For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,81
line. Miriam clearly hadn’t expected to hear that. She began to reconsider. I could practically hear the wheels turning in her mind.
“What do you want to know?” Bingo.
“I’m working on background,” I said. “Nothing really pertaining to the crime itself. You knew Gary when he was working at Respa, Worthington, right?”
“Yeah. He was setting up the web trading, and I was selling municipal bonds.”
“Was he married to Madlyn then?” I asked.
“That’s right. It was when they were married the first time.”
“Sure. The. . . first time. Do you know what happened after they broke up?”
“Well, Gary was devastated. I mean, you never saw a man pine for his wife like that. He couldn’t believe she’d leave him for another guy.”
The surprises were coming too fast for me.
“Did he manage to get over it?”
“Well, you know that he got married again, don’t you?”
The way she said it, Miriam made it clear she didn’t mean that Gary had married Madlyn again, or at least, that wasn’t what she was referring to. When in doubt, tell the truth. It’s too hard to remember the bullshit.
“No, I didn’t know,” I said. “This is exactly the kind of background I need. Who was the new wife?”
“Well, she was this blonde who started as a secretary, like me, and eventually ended up running the whole futures division. One of those. A real cheerleader type. All the guys were after her. Except Gary. Maybe that’s what made her set her sights on him. And once she decided she wanted him, there wasn’t any doubt. God, I wish I could remember her name. . .”
“Rachel,” I said. “I think her name was Rachel.”
An awed pause. “That’s right!” shouted Miriam. “How did you know that?”
“I’m not really sure,” I said.
“Rachel Aston,” she said. “Now I remember. I guess they didn’t stay married that long, because he went back with Madlyn again. Whatever happened to Rachel? Do you know?”
“I’m not really sure.” It was the only thing I knew how to say now.
“I’ll bet she’s the CEO of some big corporation,” said Miriam. “That woman was the most ambitious person I ever met.”
I hung up feeling absolutely dizzy, and felt the immediate need to recap our game of “Marital Musical Chairs.” Gary Beckwirth marries Madlyn Rossi because he gets her pregnant. For some reason, they decide to abort the pregnancy, and in a matter of weeks, Madlyn leaves Gary for an as-yet-unnamed guy.
Rachel Aston, who, the smart money would wager, now goes by the name of Rachel Barlow, nabs Gary, after an extended bout of the bummers. But Gary and Rachel don’t stay married, because by the time everybody decides to move to Midland Heights, Gary’s back with Madlyn and Rachel has married a proper-sounding English professor whose connection to this wacky story was, so far, somewhat hazy.
After downing a salad, I really didn’t want lunch, so I went to Richardson Park, just a few blocks from my house, for a rally in honor of our beloved Mayor, Sam Olszowy. Actually, I went to the preparations for the rally, which was going to start at four. It was one o’clock, and Olszowy was already there, watching his minions build a tent for the speeches and inevitable coffee. Nobody ever furnished hot chocolate at these events.
I don’t know why I wanted to talk to Sam. I guess I figured it was only fair. Part of the “Equal Time” law maybe. If you cover a murder affecting one side of the political fence, you have to get the reaction from the other side, or something like that.
Olszowy didn’t have a reaction to Madlyn Beckwirth’s murder. In fact, he didn’t know who Madlyn Beckwirth was. He had been mayor of Midland Heights for so long, and a non-rising non-star in the local Democratic party for so many years, he was just running on auto-pilot. There’s a murder. There’s not a murder. It’s all the same to him.
Sam Olszowy, maybe sixty-two years old, was dressed in a suit and tie, and had very little of his original hair left. What hair there was he had clearly bought from some mail order outfit. The color didn’t match his sideburns, and it looked like he was walking around with a bird’s nest on his head. It was a wonder he could get from one room to another without dislodging the silly thing, but he seemed oblivious to appearances.
“I don’t have much time, young man,” he said, although he had three hours before anyone would ask him