For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,34

he was going to swallow his lips. His eyes narrowed, his neck appeared to widen to twice its original size, and his veins stuck out. “Oh, really?” he said.

“Yes, really. Joel is a source for an article I’m writing, and I will not reveal to you what he said to me.”

“He’s my son!”

“I’m aware of that,” I said in my most soothing “we’re-both-dads-here” voice. “But you have to understand, Gary, that Joel is also a confidential source, and he needs to know that what he tells me in confidence is going to stay that way. If he doesn’t trust me, I won’t get any more information from him.”

“I don’t see where your information is making my Madlyn reappear,” he said coldly.

“Neither do I,” I admitted, “but then, I didn’t apply for this job. I was drafted. By the way, the night Madlyn disappeared, did you hear anything?”

“I’ve already told you, no!” said Beckwirth, almost as if he were vibrating. “I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t see anything. Now, are you going to find Madlyn or not?”

“I have no idea if I’m going to find her,” I said. “But I will keep looking. At least until Thursday.”

He started scooping up the pictures and placing them back into the box, but not before sorting them for size and shape—ever the Distraught Anal-Retentive Husband. “What’s Thursday?”

“My deadline,” I told him. “I have to submit copy to the paper on Thursday, and so far, on this story, I don’t have anything to write.”

“They’ll extend your deadline,” Beckwirth said. “I’ll make a phone call. . .”

“Gary, if I don’t find anything by Thursday. . .” I didn’t know how to say the rest.

“What?”

“If I can’t find her after she’s been gone ten days, Gary, well. . . I think maybe you’d better get used to the idea that she might not want to come back.”

Beckwirth looked like I’d slapped him in the face. With a sledgehammer. He clamped his teeth together and spoke through them in a voice more reptile than human.

“Don’t ever walk through my door again unless you have something cheerful to say to me about my wife,” he said. “Cheerful”—that’s really the word he used. “The next time you say something like that in my presence, Mr. Tucker, I will most certainly kill you.”

I pursed my lips and nodded a bit, digesting the soliloquy. I turned toward the door, then back to Beckwirth. “By the way, Gary, does Joel like barbecued ribs?”

Gary Beckwirth tried as hard as he could not to speak to me, but his pride at having raised his son correctly won out over his determination. “Joel,” he said with a triumphant shake of his head, “is a vegetarian. Why?”

I walked out the door, mumbling. “Figures,” I said. “It figures.”

Chapter 20

When I got home from Beckwirth’s house, I checked the sidewalk carefully for further messages—there were none. The other good news of the moment was that, even though it hadn’t quite shown up on my sidewalk, I finally might have a lead to work with in this Beckwirth story.

The possibility of a car driving by, loud enough to wake Joel Beckwirth, at some time after midnight, raised a number of possibilities. It could mean somebody had driven off with Madlyn against her will—the squealing tires and screeching brakes would certainly support that theory. At the very least, someone had been in a great big hurry.

But I wasn’t ready to accept Beckwirth’s sinister theories yet. It was equally possible that Madlyn had planned her own disappearance. Suppose she’d decided to leave in the middle of the night, knowing that Gary couldn’t be roused easily. True, Beckwirth had pointed out that neither her car nor his had been moved, but that didn’t mean Madlyn hadn’t driven away. She could have rented a car, or reserved a taxi, and arranged to have it waiting outside for her, or—more likely—have a friend pick her up. The driver might still be in a hurry, giddy with Madlyn’s new-found freedom.

It was also entirely possible that Madlyn had gone out to investigate the noise, and been eaten by a passing bear. But I wasn’t going to mention that cheerful theory to Dutton, nor especially to Beckwirth. I had no bear tracks to back me up. You write something in the newspaper, you need evidence.

I opened my front door wearily and walked into the living room. Abigail hadn’t been able to leave the house for her nightly run because I was out, so she was exercising on the