.s halfway to his lips, as if he had just been caught by a teacher doing something naughty.

"It's a most interesting case," Prescott said defensively. "Far more interesting than my usual cases. Except for you, Lillian, my clients can be downright boring."

"I can imagine." She settled herself on a brocade sofa the color of autumn leaves and accepted Hampton's offer of a drink. The man who brought her an extra spicy b.l.o.o.d.y Mary at Hampton's request was dressed casually in sports slacks and a neatly pressed golf s.h.i.+rt. His manner was polite without being the least bit deferential. Hampton's casual thanks to the man told her that he was not a servant but, more likely, a member of the congregation helping to guard him.

"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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 scholars.h.i.+ps 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 c.o.c.ked 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 cla.s.s. 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 a.s.sumed 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 ma.s.sive head. "In the confusion of the crowd, I was separated from my usual companions and bodyguards. 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 backstage 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 compromise 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 cla.s.ses myself."

"Surely you jest," she said. "What kind of skill is that to teach a young urban man these days? In preparation for what? s.h.i.+mmying 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 const.i.tuency 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 b.l.o.o.d.y Mary and plunked the gla.s.s 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. G.o.d 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."

"What did he look like?" Auntie Lil asked eagerly.

"I couldn't see clearly," the Reverend admitted. "There's a string of bright streetlights in the alley on account of it being a prime mugging spot. The glare was in my eyes and the man was in the shadows when he reached the end."

"Was he tall? Was he short?" Auntie Lil asked. "How was he dressed?"

"He was tall and wearing dark clothes," the Reverend offered hopefully. "Couldn't get more specific than that."

"Was he black or white?" Auntie Lil demanded.

Ben Hampton looked offended. "He was most definitely white. That much I can tell you."

Auntie Lil was silent. It could have been the killer. It could have been a man fleeing a mugger. But still... it was a start. And the man had dashed past right after Morgan's death so the timing was right.

"What did the police say to all this?" she asked.

The Reverend shrugged. "Didn't believe me."

Auntie Lil bristled. She considered every sc.r.a.p of information valuable, regardless of the source. Preconceived notions were dangerous. His story was important-and should have been given the consideration it deserved.

"There's more than one way to skin that cat," she promised. "I have a friend. Margo McGregor. I am sure you know of her."

The Reverend nodded. "She covers my activities often."

"I can arrange for you to talk to her. She'd probably do a column on your side of the story. But you'd have to work it out with her about what you were doing in the park alone at night. It might be better to focus on an entirely different subject and not bring up the park at all. At any rate, I am sure Margo will work with you. Would that help?"