For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,54
at all, but by rule of thumb, it’s usually a day or two after we break down and buy the super-humongous size box of Nutter Butters. Leah is a chocolate fiend and will not touch the Nutter Butters. All the remaining stock will be left to the only other person who has 24-hour access to the kitchen (that is, the only resident who doesn’t leave for work or school every day). His task is to eliminate all traces of the current snack of choice. It’s a dirty rotten job, but somebody’s got to do it.
“Um, actually, I think we’re out of Nutter Butters, Ethan,” Abby said, and we both braced ourselves.
His brow furrowed for a moment. “Oh. Okay,” he said, and walked away from the cabinet. I never would have predicted anything less than a raging tantrum and an emergency trip to the supermarket. Abby and I exchanged an incredulous stare. Ethan started for the living room (after all, Spongebob Square Pants wasn’t getting any younger), but I grabbed him by the arm playfully as he passed.
“Okay, who are you, and what have you done with my son?” The phone rang. Abby, sitting next to it, stared at me.
“What do you mean? I am your son.” It rang again. Not a muscle moved on my wife. I sighed and stood up. The break must be over.
“I was just kidding, Ethan.” I walked to the phone and picked it up, as my wife grinned her cat-with-canary grin. As I suspected, the call was from Milton Ladowski, Juris Doctor.
“We just left the casino, Aaron,” he told me. “I put Gary in his car and sent him home.”
“Why didn’t you drive him there? Didn’t they call you after they called Gary?”
“Yes, but I was out,” said Milt. “I was in a conference with another client, and my secretary didn’t let me know until after I came out. By then, Gary was already on his way to A.C.”
“So, what’s the story?” I asked him, wondering silently what would be a big enough emergency for Ladowski’s secretary to call him out of a meeting. “Godzilla laying waste to Midland Heights? Hope the lot’s still there. He’ll get back to you after the real estate closing. Try and keep Mr. Zilla away from North Seventh.”
“They questioned Gary for a good few hours,” Milt said. “I tried to get them to wait until tomorrow, you know, give him some time to absorb his loss, but they plowed ahead immediately. Said they wanted it while it was still ‘fresh in his mind.’”
“Wanted what? Do they think Gary killed her?”
I could practically hear Milt’s mustache bristling—it was that hard for him to contain his irritation. “Of course they think he killed her. It’s the easiest theory, and the cops always go for the easiest theory. Their problem is, he didn’t do it, so they have no evidence. Otherwise, he’d be behind bars already.”
“So what did he tell them?”
“The truth. He was at his office, he has witnesses by the dozens, and he has no reason to want Madlyn dead. But does that slow them down, even one bit? Of course not!”
I considered explaining to Milt that the conduct of the Atlantic City police wasn’t necessarily my responsibility, but he was on a roll. “They don’t even bother looking into the matter enough to find the real killers, so they’ll probably get away scot free.”
“Easy, Milt. You’re starting to sound like O.J.”
He cleared his throat. I knew he had his car phone on hands-off, because the noise in the car was almost too loud to hear Milt. “Listen. Aaron. I’d appreciate it if you could keep this out of the papers for the time being.”
Okay, I admit it. This caught me off guard. “What?” I practically screamed. “The man who dragged me kicking and screaming onto this story is asking me to keep it out of the papers now? Tell me you’re kidding, Milton, please, or I may be forced to tell the cops about the rumors that Madlyn was having an affair.”
“That’s horseshit, Aaron,” Milt said, clearly annoyed. Good. “Madlyn never slept with anyone outside her marriage. That’s just preposterous. But think of the boy for a moment. Reading in the papers about what happened to his mom. . .”
“Oh come on, Milt, you can do better than that. The kid never picked up a newspaper in his life other than to read the TV listings. Besides, the police report is going to be all over the place by