As Dog Is My Witness Another Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,6
our children, and would be completely surprised.”
“I talked to my brother a couple of days ago,” she said, ignoring my attempt at wit.
“How is Howard?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.
Abby’s older brother Howard is everything I’m not—tall, successful, serious—did I mention successful?—so naturally he wonders what the heck his baby sister ever saw in me. He began expressing these doubts sometime during the second Reagan Administration, and he hasn’t stopped since. I, of course, have responded with the level of maturity and logic you’d expect—in private, I moan piteously to my wife. Maturity means different things to different people.
“He’s fine. He and Andrea are bringing Dylan for a visit in a couple of days.” Abby looked at me, daring me to react, and I did my best not to move a facial muscle. It took effort, and made me greater appreciate the Keanu Reeves School of Acting.
A visit from Abby’s brother and his family—especially his fifteen-year-old son Dylan, the sports star, honor student, class president, and all-around pain in the rear—meant constant reminders of what a screw-up I am, and pressure to keep Ethan, the anti-Dylan, from having a melt-down when the families actually have to be together. I was not, let’s say, enthusiastic about the forthcoming visit.
“Where are they going to be staying?” I asked, knowing that the three of them probably wouldn’t be commuting back and forth to St. Paul, Minnesota every night—although a man can dream.
“Well, I thought maybe they could stay here,” she mumbled.
Keanu Reeves be damned—my jaw dropped. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“They couldn’t get a hotel, Aaron.”
I almost dropped the shaving kit in my hand. “Oh, come on, Abby,” I said. “They couldn’t get a hotel in Central New Jersey during the third week in December? Yeah, this is the big tourist season here in the greater New Brunswick area. Let’s face it—your brother, despite having more money than everyone on this block put together, is tighter than J. Lo’s jeans.”
“All right, so he’s a little thrifty.”
“Scrooge McDuck is a little thrifty. Your brother is cheap.”
“Aaron, he’s my brother.”
She gave me a look that indicated the night might not turn out the way I’d hoped, and I softened my tone as I slammed the closet door, hoping the recently inserted travel bag wouldn’t fall out. “Okay, so they’re staying here. Where? Where will the three of them sleep?”
Abby sat down on the bed, dressed in pajama pants and a New Jersey Bar Association t-shirt. Luckily, I’ve had years of practice suppressing the impulse to launch myself at her whenever I want. “I thought Howard and Andrea could have the sofa bed in the basement, and Dylan could use a sleeping bag on the floor in Ethan’s room.”
“Ethan’s room? You want to put the two of them in one bedroom? Are you serious?”
“Well, I can’t put him in Leah’s room, and I don’t think we want him in here. It’s just seven days, Aaron. And Dylan’s not a bad kid.”
“You have a blind spot, Abby,” I said, sinking into the bed. “Dylan and Ethan are oil and water. It’s going to be very tough.”
She looked at me with wide-open, clear, intelligent eyes. I would have to spend an hour in the freezer to return to a completely solid state. “Honey, I want to have some kind of a relationship with my brother. I want our families to get along. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
I touched her hand, and uncharacteristically, she melted into my arms. Women have any number of ways to assert their superiority over men, and Abby is in the top two percent of women in virtually every category.
“No,” I said, “it’s not.”
She kissed me. Men have any number of ways to get women to sleep with them. I’m in the bottom ten percent in that category, but I’m great at agreeing with my wife when she’s right.
Chapter Five
The next morning, I resumed my regular mélange of activities— food prepared and packaged, hair brushed, teeth cleaned, clothes located, dog cleaned up-after, exercise postponed, and loved ones sent out the front door.
To gain access to the people I’d need to interview for the Justin Fowler story, I decided it would help to have an assignment from a publication of some kind. It wouldn’t be an awful thing, I decided, if I could make some money from the investigation. So as soon as nine a.m. rolled around, I called Lydia Soriano, the features editor at Snapdragon Magazine, with whom I had