For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,84
tractor. (I’m only guessing here.)
Since I’m considerably smaller and lighter than Ladowski, I knew I couldn’t hold him long. So I snarled into the back of his neck, “this is what it feels like to be followed around by a blue minivan, Milt. How do you like it?”
When I let him go a little, he spun around. When he recognized me, he began to sputter.
“Aaron, are you out of your mind? What’s the idea of. . .”
“Of having someone followed by a minivan, Milt? I could ask you that same question, couldn’t I?” My facial expression was the one I use on Ethan when he’s decided he’s not joining a Saturday night dinner with the family because they’re showing “a very special episode of All That.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ladowski said, in the least convincing voice since Regis told Kathie Lee he’d miss her.
“Yes, you do. The only one who would have wanted me followed was Gary Beckwirth. He was the only one obsessive enough about what I was doing to care. And Beckwirth wouldn’t have known how to go about finding people to trail someone. If he had, he’d have cracked open the Yellow Pages to find himself a private detective. No, he’d go to his friend and legal advisor, and you’d go through your files of clients whom you’d kept out of jail. And since they weren’t technically breaking any laws except the speed limit, they’d be happy to do it. For a small fee. How’m I doing so far, Milt?”
He said what everybody says when you catch them red-handed. “You have no proof.”
“I don’t need any proof. I’m not having you arrested. I’m not even going to get you disbarred. But I’m going to get to the bottom of Madlyn Beckwirth’s murder, Milt. I’m this close as it is”—and here I held up my fingers, millimeters apart. “I know about Gary and Madlyn’s annulment, and I know Gary was married to Rachel Barlow. I know that Gary took out a credit card in your name—it’s easy, if you know the other person’s Social Security number—and paid for Madlyn’s trip to Bally’s. That’s only a taste of what I already know. This whole sick story is going to come out, and when I put a couple more pieces together, your name is going to figure prominently, I’m sure. Look for it to show up in some very prominent publications. I doubt the coverage will be as flattering as the profile in NJ Monthly.”
I dropped my hands off his biceps, turned, and walked back to the minivan. Ladowski’s expression was a mixture of amazement and something else.
Fear. That’s what it was.
Now, I’d better turn something up, or I was going to look extremely foolish.
Chapter 23
When I got home from harassing Milt Ladowski, which I have to admit had been, for me, the most satisfying chapter in this whole sorry story so far, there was a message on the machine. I pushed the button next to the flashing light.
“Hi, uh, my name is Marie Aiello. You left a card in my door a couple of days ago. . . Anyway, I’m looking for Aaron Tucker, and here’s my number. . .”
It took me as long to dial Marie’s number as it does for Bernie Williams to turn on a fastball and drive it into the right field bleachers. But it seemed like an eternity, and my inner voice was chanting the entire time, “be home, be home, be home, be. . .”
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Aaron Tucker. Is this. . .”
“Oh, hi. Yeah, this is Marie. I called you maybe an hour ago. You’re the one who’s investigating about Maddie Rossi, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You know, I wasn’t going to call you. I’ve been getting calls from the papers. But every one of them wanted to talk about Madlyn Beckwirth. Not you. You asked about the Maddie I know.”
I had written the name that way—Madlyn Rossi —because I figured Marie would recognize it more fondly. But I hadn’t really given it all that much thought. You never know which details are going to make the difference.
“I spoke with her mother the other day,” I said.
“And don’t think I didn’t call Mrs. Rossi to check you out,” Marie answered. You had to like a friend who was still loyal after death. “She said you were a nice man, and you had a very cute daughter.”
“Well, she’s right about my daughter.”
Marie didn’t have time for me to come over and talk to