A Farewell to Legs: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,24

out of each other’s way. And while I never mind bumping into my wife, I did notice we weren’t talking as much as we usually do.

“Do you want me to quit the Snapdragon story, because I will if you do,” I said.

“No,” she answered in a heartbeat.

“You sure?”

“No,” she admitted, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “But we need the money, and there’s no evidence there’s any danger from one phone call. It could even have been a wrong number.”

“Maybe it was a telemarketer for a security service, doing the set-up call.” Abby smiled. As always, that was reward enough for me.

“Where are you going to go with the story?” she asked, moving into professional-Abby mode. “You can’t report it by reading the other reporters’ stuff.”

I sat at the kitchen table. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I told her. “Well, Friday I’ll have lunch with Steph, and she’ll give me more details about their marriage, and what she knows about the way Legs died.”

“And where will that lead?”

I shrugged. “Where it leads. I don’t intend to move down to D.C. for months until something happens. I don’t think you want me to do that, either.”

“Of course not. Who’d take out the garbage?”

“Please, I’m overwhelmed with your sense of romance. Anyway, after I have some more to go on, I’ll know where to go.” I could hear the kids arguing in the living room about which side of the couch one or the other of them was inhabiting, so I stood up and headed in that direction.

“Sure, run from your problems,” said my wife.

I turned back to face her. “Another crack like that,” I said, “and you’re going to have trouble getting me into bed tonight.” I pivoted back toward the living room.

Abby chuckled. “Yeah, right,” she said.

Chapter

Fourteen

Louis Gibson’s funeral was a television event unparalleled since the last television event, and certain not to be eclipsed until the next television event. The President did, as advertised, show up, although he did not speak. Stephanie, to the disappointment of any heterosexual man over the age of 35 (and a good number of them under 35), was dressed, conservatively, in black. She dispensed with the traditional veil, and therefore managed to avoid looking like Lady Bird Johnson.

Standing next to Stephanie were her two sons, whom CNN identified as “Louis Jr., 22, and Jason, 17.” Next to them was Legs’ brother, and CNN was once again helping out, telling me his name was Lester Gibson, and that he was three years older than Louis.

From what I could tell, he was a couple of inches shorter than Stephanie, and shorter than Legs, too, and had opted to avoid the hideous comb-over Abrams had noted, in favor of a toupee that looked like someone had tossed a Caesar salad onto his head.

Stephanie did not appear to speak to Lester, her sons, or anyone else during the service. To her credit, she didn’t weep openly, considering how little she seemed to be grieving for Legs when I had spoken to her. Lester looked a little shook up, and had to keep taking off his dark sunglasses to mop at his eyes.

Legs’ mother, Louise Gibson, was doing more than just dabbing at her eyes. She was letting loose on national television. Her sobs could be heard over the commentator’s whispered tones (to remind us that this was a funeral, and not the opening of trading at the New York Stock Exchange, but a tone which unfortunately sounded more like the play-by-play at a golf match). At one point, her knees almost buckled, but Jason held his grandmother steady.

He and his brother, lucky boys that they were, favored their mother. Junior had Stephanie’s almond-shaped eyes and graceful chin, and Jason, the younger one, still hadn’t lost all his baby fat, but did not, as best as I could tell from his infrequent close-ups, resemble his father, which is all either of Crazy Legs’ sons could hope for, really. Maybe they’d both keep their hair, too. Rich kids have that kind of luck.

The eulogies were impressive, if your political bent was just to the right of Genghis Khan. Anti-abortionists, anti-civil rights activists, anti-just-about-everything-elses, all spoke of what a dear and valuable friend they had lost. I couldn’t help thinking the country was in a considerably more positive condition now that Legs had bitten the big one, but rebuked myself that such thinking was cruel and insensitive. Besides, there were fifteen more just like him looking to take his