For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,73
later that I remembered Madlyn’s funeral would be Saturday morning. Mrs. Rossi was very brave.
And, yes, I know our interview was set for a weekend, when I should be spending time with my kids, but hey, if you can go talk to a woman about her dead daughter, what better way to spend a Saturday? I asked where Madlyn went to high school, and after a startled pause, Mrs. Rossi said, “St. Joe’s.” Score one for Rory.
Right then, though, I realized I was out of ideas, and there’s no better place to go for someone with no ideas than a political rally.
That is how I came to walk again through the perfect white trellis behind the perfect white picket fence and into the perfect backyard of Martin and Rachel Barlow. “Barlow for Mayor” signs were hung all over the house, the trellis, the fence, the trees, and the sturdier of Martin Barlow’s hedges and bushes he had installed all around the backyard.
There were maybe fifty people milling around, eating Portobello mushroom canapés and drinking coffee from insulated, specially printed “Barlow For Mayor” paper cups. The plates had the same imprint. The forks and spoons managed to avoid the logo, but were red, white, and blue, just in case anybody thought that Rachel was anti-American and would try to subvert the system from the great seat of power known as the Midland Heights mayor’s office.
There was, as advertised, no music, which meant we were not being subjected to the string quartet that had obviously been intended for one corner of the yard. A bandstand of sorts had been set up, comprised of two pallets underneath the tops of two discarded Ping-Pong tables. It was ringed in red, white, and blue bunting and emblazoned with—you guessed it—“Barlow For Mayor” signs, in case you’d wandered back here and thought it was just a boring neighborhood cook-out.
Barry Dutton was not there, which was not a surprise, and most of the borough council members had also avoided the event, since they were still betting on Sam Olszowy to pull this thing out of the fire with a last-minute miracle. Besides, Rachel had managed to piss off enough of them throughout the campaign that even if she won, they might not attend any council meetings at which she appeared.
Other reporters were present, some of whom I recognized. Others were identifiable as press strictly by their reporter’s notebooks or microphones. Local radio stations had sent their reporters to get some news on the murder, not the campaign event, and there was even a satellite truck outside from News 12 New Jersey, the system set up by the local cable provider and two area newspapers. Rachel Barlow was getting the coverage she so sincerely craved, but not for the reason she would have preferred.
The candidate herself was quite the vision in a blue pants suit from about 1988, reconstituted for the new millennium by cutting the pants a couple of inches above the ankle. Either that, or Rachel Barlow had grown since the last time she’d worn these pants. If she wore her blonde hair in a flip, it evoked flips from circa 1966. In sum, here was a mayoral candidate projecting herself as a complete throwback in time, as an object of nostalgia, in effect.
She was standing at the far end of the yard, near a perfectly bloomed rose bush (Martin was clearly a very accomplished gardener), answering questions for the News 12 reporter, and wearing an expression of concern and seriousness, despite the fact that, since the murder, she’d probably jumped seven sympathy-and-name-recognition points in the polls.
Martin was standing near Rachel, but not too near, dressed in a Ralph Lauren polo shirt and a pair of khakis pressed to the point where the pleats could probably cause a deep cut in anyone unfortunate enough to brush against him. He was one of the few men I’d ever met who actually would have looked more comfortable in a suit and tie. (They said the same thing about Richard Nixon, but I never met him.)
I hadn’t been to the Y that morning, and I was trying to watch what I ate, so I bravely avoided the canapés. It was quite a trial, but I managed. On one table near the bandstand were bagels, slices of marble cake, and blueberry muffins (no doubt low-fat ones). That table was harder to avoid, so I decided to concentrate on the task at hand, and approached the Barlows.