For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,14
what the hell, I looked cool talking while I walked, like I was negotiating a three-picture deal with Paramount on the way to the Foodtown. On a whim, I whipped the phone out and tried Abigail’s office number. Surprisingly, she answered.
“Abigail Stein.”
“How dare you defile my wife’s name like that?”
“I know. I feel so cheap. How are you?”
“Fat,” I told her. “I just bribed the chief of police with fried dough.”
“You should go to the Y.”
“Can’t. I have to go talk to Beckwirth. I only have until next Thursday on this, and right now I’m nowhere.”
Abby was silent. She was probably in her problem-solving mode, frowning.
“I can hear you frown,” I said.
“You should be here. It’s quite fetching, really.”
“I had a dog once who was quite fetching.”
She groaned. I have that effect on women. “Was there a point to this call, or are you just trying out awful puns and figured I didn’t have anything else to do but listen?”
“I’m strolling up Edison Avenue in the warm March sunshine, and the blue sky made me think of you.” There was more silence on the line. “Now I can hear you smile.”
“It’s even better than hearing me frown.”
I smiled. “I know.”
I usually change topics in a conversation like a 1986 Dodge pickup in need of a ring job. Abby shifted conversational gears smoothly, like a BMW. “What did Barry have to say about the phone call?” she asked. She was already calling it “the phone call.” Eventually, it would become “The Phone Call,” and then I’d really be in trouble.
“He’s going to get our phone records from Verizon. He’ll trace it.”
“Good,” she said. “I shudder to think what would have happened if one of the kids had answered the phone.”
“I’d have died of a heart attack. They don’t answer the phone when they’re sitting right next to it. They inherited that gene from their mom.”
I was now passing the supermarket. Industrious Midland Heights residents were jockeying for parking spaces in the store’s woefully inadequate lot. Of course, because this is New Jersey, nobody was walking, not even the people who lived across the street from the supermarket. So naturally the parking lot was woefully inadequate. Because I was counter-culture, and walking outside to get to my destination, I might have patted myself on the back for my commitment to the environment, but then, to be a complete environmentalist, I probably would have had to jettison the cell phone I was holding next to my ear (hadn’t it been linked to cancer somehow?).
“Is it possible that it was Madlyn Beckwirth herself calling you?” Again, my wife’s amazing capacity to change the subject served her well.
“No, it was definitely a male voice on the phone. On the other hand, since I wouldn’t be able to pick Madlyn out of a line-up, it’s equally possible I wouldn’t know if she had a voice like James Earl Jones.” A woman in the Foodtown parking lot was wrestling with this weird gadget they have that makes you pay 25-cents for a cart, then pays you back when you leave. She shook the gadget both ways, then hit it with her purse. Clearly, it wouldn’t give her back her quarter. Finally, she kicked the cart, yelled something in the store’s direction, and stomped back to her minivan. Another quarter in the pockets of the Establishment. If she came back with a pair of channel locks and cut the gadget off, every citizen of the borough would have applauded.
I passed the supermarket and crossed the main drag of Midland Heights, Midland Avenue (original, huh?), against the light, trotting across the far lane. A guy in a Mercedes-Benz 4x4 honked and gave me the finger as he passed. Probably on his way to pick up his tuxedo for some mountain climbing.
“That call really worries me, Aaron,” said Abigail. “Somebody knows what you’re doing, and they know where you live.”
“That’s why I have you to protect me, Love.”
“Everything’s not a joke, Baby,” she said. “We have two small children living in our house.”
I considered pointing out that Ethan is not close to being a small child, and could in fact take me two out of three falls, but I saw her point. “I’ll be careful, Honey. And if this gets out of hand, I’ll tell Harrington he can have the assignment back.”
Beckwirth’s house was a block past the library, and I was approaching it now. “I’ll talk to you later, Abby. Don’t worry.”