“Oh, boy. This must be a doozy.” Imagine a police chief who uses the word “doozy.” Luckily, the man pumps iron every day of his life, and has a chest the size of a five-drawer dresser, so everyone is afraid to call him on it. He took a long gulp of his coffee. “What is it?”
“Madlyn Beckwirth.”
Dutton’s mouth tightened down to a slit in his face. His eyebrows threatened to meet in the middle. And his eyes actually closed, as if he were grimacing in pain. It startled me, and I leaned forward just a bit. Quick as a flash, Dutton reached over and grabbed the chocolate frosted out of my hand. Hell, I would have just given it to him.
“Why are you bothering me about Madlyn Beckwirth?”
“I’m writing about it.”
“Why, did she take the stereo system with her when she left?” It’s good to have a funny police chief. He must keep the criminals in stitches —maybe laughs them into confessions. I knew for a fact he’d never drawn his gun on anyone in his life.
“The Press-Tribune assigned her to me. I’m looking into her disappearance.”
“You’re kidding.” I sat and looked at him.
“Would I have brought donuts if I were kidding?” I tried to look intense, but that’s hard to do with a hot chocolate mustache.
“Aaron,” Dutton said, “Madlyn Beckwirth probably ran out on her husband because he’s an insufferable twit.” Even the cops in Midland Heights sound like college professors. Can you imagine a cop at the 23rd Precinct in New York City saying “insufferable twit”?
“Probably. But he doesn’t think so.”
“They never think so. It’s part of what makes them so insufferable,” Dutton said.
I took a bite of the cruller. Dunkin’ Donuts hadn’t lost its touch. “Well, there’s more.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. More what? More donuts?” He looked hopefully in the bag, but all he found were packets of artificial sweetener and about fifty-eight napkins.
“You really are a carbohydrate addict, aren’t you? No, not more donuts. More about Madlyn Beckwirth.”
“Oh yeah?”
I told him about the prior evening’s threatening phone call, and I saw my friend Barry become Chief Dutton of the Midland Heights Police Department. He sat back and listened, absolutely all attention. If I could get Ethan to listen like that in fifth grade, I could start filling out his application to Princeton tomorrow. Dutton put his fingers together, like he was going to show me the church and the steeple, and put them to his nose. When I got to the end of the phone conversation, and my attempt to trace it, he stood up.
“Outside the area? Maybe I can trace it here. Let me get Verizon to send over your phone records from last night. Maybe we can find out who made that call.” He looked at me, frowning. “Were you going to tell me about this?”
“I just told you, didn’t I? And I made the appointment to see you before it happened. I knew I’d be here this morning.”
He didn’t like it, and neither did I. The only people who knew for sure that I was looking for Madlyn Beckwirth couldn’t have made the call, and the idea that, by finding her, I’d be killing her just flat-out didn’t make sense. I asked Dutton what the cops had been doing to locate her after Beckwirth reported his wife missing.
“Well, he hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with help, you know. Won’t let us talk to his son. Doesn’t want to let us into his phone records. He ‘doesn’t see what that has to do with this.’ He’s convinced somebody just up and snatched the woman out of her bed at two o’clock in the morning while he slept.”
I nodded. “So you sent a detective over. Westbrook?”
“It’s a small town, Aaron, and a small police force. You think I’m loaded with detectives around here? Beckwirth wouldn’t talk to me, so yes, I sent Westbrook.”
“Is he around?”
Dutton picked up his phone and pushed a button. “Marsha, ask Gerry to come in here, would you?” He put down the phone and looked at me. “You take it easy on him.” A pause. “So you come in with two donuts.”
“Three.” I waved the other half of my cruller at him. He had inhaled the chocolate frosted, and probably was thinking about pulling his gun on me for the rest of the cruller. I bravely stuck it out, and had it just about finished when Westbrook walked in.
Gerry Westbrook had spent twenty-five years as a Midland Heights cop. It took twenty-two of them to make detective. His shift to plain clothes was so impressive—to him—that he actually wore his shield on the outside of his jacket. And not just on the job, either—at the movies, in the supermarket, at the florist, wherever. If his I.Q. were as large as his hat size after the swelling of his head, he’d have been the greatest detective in history.
He was of average height, making him taller than me, and needed to lose fifty pounds, so at least I could feel superior in the waistline. He also had lost almost all his hair, and was doing that Larry Fine thing with what was left. I, of course, have every follicle I started out with, although some of it is not the original color. Westbrook grunted in my direction as he came in.
“What’s the electronics press doing here, Chief? We installing a big-screen TV in the squad room?” The level of wit in a room always rises when Westbrook leaves.
“You have to have a squad before you can have a squad room, Westbrook,” I told him. “Of course, if you gain another couple pounds, you might qualify as a squad all by yourself.”
Dutton stifled a chuckle. Westbrook would have reacted to the fat joke, but he was trying to sneak a peak inside the Dunkin’ Donuts bag to see if there might be some powdered sugar he could lick up.
“Gerry,” Dutton said, trying to re-establish some sort of professional tone, “Aaron is working on an article about the missing persons report you took the other day.”
“Bulworth?”
I groaned. “Bulworth is a movie with Warren Beatty, Gerry. This is Beckwirth. Madlyn Beckwirth.”
“Yeah, yeah. Beckwirth, Bulworth. . . what’s the difference?”
I looked at Dutton. “Is it any wonder the case isn’t solved yet? With Inspector Clouseau here working his usual magic, it’s a wonder more people aren’t missing.”
Westbrook’s face turned red, matching his nose. “You’re gonna be missing in another minute, pip-squeak!” I think he would have lunged at me, if he were capable of lunging, but the extra fifty pounds made it more like a lumber than a lunge. Pip-squeak?
Dutton said, “oh, sit down, Gerry.” Westbrook lost his bluster and sat in the chair next to me. But he moved it a few inches away, so our sleeves wouldn’t touch on the armrests. I was hurt, but I managed not to show it.
Dutton leaned across his desk and pointed a finger at Westbrook. “You’re going to cooperate fully with Aaron on this, Gerry, or I’m gonna know about it. Is that clear?”
Westbrook flapped his jaw a little, but nodded. Then Dutton pointed his finger at me. “And you, Mr. Tucker, are going to be respectful of my detective at all times, or I will bring the full power of the legal system to bear on you. Is that clear?”
I blinked, but managed “sure.”
“Good,” said Dutton. “Now, both of you get the hell out of my office.” He pointed toward the door.
Westbrook managed to extricate himself from the chair, while I contemplated how a system of pulleys and chain-hoists might be more efficient. He walked out first, and I turned at the door to face Dutton.
“The full power of the legal system?” He chuckled. “That’s right. I’ll tell your wife on you.” You gotta love funny cops.
Chapter 9
Gerry Westbrook knew roughly as much about Madlyn Beckwirth’s disappearance as I know about Organic Chemistry, and that’s a course I assiduously managed to avoid in high school.
Westbrook had faxed the State Police and the surrounding cops about Madlyn, checked the morgue and the hospitals, and then gone out to Denny’s and forgotten the whole thing.
After the necessary 30-second conversation with Westb
rook to find this out, I walked out of the police/fire building and inhaled as much air as my little lungs could hold. We’d been experiencing typical March weather—one day of unseasonable warmth, followed the next day by a slap in the face of late-winter chill. This was one of the warm days, so I decided to walk to Gary Beckwirth’s house from the police station.
I had stuck the cell phone in my jacket pocket on the way out. Flush with a $6,000 paycheck sent me by the online service of a cable entertainment network, I had bought myself a wireless phone a couple of months before. Abby had had one for a few years already. Since I’d covered the wireless industry for years, I got a deal. I was still trying to figure out how to pay the monthly rate, but what the hell, I looked cool talking while I walked, like I was negotiating a three-picture deal with Paramount on the way to the Foodtown. On a whim, I whipped the phone out and tried Abigail’s office number. Surprisingly, she answered.
“Abigail Stein.”
“How dare you defile my wife’s name like that?”
“I know. I feel so cheap. How are you?”
“Fat,” I told her. “I just bribed the chief of police with fried dough.”
“You should go to the Y.”
“Can’t. I have to go talk to Beckwirth. I only have until next Thursday on this, and right now I’m nowhere.”
Abby was silent. She was probably in her problem-solving mode, frowning.
“I can hear you frown,” I said.
“You should be here. It’s quite fetching, really.”
“I had a dog once who was quite fetching.”
She groaned. I have that effect on women. “Was there a point to this call, or are you just trying out awful puns and figured I didn’t have anything else to do but listen?”
“I’m strolling up Edison Avenue in the warm March sunshine, and the blue sky made me think of you.” There was more silence on the line. “Now I can hear you smile.”
“It’s even better than hearing me frown.”
I smiled. “I know.”
I usually change topics in a conversation like a 1986 Dodge pickup in need of a ring job. Abby shifted conversational gears smoothly, like a BMW. “What did Barry have to say about the phone call?” she asked. She was already calling it “the phone call.” Eventually, it would become “The Phone Call,” and then I’d really be in trouble.
“He’s going to get our phone records from Verizon. He’ll trace it.”
“Good,” she said. “I shudder to think what would have happened if one of the kids had answered the phone.”
“I’d have died of a heart attack. They don’t answer the phone when they’re sitting right next to it. They inherited that gene from their mom.”
I was now passing the supermarket. Industrious Midland Heights residents were jockeying for parking spaces in the store’s woefully inadequate lot. Of course, because this is New Jersey, nobody was walking, not even the people who lived across the street from the supermarket. So naturally the parking lot was woefully inadequate. Because I was counter-culture, and walking outside to get to my destination, I might have patted myself on the back for my commitment to the environment, but then, to be a complete environmentalist, I probably would have had to jettison the cell phone I was holding next to my ear (hadn’t it been linked to cancer somehow?).
“Is it possible that it was Madlyn Beckwirth herself calling you?” Again, my wife’s amazing capacity to change the subject served her well.
“No, it was definitely a male voice on the phone. On the other hand, since I wouldn’t be able to pick Madlyn out of a line-up, it’s equally possible I wouldn’t know if she had a voice like James Earl Jones.” A woman in the Foodtown parking lot was wrestling with this weird gadget they have that makes you pay 25-cents for a cart, then pays you back when you leave. She shook the gadget both ways, then hit it with her purse. Clearly, it wouldn’t give her back her quarter. Finally, she kicked the cart, yelled something in the store’s direction, and stomped back to her minivan. Another quarter in the pockets of the Establishment. If she came back with a pair of channel locks and cut the gadget off, every citizen of the borough would have applauded.
I passed the supermarket and crossed the main drag of Midland Heights, Midland Avenue (original, huh?), against the light, trotting across the far lane. A guy in a Mercedes-Benz 4x4 honked and gave me the finger as he passed. Probably on his way to pick up his tuxedo for some mountain climbing.
“That call really worries me, Aaron,” said Abigail. “Somebody knows what you’re doing, and they know where you live.”
“That’s why I have you to protect me, Love.”
“Everything’s not a joke, Baby,” she said. “We have two small children living in our house.”
I considered pointing out that Ethan is not close to being a small child, and could in fact take me two out of three falls, but I saw her point. “I’ll be careful, Honey. And if this gets out of hand, I’ll tell Harrington he can have the assignment back.”
Beckwirth’s house was a block past the library, and I was approaching it now. “I’ll talk to you later, Abby. Don’t worry.”
“What, me worry?” My wife—a regular Alfred E. Neuman.
I said a few loving-husband things far too mushy to record for posterity, put the phone—which was already flashing the “battery low” signal—back in my pocket, and rang the bell on Beckwirth’s door. The huge house stood silent, and I half expected a thin, bald-headed butler with a British accent, to open the door. Ian Wolfe, maybe. John Gielgud, if it was going to be a big part, and he was still alive.
My luck, it was Beckwirth. At least he had shaved, and was dressed in clean clothes, but he still had that recovering-addict look in his eyes, and his skin looked like it was made out of vanilla Turkish Taffy that had melted on the sidewalk. There was an upside, though. This time he didn’t hug me. You have to accentuate the positive.
“Well, Gary, you got me. I’m not sure why you wanted to so badly, but you got me.”
“Come in,” he said quickly. I did, and he closed the door. His mood was not nearly as welcoming as it had been the last time. Again, I wasn’t complaining, because it seemed there would be no physical contact on this visit, but now that Beckwirth had gotten me involved in finding his wife, he didn’t seem to want to know me anymore. Familiarity, apparently, really does breed contempt. At least in my case.
“Sit down,” Beckwirth said, pointing at a loveseat in the adjoining room, which I guess was a study, or a library, or a sitting room, or some other kind of a room that people in the middle class generally don’t have. Maybe if I did find Madlyn, I’d tell Beckwirth my fee required the moving of one of his mansion’s extra rooms to my house. I could badly use a separate room for my office. That morning, I’d stepped on a Working Woman Barbie getting to my fax machine, and put a permanent dent in my right instep.
“What’s the matter, Gary? Having me isn’t as pleasing a thing as wanting me?” Star Trek. Sometimes you have to go with the classics.
“I want to go over your strategy. I want to know everything you’re going to do before you do it.” Beckwirth, I guess, was used to dealing with employees. Now that I was, indirectly, working for him, he thought I was an employee.
“I can’t do that.”
He stared. No doubt his minions had never said “no” to him before, and his body language said clearly, “You must have misunderstood. This was not a request.” Then, with real words, he put it to me this way, “Of course you can. Just tell me what you plan to do.”
“No. For one thing, I don’t know that you didn’t have something to do with Madlyn disappearing.”
Now, Beckwirth positively sputtered. It was a good performance, though I’m no drama critic. I’m no detective, either, so any observations I make have to be taken with a shaker of salt. “Why would I be so anxious to have you investigate if I were behind Madlyn’s kidnapping? That’s ridiculous.”
“You could be doing your best to divert suspicion,” I said c
almly. “Or you could be doing your best to hamper the investigation by making sure the least competent person available is working on it.”
Beckwirth did his best to smile a friendly smile in a regular-guy sort of way. I’m sure most women would have ripped off their underwear and launched themselves at him after he gave them such a smile, with just enough teeth and a twinkle in his eye. Well, some women. Not Abigail, I’d like to think.
“Oh, you’re just being modest,” he said.
“No, I’m not. I haven’t the faintest idea if I’m doing the right thing. I could be hampering the investigation myself, because I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m what you asked for, and I’m what you got. At a bargain price for an investigator, I hasten to add. And an inflated price for a freelancer.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is that it? Not enough money?”
I threw my hands up, exasperated. “No, that’s not it!” I, well, screamed. “I’m telling you that if you’re really trying to find your wife, you’re going about it in the wrong way! You’ve hired the wrong man! Is that clear enough?”
Apparently, it wasn’t. Beckwirth tried the ol’ regular-guy smile again. “Don’t worry. I have faith in you.”
There is nothing you can do with some people. Gary Beckwirth was one of them. So I proceeded. First, though, just to show him my level of irritation, I sighed.
“Ooooooooookay,” I said. “The first thing I have to do is talk to your son.”
The businesslike frown and impersonal tone came back to Beckwirth. He picked up a croissant from—I swear to God—a silver tray on the coffee table, and took a bite. Apparently, he could shift gears easily, too. I considered taking myself in for a tune-up. “Joel? That is your son’s name, isn’t it?” I said.
He ignored me. I was getting used to being ignored. “Joel is very upset by his mother’s disappearance. I don’t think he would be very helpful to an investigation.”
“All right, we’ll wait a little while on Joel.”
Beckwirth stood, to better intimidate me. It wasn’t working, largely due to the croissant crumbs on his shirt. “I don’t think you understand. I don’t want you to involve Joel at all. Besides, there’s no reason to talk to Joel. This is a case of kidnapping, and it’s tied to the campaign for mayor. Joel has nothing to do with it.”
For Whom the Minivan Rolls Page 4