For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,79

out this late, and hadn’t turned on the front porch light before leaving, so the house was unusually dark when I carried Leah up the brick steps to the front door. I had my keys in my right hand, and was about to lean over the lock, when something stopped me.

“What’s the matter?” said Abby, but I put a finger to my lips the best I could and shushed her. I motioned to her to take Leah from me and back to the car, which isn’t so easy to do when you’re trying not to wake a sleeping seven-year-old.

I put a finger to my ear, and then pointed toward the door. “I hear something inside.”

Abby immediately turned and walked back down the steps, carrying Leah. She made it to the car, huffing and puffing, and put down Leah, who was finished pretending to be asleep because this was just too darned interesting. I followed her to the car. Ethan was still in the back seat, playing Gameboy. We’d left him there until we were inside because, well, it’s just easier that way.

“What did you hear?” Abigail asked.

“I don’t know. It sounded like somebody knocking around in the living room. But the lights were out. I’ll go in and take a look around.”

Abby gave me a look which froze me in my tracks, and opened the passenger side door of the car. The dome light came on, which made Ethan smile, and Abby reached in for the cell phone. She handed it to me.

“Nine-one-one,” she said.

I called police headquarters at the regular number, and got a dispatcher I didn’t know. I asked for Barry, but he was not in the station, and the dispatcher asked what my problem was. I didn’t have time to provide a long explanation, so I told him I thought there was some intruder inside my house.

“Are you inside the house now?” he asked.

“No, I’m outside in my driveway. We just got home, and I heard something inside the house.”

He asked for my address, and when I gave it to him, there was a long pause. “Aaron Tucker?” he asked. I acknowledged that I was, indeed, myself. “It may be a while before we can send someone, Mr. Tucker,” he said with a sneer in his voice. “You know, Saturday nights are awful busy, and. . .”

Abby, who had been listening at my shoulder, grabbed the phone out of my hand. “This is Abigail Stein, attorney at law,” she snarled into the phone. “If you don’t get a patrol car to my house in five minutes, I’ll see to it that the department is investigated by the state Attorney General’s office and you personally will be under indictment by the end of the week.” More than just a pretty pair of legs, my wife.

The cops showed up in three minutes—two cars, each with a uniformed officer. The lights were flashing and one had the siren on as he pulled up.

“Good,” I said to Crawford as he got out of the car. “I think you snuck up on him.”

“Just keep the children out of the way,” he said without looking at me, and got out his flashlight. He motioned to the other cop, whose name, according to his badge, was Morgan. Morgan went around the back of the house to make sure nobody got out that way.

“Any sign of forced entry?” Crawford said to Abigail, who shook her head. He turned in my direction. “Any enemies you might want to mention?”

“None you don’t know about.”

“Is the door locked?” I nodded, and held out the key. Crawford took it, and motioned us back toward the car.

Crawford approached the front door very slowly, tried to see into the living room through the front window, but couldn’t get a good look. It was too dark inside, and the streetlight, instead of illuminating the interior, was reflecting off the window glass and made it more, not less, difficult to see.

“Daddy,” Leah said, “is there a robber inside our house?”

“We’ll see, Honey,” I said. “If there is, the police officers will get him.”

Abby told Leah to get in the car with Ethan, but she didn’t want to. The only way Abigail could get our daughter to sit inside the car was to get in the front seat herself and close the door. The dome light went off, which made Ethan scowl.

Crawford picked up his walkie-talkie and said something into it, then listened. He nodded, although Morgan certainly couldn’t see him from the back