For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,67

eyes were taking in.

Ethan was sitting on the edge of his bed, Nintendo controller next to his mouth, and tongue pressed against it. He took it away long enough to growl, “aren’t you supposed to knock?”

“The door was open. Ethan. Please pause the game.” He scowled, but did as I asked.

I sat next to him on the twin bed. He didn’t like that, because he knew that meant I was going to try and be reasonable, and that would make it harder to be mad at me, which was his goal at this moment.

“Ethan, I’m sorry.”

His eyebrows raised a bit. A parent who apologizes? This must be some devious ploy, designed to lull him into a false sense of security. Besides, even if he knew that I had done a hundred things to wrong him that day alone, it was just as true that I probably hadn’t noticed them. Which of the offenses had put me over the line?

“Yeah? For what?”

“For only telling you about the things you’ve been doing wrong. For not pointing out that you’re probably the nicest boy I know when you’re not mad. And for passing on to you my temper, which I feel I should point out, I got from your grandmother.”

That really got him. “Grandma? But she’s. . .”

“You’re a grandchild. You could burn her house down, and she’d talk about how resourceful you were to find gasoline in the garage. That same woman would have put me through a wall if I so much as wore socks that didn’t match.”

“She’d really put you through a wall?”

“Well, not really, no. It’s kind of an expression I just made up.” I put my hand out. “Can we start again? Pretend you just got home, and we didn’t grumble at each other?”

He liked shaking hands. It seemed grown-up to him. “Sure,” he said, and took my hand. He gave it the exaggerated kind of shake you’d see in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and I laughed and put my arm around him.

“I do love you, you know,” I said. “And Ethan, I’m sorry about the sign on the sidewalk. I’m doing my best to find out who. . .”

He pulled away. “Uh, Dad? I’d rather not talk about that, okay?”

That made sense. “Sure.”

“Can I go back to the game now?” We had made progress, and he didn’t want to undo it. But hey, Nintendo must take precedence.

“Okay.” I heard the phone ringing. “You go ahead. And let me know if you do want to talk. . .”

“I don’t.” He was already putting the controller back to his mouth again. How he could move the controls with his fingers while sucking on the controller at the same time is beyond me, but there it was.

I ran to get the phone before the machine got it. Of all people, Barry Dutton was on the other end of the line, and he sounded like he was calling from Beirut.

“Barry? Where the hell are you? I can barely hear you.”

“I’m in the car. Look, Aaron, I didn’t want to call from the office. Colette Jackson and the troopers are all over me there.”

“So I take it you still love me?”

“As much as I ever did,” he said sourly. “But I can’t give you special privileges in front of all them. Look, I’m coming up on a tunnel, and I haven’t got much time. But you should know that the prosecutor thinks there’s enough evidence to arrest Gary Beckwirth for the murder.”

“What? One day of investigation and they’re already making an arrest?”

“Shut up and listen! They found a gun in Beckwirth’s house, and it matched the. . .” Static overwhelmed the line.

Once again, modern technology at its best.

Chapter 14

Sure enough, when I got to the Beckwirth compound the next morning, two Midland Heights police cars and one county police car were positioned out front. Next to them were two state trooper cruisers and an unmarked car. Nobody was taking Gary Beckwirth lightly, which under normal circumstances would probably have made him feel great. A uniformed cop was at the front door, which was open. Clearly, the arrest was going down. And Madlyn Beckwirth’s body wasn’t even in the ground yet.

I don’t have a press card. The state of New Jersey requires that you get one from a publisher. All the newspapers and magazines in the state are allotted a certain number, every last one of which goes to one of their staff members. So freelancers are, in effect, frozen out of press