Free A Motive For Murder by Katy Munger

exit.
    “Yes?” the dance instructor asked suspiciously,
staring at Auntie Lil as if her street clothes obscured her
identity.
    “I am Lillian Hubbert. We just met in class.”
    “I remember. Don’t feel bad, dear. You tried your
best.” She patted Auntie Lil’s shoulder. Some people just aren’t
built for the ballet.”
    “I am not here to discuss my balletic
abilities,”Auntie Lil answered quickly. “I am a board member of the
Metropolitan and I am inquiring in an official capacity into the
death of Bobby Morgan three nights ago. You remember, I
presume?”
    Paulette froze just as Jerry Vanderbilt came charging
through the door behind her. He crashed into her and stopped in
surprise.
    “She’s on the board,” Paulette explained tersely.
“She wants to ask us questions about Morgan.”
    “I didn’t say that specifically,” Auntie Lil said.
“But now that you mention it...”
    The pair exchanged a glance. “Better be nice,” Jerry
grudgingly advised Paulette. “She pays the bills.”
    “What exactly do you want?” Paulette asked, drawing
herself up to her full height. Her eyes blazed and Auntie Lil
caught a hint of the fiery presence that had been her hallmark
during her prima ballerina days.
    “I just want to ask you a few questions in a very
friendly way. Over lunch,” Auntie Lil explained.
    “I never eat lunch, but all right,” Paulette agreed.
“I can make an exception. But you’ll have to be quick. We have
another class in two hours.”
    Auntie Lil doubted that Paulette’s stout frame had
missed too many lunches lately, but she played along. “Fine,” she
agreed. “You must join Herbert and me for a salad. Perhaps you can
be wicked and order the consommé.”
     It was like eating lunch with a malevolent
Abbott and Costello. Paulette and Jerry had the ability to finish
each other’s sentences with extrasensory spite.
    “Raoul Martinez was never a great dancer,” Paulette
said when Auntie Lil asked her about the Metro’s artistic director.
“Perhaps not even a very good one. He just rode the craze for dark,
brooding men in the seventies. He was more of a—”
    “Poor man’s dancing Errol Flynn,” Jerry finished.
“Even starred in some Grade-C flicks back in Spain wearing tights
and waving a sword.”
    “He seems an excellent artistic director,” Auntie Lil
said mildly. She was waiting for her foot-long chili dog with
melted cheese and onions. It was a little much, even for Auntie
Lil, but she had the urge to get even with Paulette for her earlier
humiliations and she had a hunch this was one way to do so. The
former dancer had rather wistfully ordered a large garden
salad.
    “He controls the company fine,” Jerry said
enigmatically. “It’s the ones who are closer to home he has trouble
controlling.”
    This was hardly a discreet reference. The whole dance
world knew that Raoul Martinez was married to the Metro’s aging
prima ballerina, a temperamental woman who was named Lisette
Casanova-Martinez. Their stormy relationship and public fights were
legendary in ballet circles and had even ended up on the gossip
pages of New York’s tabloids on several occasions.
    “Yes, I’ve heard,” Auntie Lil murmured. The waiter
was approaching their table with a well-filled tray. Her lunch
smelled exquisite. The huge hot dog steamed with the delightful
odor of a fair’s midway, causing Paulette’s nose to twitch in envy.
She stared at the enormous platter of cholesterol-inducing goo with
undisguised envy as it was set in front of Auntie Lil. Herbert had
confined himself, as usual, to broiled fish and a salad. Only Jerry
had joined Auntie Lil in enthusiastic gluttony—after all, he wasn’t
paying—and was about to dive into a plate heaped high with fried
seafood.
    “Jerry can eat anything and never gains an ounce,”
Paulette said, staring at the golden battered shrimp like a gull
might eye the fried shrimp’s more alive brethren.
    “Metabolism,” Jerry explained, crunching