minutes (and that “good” is a subjective term if ever I’ve used one), during which Leah, her finger washed, dried and bandaged, refused to walk into her own room because she was afraid of her beloved pet, now on the loose. I managed to cut my left palm on the edge of. . . some toy or another, then crunch a CD jewel box with my knee, bang my head on her bed frame, and get nipped by E-LIZ-abeth when I finally found her/him/it hiding in a doll house, lounging on the four-poster bed Barbie used to sleep in before Leah decided Barbie was “stupid.”
After a good deal of crying and whimpering, some of it from my daughter, Leah was put to bed. I washed my various wounds and hobbled down the stairs. Ethan, on the sofa in the living room, hadn’t moved a muscle through the whole adventure. After all, The Bernie Mac Show was on. Ethan thinks he’s a riot.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
The next morning, I got out my Bergen County phone book and plucked out Preston Burke’s address—(I get most of the books for New Jersey from Verizon every year—they help enormously with Star-Ledger work). Then I hit MapQuest.com for driving directions, put on an actual suit and tie, and got into the 1997 Saturn we use when we want to impress people.
Before leaving, I used my “call forwarding” option to bounce any incoming calls to my cell phone. You never know when the school will call about Ethan, or an actual paying gig will turn up— in the freelance biz, it’s always better to be near a ringing phone.
Halfway up the Garden State Parkway, the phone rang, and Barry Dutton was on the other end. “You hung up on me yesterday,” he said.
“No, I didn’t. I had to go help Leah with her math.”
“Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Aaron. Leah’s in third grade. Her math homework is way too hard for you.” Barry, alas, knew me too well.
“I didn’t want to listen to your lecture then, Barry. It’s my wife we’re talking about.”
Barry’s voice hardened. “Yeah, and if you’re really concerned about her safety, you’ll listen to the professional here.” There was a quick pause, while I tried to come up with an argument against his logic. “Aaron, are you in the car? Did you bounce your calls? Aaron, you’re on your way to Teaneck, aren’t you?”
“Sorry, Barry, I have to help Leah with her math.” I hung up. The phone rang a couple of times not long after, but I checked the incoming number, and chose not to answer.
Teaneck, New Jersey, is a lovely town in the Northern county of Bergen, where the people with actual money actually live. It is the part of New Jersey where Tony Soprano lives, but not where he works, if you catch my drift. Actually, Tony is more likely residing in Upper Saddle River or Livingston.
Teaneck, which is in the same general vicinity, has both an affluent section and a not-as-affluent-but-hardly-poor section, which is where Preston Burke lived. The clapboard two-family house that matched his address was not at all descript, and didn’t look like the kind of place where a wildly violent maniac might reside. Of course, Jeffrey Dahmer probably had very nice mini-blinds in his windows, too.
I rang the bell marked “Burke,” and waited. A thin, unshaven, balding man opened the door a few moments later.
“Yeah?” A Jersey voice. Slightly suspicious, but not aggressively so.
“Preston Burke?” I tried to sound official, but concerned.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m Aaron Tucker,” I said, flashing my Central Jersey YM/YWHA membership card, a finger over the organization’s name. “I’m here representing the New Jersey Bar Association.”
“Why?” Still not challenging, but not totally accepting, either.
“May I come in?”
He thought about it, but couldn’t come up with a reason I shouldn’t. “Okay,” he said, and moved aside. We walked up the stairs to his apartment, him first.
The place was simple, but it wasn’t cheap. There were good rugs on the floors, the furniture was Ikea, maybe, but not Unclaimed Freight. I did not look into the refrigerator to see if there were any body parts, but if there were, they had probably been cleaned up nicely. Things were in their place, which made it look different than my house.
We sat on an overstuffed sofa, and Burke continued to look warily at me. I took out a reporter’s notebook and a pen. “I’m here to discuss your recent change of counsel,” I said. “We like to investigate some random