For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,50

this room.

Another few steps inside and I could see the whole suite. It was extremely well appointed, with understated carpeting, and real wood furniture. In addition, there was a sitting room, where a TV armoire was open, a coffee table in front of the overstuffed sofa and two armchairs, and French doors leading out to a veranda, where there was a table and two wire chairs.

In the bedroom was a walk-in closet, whose door was also open. There was virtually nothing inside—just empty hangers. Even in this high-priced suite, they were the kind of hangers you can’t take off the closet bar. Some companies don’t trust anybody. A table and two chairs sat next to the other set of French doors, and brilliant sunshine was streaming into the room and onto the huge king-size bed.

On the bed was Madlyn Beckwirth. She was dressed in a very short black lace teddy that I would have recognized from the Victoria’s Secret catalogue, had I been the type who reads such things. Under different circumstances, she might have looked quite appealing in it, but it was hard for me to summon that mental image right now.

From what I could tell, she had been shot twice—once in the stomach, which had bled considerably, and then once in the head. Whoever shot her had been aiming for her forehead and missed. The wound was through her left cheek, and had taken a considerable amount of the back of her head off. I’m no detective, but I could tell from all the way across the room that she was dead.

There are times in your life when your mind reacts to events in ways totally opposite to the way you would hope. These are times you bury in the back of your memory, but they resurface periodically, just to remind you that you are a dreadful, shameless creature barely worthy of the name “human.”

For me, this was one of those times. My first thought on seeing Madlyn laid out on the bed, gut-shot, murdered, her young life wasted, was, “this is going to make one helluva great screenplay.”

Chapter 3

After a few seconds, I was able to regain my senses, and that’s when reality set in. My hands started to shake, and a cold sweat appeared on my forehead. I forced myself to look away from the bed to avoid vomiting on a crime scene.

The first thing that always occurs to me when I’m in a difficult situation is to call Abigail. Luckily, that made superb sense in this case, since my wife is an attorney, and a former criminal attorney at that. I reached into my inside jacket pocket and pulled out the cell phone, hit “redial,” and prayed she hadn’t left the office yet.

Abby has caller ID on her office phone, so she could see the number of my cell phone before she picked up the phone. “I swear, I’m on my way out the door,” she said in lieu of a greeting.

“Actually I’m glad you’re still there,” I told her. “I have a situation.”

The smile left her voice. “Where are you?”

“I’m in Room 2203 of Bally’s Casino Hotel, and Madlyn Beckwirth is here. She’s dead.”

Abby had once told me, in another context, that a lot of people go to hotels to commit suicide. “Suicide?” she asked.

“Not unless she found a way to shoot herself in the belly and the head and then throw the gun out the window before she died.”

“Jesus,” my wife offered.

“So, what do I do now?” I asked her.

Lawyer-Mode clicked in—even though she hadn’t done criminal work in years—and Abby’s voice dropped an octave. “Have you called the Atlantic City police?”

“I haven’t called anybody yet. I called you. The police may think my behavior a bit suspicious. The door to her room was slightly open, but I did push my way in. And I didn’t let Barry or Westbrook know in advance I was coming here to get her. I don’t think they would have approved.”

Abby sucked in on her front teeth, her way of indicating to me that I was being a moron. “You’ve seen too many Hitchcock movies, Aaron. Don’t worry about what seems suspicious. Nobody’s going to think you killed Madlyn. You don’t have a motive. But think about everything you’ve done since you entered the room. Did you move anything, touch anything, do anything that would disturb the scene?”

I had already replayed the past two minutes in my head about fifteen times. “I pushed the door open. My