For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,87

really Mrs. Martin Barlow. Once everybody moves to Midland Heights, reputations start to become a really big deal, since Gary wants everything nice and tidy, and Rachel, well, she wants to take over the world.”

“So what does Maddie get for her silence?”

“She gets vacations. Every once in a while, she just takes off, rents herself a hotel room, and calls Martin Barlow. He shows up, they go at each other like a couple of bulldogs in heat for a few days, and she goes back to Gary, flaunting it over him that she likes Martin better in bed, and making sure that Rachel knows she’s using Martin up over and over again.”

Martin Barlow, sex machine. Go figure. “Is that the end?” I asked.

“No, but I don’t know the end. Maddie always calls me every week, except when she’s on what she calls her ‘Martin breaks.’ Well, she doesn’t call two weeks ago, and she doesn’t call last week, so I figure she must be on some kinda break. Then I read in the paper that she’s dead.”

“That must have hit you right in the gut.”

“Tell you the truth, all I could think was, at least it doesn’t hurt her anymore. She had what she wanted, and they took it away from her. And the guy she really loved was one of those who did it to her. That must’ve really hurt.”

“I would guess.”

“So who killed her?” Marie Aiello asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but if you call me tomorrow, I might have another answer.”

“Well then, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“I hope I’m here to answer the phone,” I said. “Oh, and Marie, I owe you ten bucks. You could explain it after all.”

Chapter 24

When he opened his front door to my knock, I blew past Gary Beckwirth and shouted over his protestations that Milt Ladowski had told him not to talk to me. He looked drugged. He might very well have been on a number of different tranquilizers.

“I know it all, Gary, every bit of it,” I rattled on. “I know that Madlyn wasn’t really your wife. . .”

“She was. . .”

“You’re not talking now. I’m talking. She wasn’t your wife. Rachel Barlow, or whatever her real name is now, is your wife. You guys decided to play Swinging Seventies one night and swapped families. It’s not unheard of. A couple of Yankee pitchers did it in the real Seventies.”

Beckwirth was now looking nervously toward the staircase. He motioned, palms down, for me to lower my voice. But I was in full annoyance mode, and would have none of it.

“What’s the matter, Gary? You afraid Joel will hear? Doesn’t he know Madlyn wasn’t his real mother?”

Beckwirth sagged into a chair in the hallway, his face impassive. “He knows,” he said. “He knows.”

“So what’s to hide?” I asked. “I know, you know, he knows. There’s no reason for secrets anymore. The thing that I don’t get is why you’re not defending yourself. You know you didn’t kill Madlyn. You never could. You loved her too much, didn’t you?”

Gary started to cry. He buried his face in his hands and sobbed, but he nodded “yes” just the same. I sat down next to him.

“But it ate at you, didn’t it? That you loved her so much, but she didn’t love you. She loved him. She loved Martin Barlow. Her real husband. And when she’d go off on her little holidays, it probably tore you up inside. It bothered you so much you hired a private detective with a blue minivan to watch her day and night, but he drove her off the road the night she left. Right? Because you loved her so much?” I thought of him going through the photographs in his bedroom and weeping.

“So if you knew where she was, why in the name of Anthony Quinn did you send me after her? Why, Gary? It doesn’t make sense.”

He looked up, his cheeks wet. His eyes were disbelieving. “You don’t know? You don’t understand?”

“No. I’m asking you,” I said, voice gentler now.

Beckwirth didn’t even try to compose himself. The combination of prescription drugs and strain was too much to battle. “She used to go away for two days, maybe three. But this time. . . she just disappeared in the middle of the night. I really did think she was kidnapped the first day, until Martin called.” The way he said “Martin” was similar to the way Marie Aiello had said Rachel Barlow’s name. “By then, I’d already talked to